Bounty (reward)

Bounty programs are incentives offered to an array of participants for various activities associated with an initial coin offering (ICO). An initial coin offering (ICO) is the cryptocurrency industry’s version of an initial public offering (IPO). A company looking to raise money to create a new coin, application, or virtual currency service launches an ICO as a way to raise funds. A bounty program doles out rewards or tokens for participants completing specified tasks that help promote the ICO.

Bounty programs have their origins in the digital video gaming world. Various types of perks are sometimes offered to gamers who help with game development—specifically those that identify bugs in the game.

Bounty program participants are spread across various stages of an ICO, ranging from investors to ICO promoters and developers. The incentives can take the form of cash rewards (although this is rare) or free (or discounted) tokens that can be cashed in later when the tokens are listed on an exchange.

The collapse of the ICO market in late 2018 and 2019 dramatically reduced the number of active bounty programs. Furthermore, bounty programs that are focused on marketing were used during the heyday of the cryptocurrency bubble to promote fraud, which should make crypto-coin developers wary of using them.