CryptoFinancing 2017 is Europe’s first conference opening the lid on the emerging world of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and Token Sales will take place in London on July 7, 2017 at Grange Tower Bridge Hotel. The inaugural event, will bring debate about the nascent industry’s effect on venture capital, regulatory environments, as well at talks from ICO projects of the past and the future on methodology and design.
Come see some of the leading players in the space discuss how crowdsales have overtaken venture capital as the main financial driver of innovation for Blockchain projects in just one short year.
Who should come?
Startups – would you like to learn how other young projects have raised millions of dollars in minutes without giving up a lick of equity?
Imagine open sourcing all your software and structuring the company as a non-profit foundation bypassing the VC route, designing your own currency and assigning a value to it and selling it… raising millions – and imagine doing all this without having even built any software and just putting an idea down on paper – essentially offering vapourware with a bit of math and text on a few pages called a ‘whitepaper’.
Swiss foundation DECENT did just that recently, pulling in 5881 BTC worth some $7 million in today’s BTC-USD price.
Investors – Welcome to the new world of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) – a phenomenon born from the Bitcoin community that is rocking some parts of the venture capital industry, who are now beginning to take a good, hard look at this new financial instrument which has both its benefits and its disadvantages as well as threats and opportunities to their own business model.
This new fundraising phenomenon is fueled by a synergistic convergence of Blockchain technology, new wealth, clever entrepreneurs and crypto-investors backing Blockchain-fueled ideas that are raising funds by creating their own cryptocurrencies and offering discounted rates on digital assets before they hit the cryptocurrency exchanges – sometimes up to 40 per cent. The investors can then opt to cash out to a fiat currency early via Bitcoin or Ether or wait for the currency to rise.
In other words a digital asset is created, a value determined – and by consensus reached by investment, value is settled by a network of participants rather than by a central authority or government.
Venture capitalists, who generally have been standoffish to the ICO phenomenon are now becoming more interested for a number of reasons.
One is profits – cryptocurrency investors are making huge returns on not only Bitcoin and Ether but also emerging cryptocurrencies born from ICOs. Ethereum doubled in just a few days in March. Yes – in three days, people who invested in Ether doubled their money. Some cryptocurrency investors are earning massive ROI in weeks and this fact is spinning heads.
Liquidity is the second reason VC are interested. Rather than tying up vast amounts of funds in a startup or Unicorn and waiting for the long play – an IPO or acquisition – they can see gains quicker in ICOs and pull profits out easily.
Government and Regulators – ICOs are the Wild West of financing – they sit in a grey zone where the SEC in the USA and many other regulatory bodies are still investigating. The main problem is, most ICOs don’t actually offer equity in the venture, therefore are outside of traditional legal frameworks when it comes to securities. They only offer discounts on cryptocurrency before they hit the exchanges after the ICO, therefore do not fit into the current definition of a security.
Secondly, they are global instruments, not national ones and they are funded using Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies which are not controlled by any central authority or bank. Anyone can invest and they can even do so pseudo-anonymously. Currently there’s no Anti-Money Laundering (AML) or Know Your Customer (KYC) framework though some companies are working on that such as Tokenmarket, who has teamed up with the Stock Market of Gibraltar to offer KYC and AML compliant ICOs.
Discount for NewsBTC Readers – Please join us on July 7! The first crypto financing summit in Europe takes place in London. Learn about new financing models from speakers from all over the world. NewsBTC readers can register at a 50% discount. Please use coupon code NewsBTC to avail of the discount. Please use coupon code NewsBTC to avail of the discount.