Telegram’s billion-dollar ICO has become a mess The company recently canceled the public sale piece of its ICO, the Wall Street Journal reported this week, after it raised $1.7 billion from private sale investors, according to SEC filings. But the issues date back further. Source: techcrunch… Read More
One year after ICO mania, these big-money projects are delivering And there’s been a lot of concern that, after their huge ICO fundraises and with no contractual obligation to deliver a product, founders would have little incentive to stick around and do the hard work. But we’re now one year in, and it’s heartening to see that real, meaningful products are shipping. Source: venturebeat… Read More
Goodbye ICOs, hello ILPs? The gold-rush mentality currently surrounding the use of initial coin offerings (ICOs) has at times led to projects being used irresponsibly and investors suffering harm as a result. To date, no jurisdiction has provided a bespoke set of legal and technical controls to manage this risk. Instead, some have acted retrospectively by either banning ICOs… Read More
An Alleged $660 Million ICO Scam Sparked a Protest In Vietnam According to Reuters, dozens of people gathered outside the offices of Modern Tech JSC alleging “the largest ever cryptocurrency fraud involving 15 trillion dong,” which works out to more than $650 million USD. According to local news outlet Tuoi Tre News, the protesters allege that Modern Tech defrauded more than 30,000 investors by encouraging them… Read More
The Feds Charged the Masterminds Behind a DJ Khaled-Endorsed ICO With Fraud On Monday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a complaint against the masterminds of an initial coin offering (ICO) promoted by the boxer Floyd Mayweather and producer DJ Khaled, charging them with fraud. The founders were separately arrested and charged by law enforcement. Source: vice… Read More
Floyd Mayweather-backed cryptocurrency ICO was fraud, SEC says The two founders of a cryptocurrency firm called Centra have been charged with with carrying out a fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO) by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Centra raised $32 million via an ICO which was promoted by boxer Floyd Mayweather. Sohrab ‘Sam’ Sharma and Robert Farkas, co-founders of Centra were arrested. Source:… Read More
Even as Bitcoin Languishes, Telegram Raises $1.7 Billion Ahead of Largest ICO Ever The five-year-old company, which has attracted users by touting its encrypted-messaging service, raised $850 million from 94 accredited investors in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing late Thursday. That doubles a previous raise first disclosed in mid-February, adding up to a total of $1.7 billion raised by the firm incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.… Read More
Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails Consider this a shot across the bow of the entire ICO and blockchain-related sector: email marketing service Mailchimp recently enacted a policy shutting off Blockchain and ICO related accounts. Now, the first victims of this policy are getting the news, and responding in kind by attempting to read the riot act toa Twitter account whose… Read More
81% of ICO’s were Scams In a recent study, we’ve attempted to classify ICO’s by quality. This encompasses the lifecycle of an ICO, from the original proposal of fundraising availability through to the most mature phase of trading on a cryptocurrency exchange (also known as “online trading platforms”) (“exchange”). This is a high level look above a market cap of… Read More
South Korea Planning to Formally Allow ICOs Regional news sources report South Korea’s financial authorities are working on legislation to formally allow initial coin offerings (ICOs) in an effort to appear more welcoming to the larger financial technology community. Source: bitcoin… Read More