ICO

A dormant cryptocurrency whale that participated in Ethereum’s initial coin offering (ICO) back in 2015 has sprung back to life. The whale purchased 8,000 $ETH, equivalent to nearly $15 million at the time of writing, during the ICO. According to blockchain monitoring service Lookonchain, the reactivation process started with a cautious initial transaction, involving a […]

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the indictment that was unveiled yesterday (following McAfee’s arrest) charges him with “tax evasion and willful failure to file tax returns.” The DOJ’s press release says that this indictment (dated 15 June 2020) alleges that for the 2014-2018 period John David McAfee “failed to file tax return” […]

The decentralized finance (DeFi) space has been trending in the cryptocurrency industry so far this year thanks to various developments and trends seen in it, including the introduction of governance tokens and yield farming.

The SEC has accused Dropil, Inc. and its three California-based founders of using a fake crypto trading bot and falsified profitability reports to defraud investors of millions. 

Contents Protocol Team, a South Korean cryptocurrency startup that raised over 29,300 ether via an initial coin offering (ICO) and a private token sale in 2018, is shutting down and refunding its investors.

Messaging giant Telegram has refused to share bank details with the SEC in their ongoing suit over GRAM’s $1.7 billion token sale. 

In a bold move Hydra, reportedly Russia’s largest darknet market, has revealed it’s planning its own initial coin offering (ICO) to fund a global expansion.

Maksim Zaslavskiy, a 39-year-old businessman from New York, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted for “conspiring to commit securities fraud”, or more specifically running initial coin offering (ICO) scams. 

OpenLibra co-founder Lucas Geiger is being accused on Twitter for his role in the Wireline.io ICO held in 2018. Andrew Lee, who invested $1 million into Geiger’s project, has not heard back from the co-founder and claims the ICO made numerous false promises. 

The price of Eos has moved past the $3 mark, as the cryptocurrency’s price jumped after Block.one, the company behind it, agreed to pay $24 million over its unregistered initial coin offering (ICO).

The ATAIX crypto exchange platform is hostinga Gram sale event, selling unlocked Gram contracts that will instantly be converted into Grams and become tradable following the launch of the TON network. This is the first event of its kind, providing its users with the earliest opportunity get to get their hands on Gram tokens that they will receive as soon as TON launches.

Klay, the native cryptocurrency of South Korean messaging group Kakao’s Klaytn blockchain will make its debut listing on the Upbit exchange.

Japan-based Liquid Exchange has published the wallet address holding investor funds from their July GRAM pre-sale, ahead of the highly-anticipated official release by Telegram. 

TZERO has announced that its securities tokens (TZROP) are now allowed to be traded among non-accredited investors, however, the platform offers limited functionality.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on Tuesday (August 20) that it had charged Russian ICO rating agency “ICO Rating” for “failing to disclose it was paid to tout digital assets.”

Blockchain and crypto startups are attracting immense investor attention on a global scale, within a handful of years, these startups have raised a whopping $46 billion to date. With such a resounding success, it’s easy to get caught up in exuberant stories of the best startups. 

Since June last year, Ripple has been under the shadow of a California-based Class Action lawsuit alleging that its own cryptocurrency, XRP, was sold as an unregistered security. Now, an update to the case invoke new directives from the SEC to further the case against it. 

ICOs kicked off a new method of fundraising four years ago, with 2017 seeing the peak of the ICO phenomena coincide with crypto prices reaching their highest point in history. However, they soon witnessed a steep decline in popularity entering 2018, as exit scams and fraudulent token sales took their toll on investor’s faith and interest in ICOs.

Italian Professional football club, Associazione Sportiva Roma (A.S. Roma), has announced that it will launch an “official Fan Token” in partnership with Socios.

Top crypto headlines from the past day: predictions on Facebook’s cryptocurrency by a respected blockchain advocate; Sparkster’s SPRK token hits exchanges at a slither of its ICO price; and Bittrex to disable support for 32 cryptocurrencies for U.S. customers.

On Tuesday (June 4), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it had filed a lawsuit against Kik Interactive Inc. for allegedly selling in 2017 its “Kin” token to U.S. investors without registering its offer and sale. Since the SEC claims that this is in direct violation of the registration requirements of Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933, it is aiming for “a permanent injunction, disgorgement plus interest, and a penalty.”

Initial coin offerings (ICO) have only managed to raise $40 million so far this year, according to BitMEX’s research division.

Leading today’s crypto headlines was Facebook’s announcement it will significantly relax its ad policy for a number of cryptocurrency-related products and offerings. Two prominent exchanges Binance and Bitfinex released important business plans.

Earlier this year Binance, a leading cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, launched a token sale platform called Binance Launchpad.

Sponsy, a blockchain-based platform that was being developed to help sponsors engage with their clients in a decentralized manner, has reportedly made its way to eBay, a leading e-commerce and online auctions site.    

It seems that Huobi doesn’t want Binance to have all the fun, because on Wednesday (March 20th), it announced that its new token launch platform “Huobi Prime” will go live on March 26th.

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex has recently canceled its first initial exchange offering (IEO) over changes to the business status of the project that was going to sell its tokens through it.

Leading US-based cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex is set to host what it called an initial exchange offering (IEO), in which it’ll sell tokens to investors for bitcoin. The move comes in a bid to compete with Binance’s token sale platform, Binance Launchpad.

United Arab Emirates-based Emaar Group, a billion dollar real estate development firm focused on launching large-scale projects such as the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, is reportedly planning to introduce its own crypto-based token.    

Investments in initial coin offerings (ICOs) have dropped by nearly 95% according to data from cryptocurrency analytics firm, Coinschedule. In March 2018, ICOs raised over $5.8 billion, however Coinschedule reported that the popular crowdfunding method attracted only $291 million in total investments during January 2019. 

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will be clarifying its stance on securities laws – as they apply to cryptocurrency token sales. In a speech delivered at the University of Missouri School of Law, Hester Peirce, a prominent SEC commissioner who’s known for supporting crypto-related initiatives, stated that the securities regulator was preparing “supplemental guidance” for firms planning to launch initial coin offerings (ICOs).

Respond to a recently filed lawsuit Moshe Hogeg, an Israeli cryptocurrency entrepreneur, revealed his company has no obligation ot use investor’s funds as claimed in its whitepaper, and that “investors have no ownership rights in the cryptocurrency company they invest in.”

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) raised 25% less funds during fourth quarter 2018 – compared to the previous quarter, according to a recent report by ICObench, a service that provides ratings and reviews on cryptocurrency token sales. During Q4 2018, there were 594 ICOs completed by startups throughout the world, and 554 ICOs were successfully conducted in Q3 2018, the ICObench revealed in a recent report.    

South Korea’s government has reportedly decided not to lift its ban on initial coin offerings (ICOs) – presumably due to the lack of a well-defined regulatory framework for digital assets. 

Hosho, one of the top smart contract auditors in the world is letting go of 80% of its staff. The company is one of many in the industry that are facing layoffs in the ongoing bear market. 

Andy Bromberg, the co-founder and president CoinList, a crypto and initial coin offerings (ICOs) “spin-off” of AngelList, has said that all the hype around cryptocurrencies has gone away and he thinks the market is going to stay quiet for awhile. However, this is an ideal time for building the real-world solutions that people will actually use, Bromberg explained.  

South Korea is reportedly maintaining its ban on initial coin offerings (ICOs) as the country’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) has recently found some projects broke the ban, and concluded the offerings are highly risky for investors.

Zhewen Hu, a Chinese cryptocurrency investor, has recently filed a $4.6 million lawsuit in the Tel Aviv District Court against STX Technologies Limited – also known as Stox – and against its founder Moshe Hogeg, alleging he misappropriated millions worth of crypto.

Are ICOs dead? The ICO model or concept which fueled the crypto bull market of 2017 is pretty much dead, kaput, or whatever term we may choose to describe its demise

Several users on Reddit and Twitter have raised some red flags regarding Substratum, an open-source project aimed at creating a foundation for the decentralized web. The more recent concerns about the project were raised by crypto enthusiast Brian Li over a series of tweets. 

KodakCoin ran a beta where photographers were able to generate over $1 million in revenue. Many critics are surprised that this project could end up a success.

The Philippines’ Securities and Exchange Commission (PSEC) has recently delayed the issuance of finalized regulations for initial coin offerings (ICOs), which were expected to come by the end of last year.

The Iranian government concluded 2018 by declaring the popular messaging app Telegram and their developing cryptocurrency token a threat to the national economy.

Late 2017 was a time of explosive growth in blockchain, when many projects made money virtually out of thin air. In the recent months, the cryptomarket went through an expected cooling-off period and is now entering a new stage in its development.

Arthur Hayes, the co-founder and CEO of BitMEX, the world’s largest cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform, recently predicted that the price of Ethereum’s native token, ether (ETH), will “rebound aggressively.” 

This year wasn’t as a good for the cryptocurrency space as 2017, at least when it comes to prices. While last year bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency jumped from $1,000 to a near $20,000 all-time high, this year it came back down to a little under $3,200 before recovering.

The United Arab Emirates is reportedly set to introduce regulations for initial coin offerings (ICOs) in the country in the first half of next year, in a move that’s being made to provide businesses a fundraising alternative.

Warren Davidson, an American politician and member of the US House of Representatives from the state of Ohio, has recommended using a cryptocurrency to fund President Trump’s project – which involves building a wall across the US border with neighboring country Mexico.  

Andreas Utermann, the chief executive officer of Allianz Global Investors, has recently argued cryptocurrencies like bitcoin should be “outlawed” as he believes these have been harmful to retail investors who put their money into them.

In a recent speech, the chairman of the SEC discussed ICOs, saying that they are an effective way to raise capital, but could be risky. The speech focused on how to protect investors while at the same time encouraging growth in the market. 

The government of South Korea is reportedly planning on taxing initial coin offerings (ICOs) and cryptocurrencies, according to a document submitted by finance minister nominee Hong Nam-ki.

Japan’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), will reportedly be introducing a new regulatory framework for initial coin offerings (ICOs). Due to the large number of scams carried out via ICOs throughout the world, Japan’s regulatory authorities are planning to place a limit on how much the nation’s citizens can invest in ICO-related projects. 

Jerry Ji Guo, a former journalist at Newsweek, New York Times, and the Washington Post, has reportedly been involved in a number of scams – including securing funding for a group-dating service from VC firm YCombinator, but then abandoning the project just eight months later. 

BANKEX, a Moscow-based fintech firm focusing on the construction of tokenization platforms, has partnered with Munich-based trading software company Devexperts, in order to build out its services platforms. 

On Thursday (29 November 2018), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), announced that it had settled charges against boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and music producer Khaled Khaled (better known as “DJ Khaled”) for “failing to disclose payments they received for promoting investments in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs),” and said that these were “the SEC’s first cases to charge touting violations involving ICOs.”

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) became a popular crowdfunding model in 2017 – when cryptocurrency prices reached their all-time highs. Although most ICO projects have failed so far in being able to deliver working products and/or services and many have been outright scams, there are a few blockchain-based ICO initiatives that are developing promising platforms.    

A recent report by Reuters shows how many publications are publishing paid cryptocurrency reviews without disclosing it to their audience. 

The recent market sell-off that saw bitcoin go under the $4,000 mark for the first time since September of 2017, has seen initial coin offering (ICO) projects withdraw over 170,000 ETH, currently worth about $19.3 million, from their treasuries.

ICORating, one of the leading authorities in ICO research and listing, has published a paper analyzing the performance of the ICO Market in the third quarter of this calendar year. The ICORating analysts concluded that Q3 2018 was not as successful as Q2 and Q1, as only $1.8 billion were raised this quarter.

The Tron Foundation has announced the start of Tron Accelerator, an incubator program that plans to use $1M to fund dApps in the start-up phase. The awards will be split up between 56 projects, and winners will be announced in 2019 at Tron’s niTROn summit.