Recent data shows that startups raised $118 million in Q1 via ICOs or initial coin offerings, down significantly from $6.9...
Beginning in June ads promoting cryptocurrencies and ICOs will be banned on Google; this follows a recent ban from Facebook; both companies have a large share of internet ads and combined collected 60% of online ad spend in 2017; many cryptocurrencies fell on the news. Source
Mr. Clayton is chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Mr. Giancarlo is chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; in a Wall Street Journal article they share their perspective on regulation as it relates to cryptocurrencies; they discuss trading, listed bitcoin futures products, ICOs and more. Source
Over $3 billion has been raised this year by initial coin offerings; Tech Crunch shares the current warnings that the market has received from regulators; some market participants report that they have spoken with with the SEC and it is expected that we will hear much more from regulators as we enter 2018. Source
The UK’s financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority, issued a warning to investors regarding initial coin offerings (ICOs); in particular they warned of the “high risk, speculative” nature of the new capital raising method; financial regulators worldwide have begun cracking down on ICOs in recent months, China has banned them and the SEC in the US issued a similar warning as the UK. Source
Gizmodo shares the story of an ICO operated by Sohrab “Sam” Sharma and Robert Farkas; the company paid for endorsements from Floyd Mayweather Jr. and DJ Khaled and also lied about relationships with Visa, Bancorp and MasterCard; Centra Tech also lied about executives at the company who were allegedly made up people; the ICO was listed on exchanges such as Binance and Cryptopia; the filing asks the operators to return the money they received and aims to prevent them from serving as officers of a public company or participate in any securities offering; Farkas was arrested before trying to leave the country. Source
Danny Masters ran JPMorgan’s commodities trading business in the 1990s; he is a strong believer in ICOs as a better mousetrap compared to IPOs stating, “I’ve raised for companies — angel, friends and family, series A, series B stuff — and it's a real pain in the arse. It's slow, it's time-consuming, it's duplicative. It's a really heavy duty process. I know some great companies who've raised £5 million, £10 million and they've spent thousands of man hours doing it.”; he also notes that there is a lack of quality ICOs and they have funded only a dozen; Masters setup a fund called Global Advisors which pivoted to crypto in 2014. Source
The new method called DAICO incorporates characteristics of DAOs or Decentralized Autonomous Organizations; the goal is to reduce complexity and risk with ICOs; article shares the benefits of this new approach. Source
With more than 80% of ICOs doing presales there are concerns over investors who have preferential treatment selling after the ICO; article discusses some of the largest investors in the space including Blockchain Capital, Pantera Capital and Polychain Capital; the possibility of pump and dump schemes has also drawn the attention of regulators. Source
George Popescu is the founder of LendingTimes, a publication dedicated to the online lending industry; he also serves as CEO of Lampix, an augmented reality company that offers a product creating 'smart surfaces'; the company announced it had crossed $4.5 million in funding through an ICO in minutes. Source