variants or I.C.O.
plural ICOs or I.C.O.s
: an initial offering of a cryptocurrency to the public : initial coin offering
The venture capital industry is beginning to take a good, hard look at a new financial instrument coming out of the bitcoin community—Initial Coin Offerings, or ICOs.—Richard Kastelein

Examples of ICO in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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When combined with private investment, the company’s ICO successfully raised over $1 billion. — Jeff Ihaza, Rolling Stone, 15 Sep. 2025 The 2017-18 ICO boom did lead to the growth of scam tokens, but that’s negligible collateral damage. — Lawrence Wintermeyer, Forbes.com, 7 Aug. 2025 In the United States at least, the ICO binge has likely come to an end. — IEEE Spectrum, 28 Sep. 2017 Nevertheless, the trailing edge of the tsunami of ICO cash is still washing up on the shores of the industry. — IEEE Spectrum, 28 Sep. 2017 See All Example Sentences for ICO

Word History

First Known Use

2014, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of ICO was in 2014

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Cite this Entry

“ICO.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ICO. Accessed 27 Oct. 2026.

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