Bitcoin’s surprising rise in 2017 helped forge a new moment for digital currencies and blockchain technology. Since the beginning of its torrid run, hundreds of new blockchain startups, dubbed altcoins, have emerged to create a crowded and diverse ecosystem. Every altcoin begins with an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), which is an interesting combination of the similarly named Initial Public Offering (IPO) and a crowdfunding campaign. For an ICO, a company often produces a white paper that outlines its product [...]

Browse almost any list of companies with the worst reputations, and undoubtedly big banks and institutional investment firms will be present. This is because oftentimes, these large entities have piles of cash they can leverage to gain power and control over the target investment.Unfortunately for the cryptocurrency community, these institutions are setting their sights on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a whole host of other coins. While some are waiting for Bitcoin futures to begin trading on the CME, others are using [...]

Once seen as fringe by mainstream investors, initial coin offerings are now the talk of Silicon Valley as well as Wall Street. They’ve raised over $3.2 billion this year which is about 3,000 percent more than they raised in 2016. The rise has been dramatic, to put it mildly. To be fair, they offer a new model for crowdsourced fundraising, allow people to raise more money than they’d be able to from venture capitalists, from a larger base, all [...]

What do ICOs and venture capitalists have in common? Well, for one, they may be one of the reasons why traditional IPOs (initial public offerings) have been on the decline the past several years. According to some, the access to private equity through venture capitalism has led companies to source all of their funding through private channels, rather than going to traditional open markets. Additionally, internet companies have raised more through ICOs than they have with venture capital firms [...]