[Ethereum] ICO crypto-currencies accepted during the sale: ETH, BTC, or even fiat

bitcoinetherexchangesicotokens

ICO contracts are meant to accept Ether as payin for the tokens sold, for example https://cartaxi.io/pre-ico or https://www.herocoin.io/

But there are a lot of ICOs running on Ethereum that accept BTC and even fiat money. For example, https://blackmooncrypto.com/ accepts BTC, ETH and LTC. How is that possible?

The ICO contract payable endpoint that delivers tokens accepts only Ethers. If an investor wants to buy tokens using Bitcoins, must he first exchange them into Ethers? Or is the very ICO organizer who performs the exchange task?

Is BTC Relay http://btcrelay.org/ a reliable, advisable solution to this problem?

Same question for fiat? Thx!

Refs.:

Best Answer

Yes, ethereum smart contract can only accept ether. So if one wants to use Bitcoin to buy ethereum tokens, then you need to do something to let it happen.

I have seen different approaches to this problem:

  • Some companies do the conversion for you - they show you a special BTC address where you can transfer your bitcoins to and the company will issue ethereum token for you. They need to know your ethereum address in order to issue tokens to it.
  • The other way is to exchange your BTC to ETH yourself using some external exchange website. This is something you need to do by yourself and then come back to ethereum and send ETH to smart contract directly.
  • Some just accept other currencies with no relation to ETH smart contract. You need to read the white paper and ask questions to support about how exactly they handle other currencies.
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