Tag: Cryptocurrency

An $8 Million Airdrop Ran Out of Tokens – What’s Next Is Anyone’s Guess

 

An $8 Million Airdrop Ran Out of Tokens – What's Next Is Anyone's Guess

"Scarcity" may be a crypto buzzword,

but "shortage" has hardly made the footnotes – until now. In early July, the developers behind U Network, a blockchain publishing protocol valued at around $8 million, abruptly announced that it had run out of its reserve of UUU crypto tokens, and that it planned to buy back some of the supply it distributed to early investors through its airdrop in February.

At the start of the project, U Network established a 10 billion UUU cap on its token supply (worth approximately $15.6 million), setting aside 40 percent of its total tokens (about $6.2 million) for the founding team and future development. Yet, due to a rising number of strategic partners and interest in its token, the project announced on Medium, "The demand for UUU tokens has exceeded our current designated holdings."

The post continued:

"The team now faces a problem: leaving our ecosystem tokens intact, how do we pursue these new opportunities to grow the U Network ecosystem?"

The result is a problem that seems to have little precedent. The structure of ICOs and airdrops varies widely across projects, particularly with regard to the number of tokens minted, distributed and maintained by a given company or non-profit. While some projects do not limit the number of tokens that can be created within their blockchain ecosystem, others, like U Network, choose to implement a cap on the total supply.

For U Network, the 10 billion limit was implemented because the content-centered project, which aims to "help online content platforms better align with the interests of their users," wanted to "provide sufficient incentives to community members." While U Network's dilemma is currently an outlier in the industry, other blockchains that have implemented hard caps on their ICOs and airdrops may soon find themselves in a similar quandary as they begin building their ecosystems. Likewise, U Network's situation may force similar projects to confront an even more difficult question: what happens when your startup runs out of its own tokens?

Method to the madness

Incentives are especially important in blockchain systems, and so far, there is no established methodology by which projects can determine how many tokens to issue and keep. That's according to Joshua Gans, a professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto, who told CoinDesk: "There is no metric." "If you want to use tokens for incentives, the amount of the incentive is dependent on the price of the token," he explained. "At the start, it is hard to predict that." Gans added that establishing the amount of tokens projects should keep is equally as unsystematic.

According to Catherine Tucker, a professor of management and marketing at MIT, projects face a doubly difficult situation in the highly scrutinized industry. Not only do they lack methodologies for determining token supplies and holdings, they must also consider the perception of their actions. "I think this case illustrates the huge trade-offs founders face," she told CoinDesk. "If they keep too many tokens in reserve, they are often accused of being greedy. But if they give away too many tokens then they lose a crucial lever they need to incentivize people to use their platform or service in the future."

The buy-back

As such, remedying a shortage of tokens looks to be a precarious task. Solutions such as increasing the token supply of the network could influence the token's price, angering investors and jeopardizing their trust in the project. So instead, U Network plans to refurbish its holdings by conducting a token "buy-back." In practice, this means it will re-purchase 1,000 ETH worth of UUU (about 284 million tokens at press time) from current token holders over the course of several stages.

"For the first stage we would be buying back 200 ETH worth of UUU between the price range of 0.004 and 0.005 USD," U Network told CoinDesk. At press time, one UUU token was valued at $0.001569. As for how the project determined the number of tokens to re-purchase, it explained, "We believe it's a reasonable amount. Not too high to affect market price, not too low to affect the expansion needs."

From Gans' perspective, the buy-back is "a good way to go." He went on, "You issue the tokens and retain some other currency to use for buy-backs if you make an error. The other option is to give yourself the ability to issue more tokens for incentive purposes but that is ultimately the same as retaining some tokens at the outset." And as for what the rest of the industry could do to avoid U Network's dilemma,

MIT's Tucker suggested:

"If I had to give advice to founders, it would be to think about the uncertainty involved with the project. In those cases of heightened uncertainty, it might be best to limit the initial distribution of tokens until the business plan has evolved and been tested."

Article Produced By
Annaliese Milano

https://www.coindesk.com/8-million-airdrop-cryptocurrency-run-out-tokens/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

NASAA launches an investigation into over 200 allegedly fraudulent ICOs

NASAA launches an investigation into over 200 allegedly fraudulent ICOs

Not the NASA you were thinking about

The days of the pump and dump ICO may be numbered

: the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) is on the warpath, taking action against potentially dodgy cryptocurrency schemes. In an announcement made yesterday, NASAA revealed it has opened over 200 cases investigating possibly illegitimate, illegal, and fraudulent ICOs and cryptocurrency related businesses since its launch in May 2018. All under the codename “Operation Cryptosweep.”

NASAA is a collective task force made up of representatives from the US, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Its aim is to uncover illegitimate cryptocurrency scams, and protect potential unwitting investors. “State and provincial securities regulators are committing significant regulatory resources to protect investors from financial harm involving fraudulent ICOs and cryptocurrency-related investment products and also are raising awareness among industry participants of their regulatory responsibilities,” said NASAA President and Alabama Securities Commission Director Joseph P. Borg, in the announcement.

The point NASAA makes is that, if cryptocurrencies qualify as securities then they must be subject to, and apply for specific regulatory certification, or they must apply for exemption. Either way they must acknowledge this regulatory process in some way, the reality is, many do not. A full list of all those being investigated as part of “Operation Cryptosweep” can be seen here. It seems the primary reason for investigation is due to selling “unregistered securities.” The rise of the ICO presents a challenging future for cryptocurrency investors, and the general public alike. With a widely unregulated field, there are few safeguards to protect investors from dodgy scams.

At Hard Fork we recently reported how most of the top 100 cryptocurrencies don’t actually have a working product, giving investors no return for their money. What’s more, cryptocurrency exit scams exist, which specifically aim to raise money and run. They’ve illegitimately taken over $100 million from investors. Supposed regulation is one of blockchain and cryptocurrency’s most challenging issues right now. Whether for or against great control of our digital assets, hopefully “Operation Cryptosweep” will help to legitimize the field, and weed out the crooks.

Article Produced By

Matthew Beedham

https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/08/29/operation-cryptosweep-ico-cleanup/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

CryptoCurrency Airdrops: Where Could The SEC Stand on Them?

CryptoCurrency Airdrops:
Where Could The SEC Stand on Them?

We are all aware of the common practice in the cryptocurrency ecosystem called Airdrops.

These are essentially free giveaways of coins that are “airdropped” on a group of cryptocurrency enthusiasts. It is the quickest way to distribute your coins in the market short of doing an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). However, how do Airdrops fit into the current regulatory framework as laid out by the Securities and Exchange Commission? Could airdrops be a less burdensome way for the developers to fund their projects? We will take a look at the current regulatory environment and how cryptocurrency airdrops are likely to fit into that.

How Airdrops Work

The mechanics of an Airdrop is really pretty simple. A developer team will take a snapshot of an already established cryptocurrency chain. This will then give them an overview of the addresses that are currently on the chain. They will then release their free tokens to all of those holders. The developers of that token will “fork” their chain from the legacy chain and then build off of that technology. Some of the largest cryptocurrencies available right now are the result of these including Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

It is also really quite simple to initiate an airdrop. For example, you can head on over to Open Zeppelin and use one of their smart contract templates for the the Ethereum blockchain. You will then take a snapshot of the blockchain and you will distribute a certain number of the coins in some sort of a ratio to the ETH that they already hold. The developers will also hold onto a certain percentage of all available coins.

Why Airdrop Coins?

Apart from distributing your coins as widely as possible, there are other really important incentives for a project to airdrop coins. It is an easy way for the developer team to fund their project. Yes, they are not raising crypto or Fiat through an ICO or a seed round, but they are keeping a large stake in the coins that they have airdropped.

If the project keeps doing well and the public starts to take notice then the value of the tokens is likely to increase. Hence, the team funds will become valuable and they can then sell some of these tokens to fund the project in question. They are also a lot more cost effective than completing an ICO or trying to secure funding in a seed round. These methods of financing are now becoming incredibly expensive as investors are demanding much more than a simple whitepaper. Airdrops could also be less burdensome in terms of regulation.

Securities Regulations and Crypto

If a cryptocurrency asset is classified as a security then it falls under the jurisdiction of the SEC and hence will have to meet all the requirements. Whether it is classified as such depends on whether it passes the Howey Test. This is the rule of thumb that is used to determine whether an asset will be classified as a security. More particularly, an investment contract is

defined as:

A contract, transaction or scheme whereby a person invests his money in a common enterprise and is led to expect profits solely from the efforts of the promoter or a third party

Under this definition, it is quite clear that many of the ICOs today could be classified as such. In fact, there was even speculation that Ethereum may have been classified as a security when they did their ICO. Yet, how are the airdrops viewed by the SEC?

Airdrops And Securities

Not surprisingly, there is no legal precedent for giveaways.Airdrops are free giveaways of the coins and the ICO developers are not raising funds from the population. The investors are not putting any funds at risk and hence they cannot claim that they had expectations of a return on their investment.However, what about the cases when the tokens eventually hit the market and secondary investors buy the tokens on an exchange? Here they are indeed buying these tokens in the expectation of a profit.

While they may be expecting a return on their investment, can they really be classified as investing in a “common enterprise”? Are these investors not just speculating on the price of an asset much like they will do when the purchase Forex, Commodities or even other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Moreover, can this really even be considered investing? Tokens are not like equity in a company or debt securities. Many of them are “utility tokens” meaning that they have an underlying use case. Hence, one can realistically claim that they are buying the token for a purpose other than speculation.

Those who are buying the tokens on an exchange are buying it from other people and not from the developers themselves. Hence, you cannot claim that the developers are the main recipients of the investors’ funds. All this means that it would be incredibly nonsensical for the SEC to claim that an airdrop is a security. This could be akin to them claiming a free giveaway of any good on the street can also be considered a security. Moreover, what will the SEC do to those coins that have already been airdropped and have no central authority? Who will they target in any sort of enforcement action when the network is decentralised?

Conclusion

Airdrops are a quick and easy way for developers to get their coins out into the ecosystem and start work on the project. The SEC has still not given their judgement on ICOs yet but many think that it is only a matter of time. Indeed, it seems that they are getting that much more active with their enforcement. There have been a number of ICOs that have received cease and desist letters in operation “crypto sweep”.

So, should airdrops be the preferred option? Not quite.

While they are less burdensome, an airdrop is much less effective of an fundraising method as an ICO or other methods of seed funding. The development team will still have to wait before there is any sort of market for their coins before they can sell some and use the proceeds. Building ground breaking technology is not cheap and these developers still have to put food on the table. In the end, it will have to come down to the needs, preferences and risk that the developers are willing to take.

Article Produced By
Editorial Team

Editors at large. Posting the latest news, reviews and analysis to hit the blockchain.

https://www.coinbureau.com/analysis/cryptocurrency-airdrops-sec/

 

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

SIX Group Executive Questions Launch of Crypto Trading, Expresses ICO Optimism Instead

SIX Group Executive Questions Launch of Crypto Trading, Expresses ICO Optimism Instead

Thomas Zeeb, CEO of securities services

at Switzerland’s top stock exchange SIX, revealed that the firm is unlikely to launch crypto trading, Business Insider reported August 17. According to Zeeb, cryptocurrencies are really “not a priority” at the moment, taking into account the fact that there are a number of other platforms that provide Bitcoin (BTC) trading services. Moreover, Zeeb noted that there are still some "reputational" issues surrounding Bitcoin, also suggesting that Bitcoin is all about “hope and hype.”

However, the head of securities services at top Switzerland’s stock exchange expressed optimism about the concept of digital assets. Zeeb stated that digitals coins such as Initial Coin Offering (ICO) tokens are “here to stay,” with its mass adoption coming in around “five years.” In the interview with Business Insider, Zeeb compared digital currencies with derivatives trading, claiming that he is "absolutely convinced" that crypto is "where derivatives were in the early '90s." According to Zeeb, digital assets’ adoption will come “a lot faster than the 30 years it's taken derivatives.”

Zeeb said that the upcoming digital assets exchange — currently being developed by SIX — aims to introduce a regulation-focused way of trading ICO tokens in order to enable participation by institutional investors. He stressed that that the main task of the exchange would be filling the gap between crowdfunding and ICOs, which is now usually taken up by venture capital or private equity.

Zeeb stated,

"There is demand from institutional clients to find a way to legitimize and bring asset safety into play.”

Speaking to Business Insider, Zeeb encouraged the digitization of existing securities or exchange-traded funds due to the ability to enable fractional ownership, citing the benefits of turning some exotic assets such as art galleries collections to tokens. In early July, SIX Group first officially announced its plans to launch a “fully-regulated” cryptocurrency exchange next year using blockchain technology to create a “digital asset ecosystem. Later in July, SIX also revealed it has started considering the possibility of launching crypto trading services on its trading platform, which is set to be launched by mid-2019.

Article Produced By
Helen Partz

Helen is passionate about learning languages, cultures and the Internet. She has years of experience working at international online advertising projects. Growing interested in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in late 2017, she joined Cointelegraph as a writer.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/six-group-executive-questions-launch-of-crypto-trading-expresses-ico-optimism-instead

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Indiegogo quietly canceled its first ICO after raising $5.2 million

Indiegogo quietly canceled its first ICO after raising $5.2 million

Trouble in paradise

 
Indiegogo’s first foray into the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency has gone awry

– but the good thing is that it appears investors will at least get their money back. In an email sent out in July, Indiegogo’s token brokerage partner, MicroVentures, informed investors they will not be receiving tokens – but refunds instead. From the looks of it, the reason for issuing refunds are recent changes in regulation.

Hard Fork has since obtained a copy of the message, which you can read below:

Thank you for participating in the FCFL pre-sale. If you have been following the crypto and ICO markets for the last 6 months you already know that the regulatory environment has been rapidly changing. The SEC has provided multiple comments regarding security and utility tokens, but has not provided formal guidance or a compliant framework on how to conduct these offerings.

During this time, your investment was not distributed to the company. This was done to ensure that MicroVentures navigated through the regulatory climate prior to finalizing the offering. While we believe the initial path taken was compliant, we have decided the best way to ensure compliance is to unwind the investment opportunity and return investor capital.

We are beginning the return process today.You may hear from someone on our team if we need to verify return instructions on how to return your investment capital to you.

Not to be mistaken with yesterday’s security token offering for the rich, Indiegogo announced plans to branch out into initial coin offerings (ICOs) in a statement last December. Given its success (and some failures) in the crowdraising sector, the expansion into token offerings seemed like a good fit. The guinea pig was the Fan Controlled Football League (FCPL), an Indiegogo alum seeking to raise up to $5 million to build a community-run football league. In return, the company promised to distribute tokens to their investors. The token distribution was to be overseen by Indiegogo’s partner, MicroVentures. The announcement gathered tons of attention from media outlets, securing coverage from Fortune, CNBC, CoinDesk, TechCrunch, and even The New York Times.

“We want to bring a brand of trust to the entire industry, which we think will bring [ICOs] to the mainstream,” Indiegogo co-founder Slava Rubin told The New York Times in 2017. “Now, we’re ready to become the go-to platform for selling and investing in digital tokens and blockchain-based assets, and we can’t wait for you to join us,” Indiegogo’s announcement added.

Indeed, FCFL boasted about exceeding its crowdfunding goals, raising the equivalent of $5.2 million “in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and classic fiat currency.” Unfortunately, the tokens were never distributed to investors. In fact, it appears MicroVentures did not even consult with FCFL prior to informing investors about the botched token sale. According to FCFL CEO Sohrob Farudi, MicroVentures initiated the refunding process without FCFL’s approval. (We contacted MicroVentures for a clarification, but representatives were not available for comment as of time of publishing.)

“We would like to address the recent email that we understand some of you received from MicroVentures,” Farudi said in a July statement, referring to the refund message shared above. “We did not consent to that email being sent out. We have no way to communicate directly with the purchasers who participated in our presale [sic] on MicroVentures platform as MicroVentures has refused to give us any information about who the purchasers are in order for us to communicate with them.”

“If you were a purchaser in the MicroVentures platform offering, FCFL would be happy to hear from you directly,” Farudi added. “We want to ensure that MicroVentures is handling this unwinding that it initiated properly and treating any purchasers in the MicroVentures platform offering fairly.” For the record, other than the St Regis Aspen Resort security token offering from yesterday, FCFL is Indiegogo’s first and only experience in the blockchain funding space. Speaking to The Verge in August, Rubin said the FCFL token sale “went well” – despite MicroVenture’s intention to issue refunds.

Asked about what went wrong with the FCFL ICO, Rubin told Hard Fork “the [MicroVentures] email issued to investors provides all the context for the refund.” “For clarification, Indiegogo partnered with MicroVentures in 2016, an SEC-registered [broker-dealer], to help market and amplify offerings on their platform to our global audience,” he further clarified in an email to Hard Fork. “Indiegogo itself is not a registered broker-dealer, and in the case of FCFL, or any other investment offering, does not participate in investment related activities.”

Meanwhile, Farudi insists FCFL is yet to be “given a valid reason as to why MicroVentures cannot complete the offering.” Not exactly what one would call a smooth execution. In all fairness, Indiegogo is hardly the only company to have back-pedalled on a scheduled token offering due to regulatory crackdowns. Indeed, tons of blockchain startups – including messaging giant Telegram – have had to abort their public token sales.

Article Produced By

Mix in Amsterdam

Mix is a tech writer based in Amsterdam that loves cinema and probably hates the movies that you like. Tell him everything you despise about his work on Twitter or pitch him your terrible ideas via email.

https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/08/24/indiegogo-ico-blockchain-cryptocurrency/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

What Does It Take to Create a Good ICO Rating?

What Does It Take to Create a Good ICO Rating?

Some things are easy to rate.

If you go to a movie, you can make a ruling on how good it was based on your own enjoyment of the film, and perhaps on how good the cinematography and acting were. However, some things require some real work to rate accurately. ICOs are one such thing. Let’s take a look at what goes into developing an accurate and reliable ICO rating.

First, You Need an ICO List

In order to rate ICOs, you need to have a list of ICOs awaiting ratings. An ICO list on its own is a valuable tool for the cryptocurrency community, as it collects ongoing and upcoming ICOs in one place so potential investors have a great place to start their research. Especially given the difficulty of advertising an ICO, thanks to ad bans on most major platforms, it could be hard to find new ICOs to invest in without a list. Maintaining a list of ICOs requires having reliable web hosting, a well-designed website, and some method of updating your list, whether via inviting ICOs to submit themselves to your list, using a web crawler, or manually searching and adding ICOs that interest you. If you use user-generated or bot-generated content, you need to have a human on your team overseeing it in order to avoid the sort of sloppy, embarrassing errors that can occur without fact-checking.

Then You Need a Panel of Experts

For an ICO rating to have merit, it needs to have been created by someone with the credentials to judge the trustworthiness of the project. You could have a single expert do all of your ratings, but the staggering number of ICO projects out there might prove a daunting task for one person. Plus, if you have only one rater, they are only drawing on their own knowledge, and the ratings may also be influenced by their own biases. Ideally, you should have a panel of experts, drawn from several industries. Knowledge of cryptocurrency, business, law, and investment could all be beneficial for an ICO rater. Additionally, you might want to have some people on your team who are skilled at research and have a love of fact-finding, as it may take some digging to find all the details about an ICO’s team.

When choosing your panel, it’s imperative that you vet them thoroughly. Be sure that they actually have the experience and expertise that they claim to have. Only hire people who are suitable for the job. Resist the urge to give a job on your expert panel to an old friend or favorite cousin who needs work. Remember that when you make someone an expert on your site, you are vouching for their knowledge. It could reflect poorly on your site if you employ so-called “experts” who proceed to make uneducated comments about cryptocurrency on social media, or use their position at your company to get speaking engagements or jobs for which they are not qualified. There are two approaches you can take to having a rating panel. One is to share the identities of everyone involved, in order to showcase their expertise. The other is to keep your rating board anonymous, in order to protect them from bribery and harassment. Both are equally valuable, and you may want to discuss with your potential raters what they would prefer before making a final decision.

You Need to Establish Your Criteria

To bring it back to the movies, different genres are judged on different criteria. You would judge a comedy on how funny it was, but that’s not really a concern for a documentary. ICOs, on the other hand, should all be judged by the same criteria, and an ICO rating site should apply those standards evenly.

Some sample criteria include the quality of the ICO’s team, the merit of their idea, and how realistic their goals are. A rating might also take into account marketing and social media engagement. While many industries might consider a receptive online audience to be nice but not always necessary, an ICO’s audience says a lot about them. If the project has been received well by the cryptocurrency community, it speaks well to its potential success. On the other hand, if a project appears to only be gaining traction with crypto-newbies who are convinced they’re going to get rich, it may not be a trustworthy ICO. Your criteria should be clearly displayed and explained, so users of your site understand why a particular ICO has been rated as good or bad. After all, different potential investors will be more or less risk-averse, and some may see certain criteria as less important than others.

You Need to Research, Research, and Research Some More

Remember that team of experts you hired earlier? They’d better enjoy researching, because there are so many things that need to be investigated before rating an ICO. Just considering an ICO’s team, you first have to determine if the people who are listed as being involved in the project are actually involved in it. If they don’t list the project on their LinkedIn profiles, are they not actually affiliated with the program, or are they ashamed of their involvement? Either one is a definite red flag. It’s not enough to just discover if someone actually works for an ICO, though. You also have to follow up and see if they actually have the experience and skills they claim to have. Are they qualified for their role at the ICO?

Beyond that, your team will need to read the whitepaper to determine its quality and the validity of the proposed project. They’ll have to check GitHub repositories to inspect the project’s code. Someone will need to have a look at how well the project is engaging with investors on social media. Of course, if all of that seems like too much work, you could just do a surface-level amount of research, make a rating based on your initial impressions, and then suffer the fallout when you inevitably give a good rating to an obvious scam.

You Need to Choose an ICO Rating System

How will your ratings be expressed? The most popular options appear to be rating them on a scale of 1-10, or 1-5, or using letter grades. However, you could come up with your own unique rating system if you wish to stand out. Whatever you use, it’s important to make it clear and easy to understand if you want your ICO listing and rating site to be popular. It’s also beneficial to prominently display the rating, as we live in the “too long, didn’t read” era. Many people will simply scan the ratings without reading the more detailed information. Additionally, the crypto community is international and multilingual. You may have visitors who have only limited literacy in your native language, so be sure your ratings can be understood even through a language barrier.

You Need to Stand By Your Ratings

If you’ve chosen a good team, a good set of standards, and good research procedures, you should be confident in your ratings. You shouldn’t change them based on how other sites have rated the same ICO, pressure from the ICO’s team, or a discreet payment under the table. This means you need to own up to your mistakes, too. While most scams can be spotted with proper research, the crypto community has been rocked by a few instances of legitimate-seeming, promising projects turning out to be well-executed exit scams. When this happens, some sites are quick to rush in and change their ratings to lower than before, so they can pretend that they saw it coming all along (as long as no one has any pesky screenshots to prove them wrong).

Admitting your mistakes is an important part of growth. If you give a good rating to a project that your team couldn’t find any flaws in, and it turns out to be a scam, use this as a learning experience. Was there some area of research you had neglected that could have turned up some dirt? Did the scammers use some particularly clever ruse that you can look out for from now on? Integrity stands for a lot in this industry. Stand by your ratings, and stand by your team. That said, also expect the best from your team. If you discover that someone is accepting payments to change their ratings or otherwise engaging in shady behavior, you are responsible for cleaning house. Even one corrupt rater on a team of dozens can tarnish your sites reputation.

Finally, You Need to Spread the Word About Your ICO Listing

There are already a lot of sites out there which list and rate ICOs. If you’re new to the field, you’ll have to work hard to establish a good reputation. The same bans that stop ICOs from being able to advertise on the major social media platforms may impact you as well. In fact, before you expend all the effort to make a rating system for ICOs, ask yourself… “What am I bringing to the field?” Do you have a special area of expertise, or a great idea for how to improve on the existing model? Then go for it! Otherwise, you may want to ask yourself if your talents might be better applied to some other aspect of the crypto industry.

Article Produced By
Cointelegraph
Yavin

Yavin is the Founder and CEO at Cointelligence, the data layer for the crypto economy. He has extensive experience as a serial entrepreneur and an angel investor, as well as more than 20 years of experience in the tech industry. Having earned the reputation of crypto expert, On continues to contribute to this industry in ways that advance cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. On uses his deep hands-on experience and knowledge of SEO, PPC, and ORM to create successful online marketing strategies for ICOs, crypto, and blockchain companies.

https://cointelegraph.com/press-releases/cambodian-crypto-exchange-applies-for-a-license-to-become-the-first-legally-certified

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Why Waves is Best for Airdrops

Why Waves is Best for Airdrops

Imagine you’re building a house.

You could transport the bricks in small batches in the boot of your car. Or you can hire a lorry for the purpose. Either will work, but only one was designed to do the job quickly and effectively. Which do you choose? Airdrops have become an important element of the crypto landscape and for good reason. By distributing small amounts of tokens to many different users for free, you instantly gain a very large potential userbase. These recipients will generally want to find out more about the project. They may become larger buyers in due course, as well as some of your first testers, end user, ​ and advocates for the business. All of this can be gained in return for allocating a small proportion of your token supply in advance, plus the cost of airdropping them to hundreds or thousands of blockchain addresses. All you have to do is distribute them. But that’s the thing. Distribution. And it’s not as easy as you might think.

Big airdrops, big headaches

Here’s the thing: you can conduct an airdrop on any blockchain — just as you can theoretically transport your building supplies with any mode of transport, whether that’s a car, lorry, bike or SegWay. There are just good reasons why you might not want to. There are a few factors to consider. Obviously,​ it needs to be a platform that supports custom tokens. No major problem there: even bitcoin supports assets (via the Omni protocol, for example). But then you’ve got to send them all out to different addresses, using whatever criteria you choose for recipients.

Naturally,​ you want your send process to be fast and as low-cost as possible. You don’t want to be competing for block space, and you don’t want to be paying high transaction fees. That makes something like bitcoin/Omni a non-starter — imagine having to pay many tens of thousands of dollars or more to get the job done. And if you’re sending thousands of transactions, you can forget it: they’re going to be stuck in mempool until you’re grey-haired. Ethereum’s a better option, and plenty of airdrops do occur on the platform. But fees are still comparatively high, and the network is not designed for large throughput (just ask the Crypto Kitties).

Then there are some of the other problems that can occur if you misuse a blockchain that’s not really built for the job. A few years ago there was an initiative to pay dividends to stakers on BitcoinDark (a privacy coin that was built on a proof-of-stake clone of bitcoin). The first time a large number of transactions was submitted via a script, the network forked. Oops.

Waves-NG

So this is where Waves comes in. You can conduct airdrops on any blockchain. A handful of them can cope with that reasonably well. But there’s only one that has specifically been designed to support the kinds of transaction volumes that a large airdrop requires. Waves’ consensus algorithm is Waves-NG, which is capable of processing an order of magnitude more transactions than most other blockchains — quickly and at low cost. Standard fees are 0.001 WAVES per transaction (around $0.005 right now) but it gets even cheaper thanks to the mass-pay function, which is purpose-built exactly for this reason.

That makes Waves an incredibly efficient and low-cost way of conducting huge airdrops. The proof? Waves processed over 330,000 transactions in a single day on 26 December 2017. 170,000 transactions were confirmed within just 20 minutes, and it is theoretically possible to process up to 10 million transactions per day. Job done in one go.

Article Produced By

Waves Platform

The fastest blockchain platform with real-world solutions for storing or exchanging tokens, trading (DEX) or running business logic (Waves smart contracts).

https://blog.wavesplatform.com/why-waves-is-best-for-airdrops-cebc260232d4

 

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

4 Founders Reveal Secrets Behind Wildly Successful ICOs

4 Founders Reveal Secrets Behind Wildly Successful ICOs

ICOs can be daunting to execute, so it’s best to learn from founders that have been there, done that.

Launching an ICO is a Daunting Process

                                   4 founders that have run successful ICOs

We spoke to 4 founders that have run successful ICOs about what they deem to be important when launching ICOs, how
to best go about approaching such a gargantuan task and some of the issues they encountered when doing so. (From left
to right, top to bottom: Jack Yeu, Co-Founder and CCO of Switcheo Network; Christel Quek, Co-Founder and CCO of BOLT;
Val Yap, Founder and CEO of PolicyPal Network; Stephen Hyduchak, Founder and CEO of Bridge Protocol)

Private sales and making sure you have the right investors onboard

Having raised US$8.7 million in their March ICO, Switcheo Network chose to hold a private sale as they had “a small following from the start”. Feeding off of the buzz surrounding competing product DEXs on NEO like Neon Exchange (NEX) and Aphelion, they consulted with one of the founding partners of NEO Global Capital, Roger Lim, to accelerate their fundraising process. Jack Yeu also highlights the importance of networking within the crypto world,

stating:

The advice and connections [Roger] brought to us proved to be invaluable.

Christel Quek of BOLT shares that of the US$12 million raised in a combination of Ether and NEO, approximately US$9 million was raised through a private contribution round that was completed in 2 months. She also shares that BOLT were very strict in ensuring that they had

strategic investors on board.

We would assess their contribution to our project, including introductions to key partnerships, that they would trade our BOLT Tokens diligently (vs a pump and dump situation).

Community, engagement and transparency

How a project’s team presents itself and interacts with the community is key in ensuring interest, a point that Stephen Hyduchak of Bridge Protocol raises. Through AMAs (Ask Me Anything threads on Reddit) and community influencers, Bridge Protocol aimed to be fully transparent in their project’s progress. As a testament to his team’s commitment to transparency, he tells us of a time in which “the team stayed up throughout the night to make sure users received their NEO back within 48 hours” while their token sale was ongoing. Val Yap of PolicyPal Network adds that Community Managers were key in maintaining interest in their project during

the ICO period.

They share all our projects on Telegram and Twitter, and also frequently engage the community to address any concerns they might have.

For her, Telegram engagement is especially important as it provides a means of instant and direct communication with the community. She boasts that at one point in time, the PolicyPal Network Telegram channel had over 23,000 members actively participating in the discussion.

Use the whitepaper to showcase your project and any working products

The whitepaper is often seen as an integral piece of the ICO pitch, allowing the project team to showcase their vision and the technology behind it. Val Yap tells us that the whitepaper is “important in getting interest from investors during [the] public crowdsale”. Christel Quek goes a step further by telling us that while the whitepaper is a good reflection of what a project has to offer, what it really boils down to is the “delivery of results”. Amid a bearish market, investors have rightly become more cautious when approaching ICOs. What matters most is having a working product and to inform potential investors of

your mission.

What matters is to start from the mission and to articulate it in a narrative that anyone in the market can understand, before going to work on deal-making […] to make the project a wildly successful one.

There’s no need to run a 6-figure ICO

Most ICOs run into high 6-figure sums and in some cases 7-figures. Knowing how much you need to spend, and how to avoid the 6-figure pitfall can go a long way when planning your ICO. For BOLT, the entire ICO (including legal, accounting, operational and technology fees) ran them just under US$500,000, all of which was borne out of the founders’ pockets. Having these funds in place as an investment is key to making sure the ICO is successful.

As Christel puts it,

Good things take time and money, especially if you want the process to be rigorous and done to a high standard.

Mint what you need and keep your Token Economics simple

Token economics refers to the model and implementation of cryptocurrency systems based on blockchain technology. As such, they’re an important part of attracting investors, providing a way to show both speculative and utility value. Stephen Hyduchak shares that Bridge Protocol based their token economics on the needs of their platform, ensuring “Bridge Protocol users wouldn’t need to buy more tokens than needed”. Of the total 1 billion tokens available, 500 million was offered to the public, while the other 500 million was retained by the company to provide incentives to potential partners.

For founders like Jack Yeu, ensuring their token economics were as simple as possible was a means to make sure “[the] project and token was easily understood by the masses”. Having distributed 1 billion Switcheo Tokens (SWTH) during their token sale, SWTH provides a discount on trading fees – operating similarly to the Binance token. It also serves as a trading pair to “potentially facilitate the transfer of value across different blockchains in the future”.

Article Produced By
Eugene Cheng

About the author

Eugene is Partner and Creative Lead at HighSpark – a strategic training and presentation design company that works with Fortune 500 companies and blockchain startups to communicate more powerfully. Eugene writes about blockchain trends, business and marketing for leading publications like Lifehack, Techinasia, e27 and more.

https://bitcoinist.com/4-founders-secrets-successful-icos/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

What is a Cryptocurrency Airdrop by Cryptocurrency Facts?

What is a Cryptocurrency Airdrop by  Cryptocurrency Facts?

What the Term “Airdrop” Means in Cryptocurrency

In cryptocurrency, the term “airdrop” is used to describe a type of distribution event for a cryptocurrency where tokens are distributed to existing wallets. Or more simply, an event where “free coins” or coins purchased during a pre-sale are “dropped” in existing wallets. In other words, the term “airdrop” describes a distribution event that occurs when a cryptocurrency decides to distribute tokens to users for any reason. For example:

  • A distribution event that occurs after an ICO goes live and the smart contract for the ICO sends new tokens to the existing addresses of users who participated in the pre-sale. For example, one buys into an ethereum-based ICO, then on the airdrop date the token is sent to user’s wallets and they can then “add the token” to their Ethereum wallets (see the KIN and UKG ICOs for example).
  • A distribution event after a hard fork or the creation of a new token which results in existing coin holders getting “free coins,” but where the platform being used requires the distribution of tokens. For example, a fork on the Ethereum network that creates a new token on the Ethereum network or another coin’s network (see fork-airdrop hybrids like the Ethereum Classic Callisto Airdrop and the Loopring Airdrop for example).
  • A distribution event where tokens are given to existing holders as a reward for sticking with the cryptocurrency or as an incentive to get people to hold the cryptocurrency or a related token (see the WAVES Bitcoin Cash airdrop for example).

With the above in mind, we can say then that the term “airdrop” refers to an event where tokens not associated with addresses become associated with them, generally due to a person participating in a pre-sale (like with an ICO) or holding existing coins (like with some forks). However, with the above noted, sometimes the term “airdrop” is used loosely to describe distribution events regardless of the specific mechanics (like in the case with some forks that use the term “airdrop” in their PR).

Since there is a little bit of disconnect between how the term is sometimes used (especially factoring in how it is used on social media) and what the term means in a more pure sense, it is helpful to understand the different definitions. That is the gist.

Airdrop Snapshot Block Height and Airdrop Distribution Date:
An airdrop may include either/or 1. an Airdrop Snapshot Block Height, a block height that one has to hold an existing cryptocurrency during to qualify for the airdrop (a snapshot of the existing ledger is taken at that block height), and 2. an Airdrop Distribution Date, a date upon which the tokens are airdropped to existing wallets. Airdrop snapshot dates would be be used with fork-airdrop hybrids, Airdrop Distribution Dates are common to all airdrops and simply describe the date on which the airdrop occurs.

The Semantics of Airdrop:
Airdrop has become somewhat of a PR term here in 2018 and that has led to some questionable usage of the term. As noted, sometimes the term is used to describe a distribution event that occurs after a hard fork goes live and coins can be claimed… even in cases where nothing is technically being airdropped. In cases like this, the term “airdrop” is being used loosely. The slightly confusing thing here is that, as noted above as well, a fork can have an airdrop. For example, in the case where a snapshot of the ledger is taken, the software is forked, but the distribution after the fork occurs on another coin’s network (like with the Loopring example above).

I think part of the confusion is due to the fact that there is no good word to describe the distribution date after a fork where the whole of the software is forked (and of course, that distribution is the exciting part where people get “free” coins)… Thus, sometimes the term airdrop gets borrowed to describe distribution events that aren’t actually airdrops. The General Meaning of the Term Airdrop: If you want to airdrop a file from your iPhone to another iPhone, you take your file, share it over WiFi or Bluetooth, and then it appears on the other person phone. The person didn’t have the file, now they do. It was “dropped,” through “the air;” “airdrop.”

Article Produced By
CryptoCurrency Facts

https://cryptocurrencyfacts.com/what-is-a-cryptocurrency-airdrop/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Despite What You Hear, The ICO Is Not RIP..

Despite What You Hear, The ICO Is Not RIP

The big news in cryptoland in 2017 was the rise of the Initial Coin Offering.

The knowledge that something like this could be possible dates back to the early years of Bitcoin, but the dawning of the reality was quite awesome to behold. Anyone with an entrepreneurial idea could float a token and invite people to invest. The investment vehicle was not a broker or bank but a distributed platform that connect buyers and sellers. What they got in return was not a stock or share in the profits but the rising value of the token itself. It’s a highly liquid stake in a protocol. Small businesses, churches, schools, websites, and charities of all sorts could raise money this way.

Most importantly, the ICO illustrated the hope that anyone could be involved in both soliciting and investing in enterprise while bypassing the hugely regulated, bureaucratized, and impenetrable apparatus of traditional financial markets, including rarified venture capital funding. It seemed like we were watching a beautiful future unfold, the democratization of investment and fundraising. The possibilities are without limit. We’ve never seen anything like it in the history of finance.

This year, matters have been different.

MORE FROM FORBES

  • Only 7% of ICOs from Q2 have been able to secure listings;
  • 55% of all ICOs from this period failed to hit their funding target;
  • 15% of projects already had a working business, versus 6% in Q1, and whether or not this was the case had no effect on fundraising success.

So I decided to take a closer look at the very detailed report being cited here. The actual facts show a different picture that do indeed point to long-run success, even if the markets seem rather stalled at this moment. What we see is a spectacular increase if looked at year-over-year. In 2018, compared with a year earlier, the report finds the that ICO market has more than doubled. Collectively, ICOs of 2018 have already raised $11,690,981,663 of investments, which is 10 times bigger than the cumulative sum of investments from ICOs of Q1-2 2017. Excluding EOS, the cumulative amount of funding received from ICOs of Q1-2 2018 is 6.4 times bigger than the one of Q1-2 2017.

The total amount raised in the second quarter of 2018 is: $8.4 billion dollars. That doesn’t sound like a dead market to me. It’s true that half the new ICOs in the second quarter were unable to raise more than $100K in funding. But this suggests a downgrade in the quality of listings. That is no surprise to anyone who has watched this sector over several years. A market with virtually no barriers to entry for upstarts is going to attract…well, just about anyone. It’s for this reason that only 7% of new tokens have managed to obtain listing on established crypto exchanges. But judging by that standard is an extremely high bar. The exchanges are listing thousands of tokens, and even people who obsessively follow this space have to admit that they can no longer keep up with the volume, variety, and frequency of listings.

It’s too much for anyone.

In that same vein, 55% of all ICOS in Q2 2018 failed to complete crowdfunding. But that is only 5% more than the first quarter, and this is in a period of notable pullback in the markets. And also note that there was an 11% increase in the quantity of projects choosing this funding route.

The report further says:

On average, the top projects for Q2 raised 50 million USD. Only 3 mentioned projects attracted all their funds in the course of 1 day. On average, these projects raised their money within 63 days (the average campaign duration time is the same as in Q1, but there is an evident tendency for an increase, at least by 10%). Compared with Q1, the number of projects offering tokens with service characteristics decreased by 24%. The share of projects that offer security tokens decreased by 8%. The number of projects with utility tokens increased by 32%.

What about geography? Despite all the talk of crypto-utopias being set up in far-away lands, North America is still king of the ICO, with 64.7% of all funding attracted. Second is line is the Singapore, then UK, and then Switzerland. Asia showed an increase in funding but a decrease in the number of new projects. In terms of sheer numbers of business registrations of high-value tokens, the geography is very different: Malta, Gibraltar, and Singapore rank as the top three. “We attribute this to an openness to blockchain projects and the legal changes enacted by financial authorities in Malta and Gibraltar,” says the report.

Keep in mind that all this happened despite true setbacks in the markets as a whole. The median return on tokens in the second quarter was a dismal -55%. The average number of investors per token was 7,871, showing what a truly thin market we are really talking about. The great exceptions to the general pattern were Telegram (a communications platform) and EOS, which sports a new governance model for decentralized applications.

The least successful ICOs were cryptocurrencies. In that sense, Q2 was the quarter of burnout on this asset. We have more than enough monies, markets seem to be saying. The success leaders were service and utility tokens, which is to say protocol assets not designed for monetary exchange but rather assets backed by new services that exist apart from their fundraising potential. What industries are we talking about? “Following Q1 trends, the most popular industries with the largest number of projects were finance, gaming, and infrastructure. The number of gaming projects doubled compared with Q1.”

In general, the report has vastly more information and detail than any normal person would ever need to evaluate this new sector of financial life. What it all points to is precisely what many of us came to believe in 2017. Something truly spectacular is taking place that could change finance, investment, and entrepreneurial innovation forever. So why the long faces? It has something to do with the short-term temperament of the investor community as it developed in 2017. This community became addicted to extremely high returns, fast progress, and the belief that everything was changing much sooner rather than later.

History shows a different reality. Railroads in the 19th century had a long and rough start, and the markets were replete with frauds, mishaps, booms and busts, and hence skepticism. The internal combustion engine for tractors took a whole generation to be widely adopted. Internet commerce experienced a spectacular bust in 1999 that traumatized a generation of investors, and we are only now seeing that anti-digital bias fade from people of a certain age. In the end, crypto markets can’t be about this quarter’s prices, this year’s high-flying coins, or this or that company’s fate. The confidence that one has in crypto traces to a conviction concerning the technology itself and what it can and is doing for the well-being of the human experience.

Article Produced By

Jeffrey Tucker

I write about the upheaval in monetary technology in our time. I head editorial at the American Institute for Economic Research founded in 1933. I've written 8 books and speak regularly worldwide on topics of money, trade, and innovation. Disclosure: yes, I have personal investments in the cryptoasset sector.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreytucker/2018/08/18/despite-what-you-hear-the-ico-is-not-rip/#7da532ed3192

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden