Token Economy — Inaugural Issue
Keeping track of new developments in the distributed ledger technology space
Welcome to Token Economy!
As many of you, for the past months I’ve been thinking full-time about tokens and the massive amount of innovation that these new models are bringing us.
Information seems scattered all over the place, so I’ve decided to launch a newsletter to curate all of the interesting news and opinions that we find online every week.
Isn’t this just like The Control? I love what Nick is doing and I think he’s really one of the thought leaders in the space.
With Token Economy I plan on having a bit of a broader net and talk about emerging companies as well as specific news on currently traded tokens as well as upcoming ICOs. I also plan on making this a weekly series, given that in my opinion the space moves too fast for longer timeframes.
Regardless, I’m building this for myself, to help me keep track of all the crazy things that are happening in the space and are making us all so excited.
I hope it can be helpful to you too!
All I’m offering is the truth 💊:
After this, there is no turning back. You click the unsubscribe link — the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.
You read on — you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Token economy 📌
Michael Karnjanaprakorn explains how network effects in token economies are even more crucial to evaluate projects.
Why OpenBazaar Token Doesn’t Exist
The OpenBazaar team goes contrarian and announces they won’t hold an ICO. Yet. Thoughtful
Pretty sure you all have read Vitalik’s post on ICO models. Must read 🎯
Great post by Jillian Schwiep on how PoS and sharding could impact the crypto space for the better. 🔥
On ICO Madness and Having a Basic Framework for Investment Decisions
Well didn’t think I’d link to reddit, but here’s a nice post (with other nice posts mentioned) with a 22-point ICO “due diligence” framework. Good reminder.
Aligning incentives in ICOs and token economies
Some thoughts about what to actually think when designing token structures and planning ICOs. Shameless plug.
Yannick Roux explains how traditional equity valuation methods come short in crypto and what we could actually look at. #economics
Initial Coin Offerings: Where the SEC Might Stand — CoinDesk
Three lawyers speculate how / when the SEC will intervene regarding ICOs.
An ICO is Kickstarter & AngelList for great technical founders — at 100x the scale
“This is literally the gun going off at the start of the biggest race since they opened up the ARPANET and created the internet and the first runners (Coinbase, Ripple, Brave) are already running as hard as they can.”
Gil Penchina is all in.
🔊 PODCAST: Ryan Zurrer, Polychain Capital
Interview to Polychains’ Ryan Zurrer about investing in blockchain startups aligning users, developers, and investor. By Hampus Jakobsson.
If you were not around..
The Ether Thief — Inside the Bold Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Digital Heist
A very nice investigative journalism effort from Bloomberg chronicling the DAO heist, one of the most fascinating history tidbits in crypto.
ICOs: News and Upcoming ones we’re watching
Estonian bank Polybius reaches $20 million with its ICO — still going on
One of the more startup-like projects around. Polybius is trying to build a fully regulated bank in Estonia, that will be friendly to the crypto space.
There’s still some small time to participate in the ICO.
Status ICO moved to June 20th!
Status is an interface to access Ethereum, built for Android & iOS.One of the most exciting projects around in my opinion.
Disclaimer: I will try and participate. 💸
⚠️ Be careful on where you send your ETH. Scammers already stole around $75k by providing fake addresses ⚠️
Here’s a long and detailed PDF overview of what Tezos is, how the foundation is structured and what the fundraiser will look like.
Uncapped ICO right here.🍿
Hive Project Pre-sale: Tokenized invoice financing
I was building this at Kickpay in a non-tokenized fashion, so I have my biases and will let you make your own thoughts :)
Cofound.it Priority Pass: your priority ticket to the best crowdsales
If you have 5,000 CFI, you can gain “priority” access to some crowdsales. Never stop experimenting I guess.
A New Paradigm — Understanding The Bancor Protocol
Great, great post about Bancor. Even after the shady ICO, and maybe a not-so-great current product, the project’s potential is still astounding.
Whitepapers I’m reading
Cool new projects
A blockchain-based VR world
Santiment — crypto market intelligence platform
Pre-sale over, 12,000 ETH collected
Nimiq: A Frictionless Payment Protocol Native to the Web
Nimiq is a frictionless peer-to-peer payment protocol for the World Wide Web. It is a next-generation Blockchain protocol combining elements of Bitcoin and Ethereum, streamlined for the web platform.
A DAO that owns and autonomously operates a forest 😮💥
A smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain controls the in- and outputs of the forest. Every six months a programme fetches satellite pictures of the property from a supplier outside of the Blockchain. With the help of self-written image-analysis software, the programme can determine how much wood can be sold without overly-diminishing the tree population. The smart contract acts according to contractually invariable rules. A rudimentary function makes it possible for the system to buy additional properties and thus to expand.
BTC, ETH, Altcoins and Shitcoins
Charlie Lee leaves Coinbase to Focus on Litecoin Development
Charlie Lee left his position as the director of engineering at Coinbase to solely focus on the development of Litecoin and innovative applications.
LTC soon reached a $2 market value! 🚀 To the moon
❌ Be safe everyone! And most definitely don’t post your recovery seed online!! ❌
SPLIT: Thoughts on BIP148, UASF, SegWit, Bitcoin, Life, the Universe and Everything
The debate on Bitcoin’s UASF is getting really tiring, and we’re seeing a LOT of childish behavior all around.
It’s almost like being back in high school, but if people had money.
But I digress. Giacomo Zucco is a Bitcoin maximalist, but in this post he explains very clearly the situation for people that haven’t been following too closely. Recommended.
On Competition, Technology, and Prices, or, Why We Do Not Speak About The Others
Golem don’t care. 🦑
From the Trading Desk
Litecoin’s “Chickun” Awakens 🐔
$LTC reached all time highs at near $50 on its largest volumes ever recorded (higher than BTC in the last 24hrs). After its founder Charlie Lee left Coinbase last week to focus 100% on $LTC, crypto traders, particularly from Asia, are piling in $LTC as a natural hedge against a potential $BTC chain split in August.
$ETC research available on Bloomberg Terminals
$ETC also broke all time high north of $23, the same week its research became the first of all cryptos to be accessible to old school traders via Bloomberg Terminals. The Ethereum hard-fork main also soon host its first ICO.
Crypto Asset Fund looks to raise $400 million to buy into blockchain frenzy
Sophisticated investors are starting to gear up now that the crypto market offers more liquidity and a broader pool of assets. 💰
Diversified Cryptocurrency Fund Launching From Zug Valley
Crypto Fund AG is launching an index-based Cryptocurrency Fund, to be registered with the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, in response to “growing demand of qualified investors for a regulated and transparent gateway to cryptocurrencies”. Long Crypto Valley! 🇨🇭
VC funding
🇫🇷 Blockchain Startup Stratumn closes a €7 million Series A round
Paris-based Stratumn helps companies securing and streamlining regulatory and compliance procedures. It raised from Open CNP, the Corporate Venture arm of CNP Assurances, Otium Venture, Nasdaq and Digital Currency Group.
🇩🇪 Xtech raises a six-figure round from Essen’s energy company Innogy
Berlin-based Xtech operates a payment platform based on the Ethereum blockchain that aims to enable the machine-to-machine economy.
About us
My name is Stefano, and I run a small angel fund called Mission and Market.
I’m obviously a big believer in DLT, and have been a holder of Bitcoin for a good while (first got to know it at $0.8 — a missed chance at infinite financial freedom and a painful lesson) but later participated in the Ethereum ICO and have been investing in tokens, ICOs and blockchain companies ever since.
And I’m Yannick, currently part of an early stage micro-VC in London. I’m somewhere half-way through the crypto rabbit hole, getting more excited by the day by the potential upside of the blockchain and decentralized economies. Thanks Stefano for letting me help and learn!
If you have an interesting deal, please send over!
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