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
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
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
Ethereum prediction market firm Gnosis has completed an initial coin offering with the firm's creators owning 95% or approximately $280 million and investors buying 5% of the project's tokens for a total of $12 million; skeptics say the high market cap for the project is an example of recent irrationality in token sales; however, as more initial coin offerings are successful, investors appear to be growing more comfortable with the investments. 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
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
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
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
Recent data shows that startups raised $118 million in Q1 via ICOs or initial coin offerings, down significantly from $6.9...
Blockchain has quickly become the buzzword in fintech for 2017; Consensus 2017 took place this week in New York City...