How to Buy ICONOMI or ICN: ICONOMI Exchanges

Here’s how to buy ICONOMI (or ICN token) on ICONOMI exchanges. You can buy ICONOMI in many ways, using fiat or government money (like US Dollar and Euro) or other cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin and Ethereum). Note that ICONOMI is a token on Ethereum, which means the ICN/ETH market will be more active than some other Ethereum markets.

ICONOMI is one of the first dividend-paying crypto tokens built on top of Ethereum. The project generates revenues in a number of ways:

• It’s flagship fund, ICONOMI.INDEX is a passive-investment vehicle for the crypto community. This will give investors exposure to cryptocurrency as an asset class, without worrying about managing many different cryptocurrencies individually, buying on exchanges, storing the wallet keys, etc.
• It’s flagship fund, ICONOMI.PERFORMANCE is an active-investment vehicle for the crypto community. The team will employ crypto traders who will try to beat the market (likely the index defined above). When they do, it generates performance fees for the ICN token holders.
• Open Fund Management Platform, which allows others to start their own fund and charge money. ICONOMI will simply provide the platform, and take a small commission. This commission will be distributed among the ICN token holders.

All these can generate a significant amount of revenue, depending on the kind of market share it is able to capture.

Note that buying ICONOMI funds (ICONOMI.INDEX and ICONOMI.PERFORMANCE) is different from buying ICN. The ICN token is the profit-sharing token. This means all profits from the flagship funds, and the open fund management platform will be distributed to the ICN token holders. As an analogy, ICN is the stock of a financial company that sells different funds. The profits from the funds are distributed to the stockholders.

Now here are different ways to buy ICONOMI (i.e. the ICN tokens).

Regular Exchanges

You can buy ICONOMI on regular crypto exchanges. These are centralized exchanges with their own order book. Some of these will also allow trading directly or indirectly using local fiat.

At the moment, Kraken is the major ICONOMI exchange where you can buy ICN. It trades two pairs – ICN/BTC and ICN/ETH (the first allows you to buy ICONOMI using Bitcoin, the second using Ethereum). However, Kraken also trades BTC/USD and BTC/EUR. Therefore, if you only have local fiat and don’t have any Bitcoin, you can use the same exchange Kraken to first buy some BTC, and then use this BTC to buy ICN. Here’s a detailed guide on how to buy ICN on Kraken.

Liqui is another exchange that has listed ICONOMI. I haven’t used that exchange personally and cannot comment on its legitimacy or user experience.

ICONOMI on Poloniex

At the time of this writing, ICONOMI (ICN) doesn’t trade on Poloniex. The reasons are unclear. Understandably, some of the early adopters are puzzled by this development. ICONOMI raised $10 million, which is plenty to get Poloniex some nice fees. It has listed coins that raised far less. Also, the ICONOMI team constantly made mention of NDAs with exchanges, so they couldn’t disclose where it will be traded. This is a Poloniex practice, so it understandably led to speculation that ICONOMI will trade on Poloniex.

Some think it is because ICONOMI behaves too much like a security, with its dividend payments. However, other projects that do the same, like REP, are listed on Poloniex. There is no clear answer on why ICONOMI doesn’t trade on Poloniex yet.

Decentralized Exchanges

Centralized exchanges are prone to hacking risk, regulatory risk, and other risks. Since ICONOMI is an Ethereum-based token, there are some decentralized exchanges where you can buy it. Note that there is no counterparty risk with these exchanges. However, you will need Ethereum first to buy from these exchanges.

At the moment, you can buy ICONOMI on Ether Delta. The order book is thin and the trading is lower than on regular centralized exchanges. Still, if you’re patient and don’t want to buy too much of ICN, this is a safer route.

OTC Sales

If you’re a big fish looking to invest in ICONOMI for the longer term, try to do OTC sales instead of going through exchanges. This is so you don’t move the market with a large buy order, and you can be more sneaky about things. Since ICONOMI launched with a fairly decent bounty, there are lots of newbies looking to sell. Check out some people on their Bitcointalk ANN thread and you might be able to make individual deals, hiding your buying intentions.

Photo Credit: IMF