ICOs are in trouble. Token 1.0 companies are exploding on the scene but there are rumblings about new – and better – offerings in the future. I call those Token 2.0 companies and they’re coming in strong.

This year we witnessed a massive rise in funding from Initial Coin Offerings. This popular funding method is flawed, however, and few companies came up with actual products to match their on-paper valuations. Many experts including Vitalik Buterin have expressed a clear vision that in 2018, the “whales” and the crowd will not invest in companies launching ICO with just a Whitepaper. That brings us to the concept of Token 2.0 – a token offered by a tangible businesses that can attract  mainstream participation but also have a ready product and market traction.

Surprising, right? We’ve gone from a team and a whitepaper to a team and a product and actual forward motion.

One such company, Retainly, launched its Marketing Automation tool in March 2017 on the very popular ProductHunt platform and immediately received a positive response from the marketing leaders. During the course of the year, Retainly Technologies kept releasing new innovative modules like Notif (the Growth Hacking Widget), Chatterbox (Live website chat that integrated with your Slack with a single click), and more. Retainly currently has more than 1,400 active customers.

By October 2017 end, Retainly had released Virus, its referral and affiliate marketing platform for selected few beta customers. Retainly used Virus themselves during their Whitelisting campaign as a real-world test of their platform and the outcomes were phenomenal. The Virus referral links generated 2,000% times more traffic for Retainly and converted 30,000 people to successfully whitelist. This is not just a marketing claim but is clearly visible on Retainly’s website when scanning for its traffic using Similarweb.

Virus is not the world’s first referral marketing software, but with its ability to reward referrals with cryptocurrency, it definitely has become the first such platform to harness the power of blockchain. In order to help business build better trust about their referral schemes, Virus also provides every participant with a live referral tracking link, ensuring that the scores are not manipulated. Now, on the back of this growth, the Token 2.0 company is launching an ICO and building the World’s first Global Loyalty Membership Network. The goal of the project is to simplify the lives of all consumers by enabling a single Loyalty account for them. Ultimately this plan – to build first and create an ICO later – will be the way forward for what is currently a wild and weird industry.

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.