š Token Economy #15: VC-induced ICOs
+ first cross-chain atomic swaps, new funds, FreeSociety
š VC firms pushing for / condoning ICOs: a dangerous game
This week, after a few more calls with startups that are turning into wannabe ICO issuers and most of all after seeing yet another major VC-backed company planning an ICO, I started questioning the intentions and goals of the VCs and investors that are pushing their portfolio companies to raise capital with token sales.
I think we are reaching the limit of the first wave of ICOs, with a constant stream of absolutely bonkers proposals bordering on scams.
I hear your questions: āif youāre so critical of ICOs, why are you even writing this newsletter and caring about this market?ā
My interest lies in the technological revolution rather than in the bypassing of venture capital and other traditional funding mechanisms.
Bitcoin and Ethereum have been the two biggest technological and economic revolutions Iāve witnessed in my life, and theyāll be hard to beat in the future.
When I think we now have almost fully-featured trustless, censorship-resistant economic and computing networks, I still get giddy. Itās amazing.
But while I think democratization of access to capital is amazing, I also think weāre not at that stage at the moment, and we wonāt be for a while, not until weāre able to move a lot of the economic activity to the blockchain and until weāll coordinate entrepreneurial endeavors with Aragon or similar structures.
What weāre witnessing now is just a complete cash grab from people that are devising tokens just to justify raising cash from absolutely uninformed market participants.
In my town, asking money from people in exchange for something you think is worth 0 is squarely on the other side of the āOKā line.
If I see a desperate startup do that just to survive, I just recognize it and instantly pass.
BUT, when I suspect that some VCs are actively suggesting to their companies to think about token sales, then I start to worry.
And I really worry for them, but most of all for all of the venture ecosystem.
As usual when something wanders through my neural paths, I posted it to twitter, but this time Iād really like to explore the topic a bit more in depth, as well as solicit the feedback and ideas of both crypto and VC people.
My current view is that the game that ICO-pushing VCs are playing is all risk and very little reward, which doesnāt make it a great one.
- Letās assume we have a non-performing company in our portfolio with a large user base.
This is maybe a company that has failed to find a way to monetize, or doesnāt have enough growth metrics to attract the next VC round, or just plainly hasnāt found PMF yet.
- Letās also assume we are well aware of the ICO trend, and are capable of providing a strong signal to the wider market, bumping up the chances of said company to raise substantial funding in a public token sale.
What do we do? And why?
My mental model has to split or fork here, based on one crucial factor:
do we, as investors, actually believe that an application-specific token with no cryptographic reason of existence would generate and retain value both for the company and the token holders?
If we do believe that, then itās all good. We donāt care about the equity anymore, are happy to relinquish governance to a foundation maybe, and will just hold the token for the long term until the company has developed its ecosystem and has been able to align the value exchanged on the network to the token.
But I have a hard time thinking that some of the smartest minds in the world believe that introducing more friction in an ecosystem, with no underlying āplatform protocolā which would need a token, would result in any more value (especially at the valuations for tokens that are flying around).
- So, letās now also assume that we donāt really believe the token should exist or would improve the chances of success for the company.
What do we do now?
Do we condone / suggest an ICO?
Do we advise against one?
Itās a VERY tricky question.
After a bit of thinking, my bottom line is that there is no real positive outcome in a situation like this for the VC firm.
Letās assume the positive scenario where there is a successful token sale, and the company raises $100M.
The company gets some nice new runway, but even if itās then able to find its real path, it would have trouble to get acquired. Who would ever in their right mind acquire a company that sold hundreds of millions of dollars of securities around the world to god knows who? That would not pass one single due diligence meeting with any reasonable acquirer.
Same goes for a public market listing.
So the equity of the company, even if it might not have been worth much earlier, is now worth probably even less.
Obviously if the company raises the money and then fails to achieve anything, weād now have thousands of pissed āinvestorsā all over the world.
In both cases, the VC doesnāt really come out of it too well, and I think could go down in flames like some firms that were financing pre-bubble internet firms.
Because, now, instead of being remembered as the VC who backed that startup that failed, weāll be remembered as the VC who backed a startup that failed and also sold extremely high risk securities to users all around the world for a lot of money.
One of my favorite comments on a group was:
āIf they were to incorporate a token for a novel use case, and sell a small amount, at a fair valuation. And if they didnāt use that funds to pay back investors, I would be excited to see adoption by a large app.
But this isnāt adoption. This is a bailout.ā
And, FWIW, this is the feeling with almost everyone I consider smart and informed in the crypto community.
To my surprise, I got an answer to the previously linked tweet, from none other than Fred Wilson himself.
Iāve revered Fred for most of my life, and have been extremely impressed with his ability to grasp new trends and get conviction on them, so I have nothing but respect for the man,
But the answer wasnāt really too convincing this time around.
Fred answered linking to a blog post from Albert Wenger (another of my favorite people) where he basically argues that we should encourage different ways of pursuing a path to a decentralized future. Some will do it with ICOs for new protocols and some will do it with ICOs for current networks.
My view is that we can accelerate towards a decentralized future without VCs offloading their venture risk to the public.
Companies with existing user bases should absolutely experiment (because letās remember that here no one has a clue what theyāre doing, weāre all just experimenting) with tokens, but they can very effectively and much more safely do that without having people buy them.
They can just give them out to incentivize specific actions or assign monetary value to specific and previously un-valued transactions of any sort.
I think itās dishonest to not address this point and carry on like ICOs are a must if you want to introduce a token. They arenāt.
And Fred very well knows this. His only argument on this is that these companies have heavy burns because of their large audiences.
Was really surprised to get this type of answer from someone like Fred. Might start believing they actually think that itās ok because they have a lot of costs.
In a chat with Joe Urgo of district0x he provided a very interesting completely alternative idea to mine, saying that this is the only right behavior.
āLike he says in his follow up tweet, necessity is the mother of invention. Like we were talking about the other day, these companies are dead in the water as is, so they need to try something. I donāt know that I could call what they are doing dangerous at all, they are being prudent, they are advising their dying investments to take a hail mary and at least try to make something work.
If VC firms know this is a viable option at the moment (which they all should), then it could be argued that _not_ advising companies in similar boats to do the same is dangerous. It shows they are more worried about reputational blowbacks to them than in helping their companies succeed.ā
I guess only time will tell.
For now, Iām still only writing checks for core cryptographic protocols whose usage is directly linked to the value of the token and still advising anyone which does not have a core need or use for a token to 1) not use one and 2) if they really must, then most definitely donāt do an ICO but just introduce it gradually, test, learn and think about the future repercussions of their actions.
š Token Economy
If Iād Known What We Were Starting
An absolute gem from the #3 Bitcoin user, after Satoshi and Hal Finney. I donāt think it deserves a tl;dr because you need to read this now.
Developers Complete First-Ever Atomic Swap Between Litecoin and Decred
Another week, another major milestone for crypto.
If youāre tired of ICOs, this is the news youāre looking for.
Decred and Litecoin developers have successfully completed an Atomic Swap, according to a tweet from the Decred team.
An atomic swap is basically a ShapeShift-like transaction that happens automatically, on-chain.
Unfortunately there hasnāt been too much disclosed on how it actually happened, so we will have to wait to see how it impacts projects like 0x and Kyber.
The first thought here, is that atomic swaps will be better than using a DEX protocol or platform, BUT they wonāt have relayers and order books to organize liquidity.
Another thing to add to the āsuper interesting to think aboutā stack.
Markowitz portfolio optimization for cryptocurrencies in Catalyst
Very cool article by a former Mexico Central Bank portfolio manager, now an MBA candidate at Sloan, on how to apply portfolio optimization based on standard MPT to crypto portfolios.
The author uses Enigmaās Catalyst platform (a platform to run micro crypto funds using data shared on the Enigma network).
Accelerating Evolution Through Forking
In a follow up post to his excellent funding protocol development through inflation, Fred Ehrsam elaborates on the value of (hard) forks as an evolutionary mechanism for blockchains.
Fred make strong argument for redistribution of tokens at forks (which rarely happens) to ensure incentives are fully aligned, by switching control of foundation-like tokens and diluting all token holders to make grants for the developers leading the fork.
Bitcoin Developers Reveal Roadmap for āDandelionā Privacy Project
Iām not going to link to the actual BIP thread because itās too complicated, BUT I think this is interesting.
There is a team that is working on a BIP called Dandelion which would add a privacy layer on top of Bitcoin transactions by removing the ability to find out the IP from the transactions.
The solution is a sort of TOR for Bitcoin.
This is interesting because many of the Bitcoin monitoring tools sold to governments and police around the world use this specific āfeatureā of the network to identify users.
The race for privacy coins is on, and with Ethereum enabling zk-snarks and Moneroās price rise + ZCash constant development, I donāt really see a future for non-private-by-default coins.
Ethereumās Metropolis Hardfork Activated on Testnet, a Zcash Transaction Verified
Byzantium, the first part of Ethereumās Metropolis hardfork, is live on testnet and it was just used to verity a zk-snark transaction.
Zooko also wrote about this from Zcashās side.
So cool to see core technology advancements go this fast, in a sea of ICO scams.
This is where the future is.
Every day I grow more convinced that our generationās Steve Jobs will be Vitalik.
āBut whereas in bitcoin the protocol exists to maintain the currency, in ethereum, the viewpoint is much more that the currency exists to maintain the protocol.ā
A great interview to read.
I am VERY excited about Ethereum, given the amazing pace of development. If my VC investment days have taught me something, seeing a project with this sort of public interest + quality fast code shipping, itās not going to slow down any time soon.
Vitalik shares his top-three priorities for Ethereumās development at the moment:
- PoS
- Scalability
- Privacy
š
Decentralizing Everything with Ethereumās Vitalik Buterin | Disrupt SF 2017
25 minutes of Naval interviewing Vitalik.
Amazing background watching.
YC wants to let people invest in its startups through the blockchain
The title is a bit misleading, but Sam is apparently admitting to YC having done work to figure out its approach to ICOs.
In the last YC batch there were only 2 blockchain companies, but that might change with the next one.
Weāll keep an eye out.
An Alleged Ethereum Hacker Gave Back $3 Million And Nobody Knows Why
Well this is a weird one. Remember that CoinDash hack? (Where a bunch of people even suggested that it was an inside job..)
Apparently the hacker just sent back around $3M worth of Ether they stole form Coindash / to Coindash.
I donāt have any mental energy or cycles to spend on this one, so just presenting it like it is.
Announcing Ethereum & Litecoin vaults ā Coinbase
FINALLY. This is my #1 favorite feature of Coinbase, but was only available for Bitcoin until this new release.
If you donāt have a hardware wallet, this is what you should be using.
Guide: Coin recovery tool ā TREZOR
Every time someone improves on the UX of crypto usage, itās awesome news.
In this case, Trezor has released some tools to enable the recovery of most erroneous transactions (when you send coins from specific chains to wrong chains or badly formatted addresses).
šØ Growing pains
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a brief statement warning consumers about the risks involved in ICOs, stating how some ICOs āfall outside the regulated spaceā, some donāt. Notable difference with US security law is that the UK does not have an equivalent to the Howey test.
On that note, if you are into security law and can bear with Preston Byrneās marmot jokes, heās meticulously dissected the FCA announcement here from the perspective on an English lawyer.
Of all the major regulators who have expressed views, the UK FCA appears to have taken the most light touch approach so far.
š¤” ICO Madness
Raiden ICO: Ethereum Scaling Solution to Launch Publicly Traded Token
āEthereumās answer to bitcoinās Lightning Network will have one notable difference ā a publicly traded token to be sold in a Dutch auction in October.ā
This is a big disappointment for me, as I was really hoping that Raiden would launch without a token and bring Lightning-like capabilities to the Ethereum chain.
Too hard to ignore the millions flying around obviously.
Iāll try to not trigger the spam filters here, article is SFW, site is not.
Crypto bubble fears grow as Jamie Foxx, celebrities jump aboard
Weāve spoken about this before, but hopefully peak ICO is almost around the corner.
We wouldnāt be surprised if some of these celebrities are going to end up being prosecuted for the promotion of unregistered securities, insider trading, bribes and so on, as they most likely are receiving both cash and tokens, which they have an incentive to help appreciate in value.
šæ
Is There a Cryptocurrency Bubble? Just Ask Doge. ā The New York Times
The NYT interviews the creator of Dogecoin, which has been sounding the alarm for a while now.
Blackmoon Crypto raises $20 million in ICO in 1 day, and $10M in pre-sale
The Blackmoon Crypto platform touts itself as āa one-stop solution for asset managers to create and manage legally-compliant tokenized fundsā
š Cool new projects
Roger Ver and a bunch of early Bitcoin millionaires (billionaires?) are planning to buy land and sovereignty over that land from a country. They have more than $100M, which they plan to offer to highly indebted countries to form a ānew Monacoā of sorts. It needs to be in a safe zone and be accessible by water.
Libertarians at it again.
I was enamored with the Seasteading Institute efforts, but Iāve also grown more interested and appreciative of the roles that nation states play in our lives.
That being said, Iām all for experimentation in government and monetary policy, so Iām extremely excited by this!
Iām also pretty sure that we might be looking at another ICO here.. but hopefully theyāll just adopt Bitcoin as the national currency instead.
BigchainDB, in partnership with Dex, unveiled the concept behind the Ocean Protocol, the natural evolution of their work on blockchain + AI.
Ocean will be a protocol and network to facilitate data marketplaces. The protocol will have the role of figuring out who owns what and provide the linking infrastructure.
Data marketplaces have been a pretty obvious idea since the beginning of blockchain and smart contract technologies, so itās exciting to see more people try to implement them.
Ocean will probably go on to compete with the Enigma network from MITās Media Lab.
Harvest ā Wind energy used to mine cryptocurrency to fund climate research
āHarvestā is a piece of tech-art commissioned by the Konstmuseet i Skƶvde museum that uses wind energy to power a computer, connected to the internet via satellite or 4G and geared with an Nvidia graphics card, to mine Zcash. The earnings will fund for climate-change research.
The interesting aspect of this experiment is that crypto currency offers an alternative and decentralised way to āstoreā energy without relying on a centralised grid and the fees typically incurred in transferring energy to it.
Announcing Balanc3: Quickbooks for Token Launches
Balanc3 ā a ConsenSys formation ā has been working in stealth for over a year to build out a blockchain-based accounting platform.
Super cool. They take live blockchain transaction data and turn it into accounting style data.
Sounds like the worst possible job to me, but really glad someone is doing it ā Iām sure this will be massively useful to a number of projects in the future.
RIpio is building a global credit network solution that aims to enhance transparency and reliability in credit and lending
š¤ First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, thenā¦
ECBās Constancio compares Bitcoin to Dutch tulip mania
āBitcoin is not a currency but a mere instrument of speculationā. āBitcoin is sort of a tulipā.
They just donāt know when to stop the broken record do they?
Stay Away from Bitcoin, Itās an āAbsolute Bubbleā Says Hathaway
This is just a gem to be added to the Bitcoin Obituaries, and I think weāll be watching this again and again in a few years.
Itās still fascinating how some people just. do. not. get. it. and feel confident in dismissing the whole asset class and tech movement.
I just hope Iāll never end up making such comments about new technologies when Iām all grown up. Chances are slim unfortunately š
Russian Governor Invites Cryptocurrency Miners to Set Up Mining Farms in Leningrad
The regulatory and geopolitical wars (protocolitics as Yannick coined them) continue!
The Russian Leningrad region wants to create an industrial park for cryptocurrency mining including bitcoin.
They are promising cheap energy and some special conditions, to try and attract maybe even some of the Chinese operators.
JPMorgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon faces market abuse report after his comments about bitcoin
Fun times!
Blockswater, an algorithmic liquidity provider, has filed a market abuse report against Jamie Dimon for āspreading false and misleading informationā about bitcoin with the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority.
They say Dimon violated Article 12 of the European Unionās Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) by declaring that cryptocurrency bitcoin was āa fraudā.
They also say that JPM traded BTC derivatives in Stockholm, so they might actually have a real case.
On the internet, everyone gets hacked.
š¤ VC corner
Balderton leads $9 million Series B in Luno
We humbly admit we had not come across Luno before, and praise Nicolas Debock from Balderton for keeping his lips sealed about it at the Venture Retreat last weekendā¦
The play here is the global mass market adoption of crypto and the need for user friendly front ends for fiat to enter the ecosystem.
š° New funds
Linda Xie leaves Coinbase to start a yet unnamed crypto-fund
Coinbase spins out crypto fund managers faster than it resolves support tickets.
After Nick Tomaino (1Confirmation) and Olaf Carlson-Wee (Polychain), Linda, former product manager, and Jordan Clifford, software engineer, join forces in yet another crypto hedge fund endeavour.
Steven McKie leaves Purse to start crypto hybrid hedge/venture fund Amentum
Author of Blockchannel podcast and former head of growth at Purse and more recently decentralised-Quora Cent.co, Steven McKie is teaming up with three other partners with a new crypto fund endeavour. Focus will be on public crypto assets as well as ICO pre-sales, with no info yet on fund size and other other GPs.
Steven is a true crypto-native so we very much look forward to finding out more about what heās been cooking up, we hope itās not just about muscling in on pre-sale discounts and buy & hold ETH/BTC!
More info soon, we are promised.
ā¹ļø About us
Token Economy is written and curated by Stefano and Yannick.
If youāre building a new fundamental piece of technology for the future, please reach out š¤