The market in Initial Coin Offerings risks becoming a bubble
But it may also spawn valuable innovations
WOULD you care to invest in Gnosis, a prediction market where users can bet on outcomes of events such as elections? Or in ZrCoin, a project to produce zirconium dioxide, used to make heat-resistant alloys? How about an “immersive reality experience” called “Back to Earth”?
These are just three of a new wave of what are called Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). Nearly $250m has already been invested in such offerings, of which $107m alone has flowed in this year, according to Smith+Crown, a research firm. But it was in April that ICOs, or “token sales”, as insiders prefer to call them, really took off. On April 24th Gnosis collected more than $12m in under 15 minutes, valuing the project, in theory, at nearly $300m.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline "Coining it"
Finance & economics April 29th 2017
- The Trump administration starts to turn up the heat on trade
- Credit Suisse unveils another change of course
- Protecting American steel from imports makes no sense
- Exchange-traded funds become too specialised
- The market in Initial Coin Offerings risks becoming a bubble
- The threat of war can bring much-needed investment
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