How to conduct Initial Coin Offer (ICO) – the checklist

DISCLAIMER: This is a perpetual WORK-IN-PROGRESS and thus doesn’t claim to be comprehensive but rather to serve as a guide. We welcome any feedback, especially suggestions for improvement from companies who have done an (successful) ICO. Suggested approaches and numbers in the checklist are not carved in stone/truth but guidelines. Lastly, information (names of people, entities, numbers) not present in the checklist will be shared only based on explicit interests and requests on case by case basis. USE all the info below and in the checklist at your own risk and for your benefit and guidance.

Context and mania

The amount of money being raised through Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) has quintupled since May 2017. The four largest ICOs to date – Filecoin ($206M), Tezos ($232M), EOS ($180M), and Bancor ($154M) – have raised $772 million between them. We are experiencing a bubble, but not as crazy when compared to $8 trillion over market capitalisation during the dot.com era. With proliferation of ICOs and tokens, era of zombie tokens is also upon us. You can check new and ongoing ICOs rated here.

cumulative_ico-1-1

Coindesk: Over $3.5 billion dollars have been raised to date via ICOs

It was a hot summer with $462M raised in June 2017, $575M in July 2017, and the peak was reached in September 2017 with a whopping $663M of ICO funding.

ICO regulations are coming .. and the checklist

ICO mania started cooling after September 4, 2017 when the People’s Bank of China placed a temporary ban on ICOs.

In view of ICO and blockchain mania, SEC has issued guidelines and statements. SEC has already charged two ICOs with fraud. Tezos has been hit with two class action lawsuits.  Singapore’s MAS and Malaysia’s SC have already highlighted risks and issued preliminary guidelines related to ICOs. Other regulators will also be tightening up compliance and regulatory guidelines further in next few months. Projects such as SAFT (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens) help navigate US laws.

OK, so there are six main aspects to an Initial Coin Offering:

  1. Team/Advisors
  2. Technology
  3. Product/Platform
  4. Business Model
  5. Legal/Regulation
  6. Marketing/Roadshow and Investor Relations

And most companies differentiate between pre-ICO, ICO and post-ICO stages of activities.

With the above points in mind, here is a draft ICO checklist. Use, benefit and be successful!

Note: This ICO checklist was created in collaboration with Nikita Akimov whose current platform has 1.2 million MAUs and is currently doing its ICO.

P.S. Based on type of business/product/platform, I might be able to share a list of crypto funds and investors.

Can technology fail humanity?

Technology, a combination of two Greek words signifying ‘systematic treatment of art/craft/technique,’ is:

the collection of techniques, skills, methods and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives..

Whether it was discovery of fire, building a shelter, invention of weapons – and in modern times – invention of Internet, microchips, etc., it has always been about inventing, discovering and using information, techniques and tools to induce or cause economic, scientific and social progress or improvement.

However, the progress that technology caused has neither been linear or impending or ubiquitous or even obvious. All Four Great Inventions of China happened before 12th century AD. But, on the other side, despite Hippocrates’ treatise (dating from 400 BC) that, contrary to the common ancient Greek belief that epilepsy was caused by offending moon goddess Selene, it had a cure in form of medicine and diet, 12th-14th century Christendom perceived epilepsy as the work of demons and evil spirits, and its cure was to pray to St. Valentine and other saints. And in many cases, progress of technology itself or its consequences have been a matter of pure chance or serendipity, whether it is penicillin, X-rays or 3M’s post-its.

So, ironic as it is, until recently, technology hasn’t been very systematic in its own progress, let alone its impact on society, economy and culture of nations. But it’s become a lot more systematic since the dawn of Information Age, last 60 or so years. Since microchips, computer networks and digital communication were invented (all in the US), the technology became more systematic in its own progress and it’s becoming more miniature, cheaperfaster and more ubiquitous than ever before in human history. Ubiquitous technology makes the world hyper-connected and digital. Whether it is our phones, thermostats, cars, washing machines, everything is becoming connected to everything.  It is thus no coincidence that California (Silicon Valley + Hollywood) has recently become the 6th largest economy in the world, thanks to its beaconing technological and creative progress embodied in last 60 or so years.

Trump era has begun in January 2017, and he already did more to damage any potential technological and scientific progress coming from the US than any of his predecessors. From trying to unreasonably curb immigration from Muslim countries to terminating TPP to undoing progress in transitioning to clean energy and again focusing on coal to disempowering OSTP, Trump wraps his decisions with firebrand rhetoric and well-thought out psychological biases (anchoring bias is his favourite) around one message: MAGA.  Hopes are turning to China as the next flag-bearer of technological progress.

Nowadays, even coffee-shops are hyper-connected, aiming to personalize our coffee-drinking experience. And thanks to its omnipresence and pervasiveness of Internet, wireless connections, telecommunications, etc., technology (smartphones, games, virtual worlds, 3D headsets, etc.) is becoming and end in itself. In countries and cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, New York, digital and smartphone addiction is already a societal problem causing unintended deaths, lack of maturity, loss of educational productivity, marriage breakups, to cite but a few. In Singapore, where according to recent research, Millennials spend an average of 3.4h/day on their smartphones, government is now putting in place policies and organizations to tackle this psychological addiction.

However, even Bernie Sanders knows that technology cannot and should not be an end in itself or an addiction. Could Internet and technologies fail? Could Internet and thinking linked to it spell the end of capitalism? Could it cause societies, cultures and nations to fail?

Technology has proven to fail itself and us when it became an end in itself.

Only when it stays true to its nature and acts as an enabler, a platform for human endeavors is when technology will succeed. It can even end poverty or other problems and issues human race is facing..

 

Singapore, Rousseau and the social contract

In 1965, less than two years after joining Malaysia, Singapore was forced to leave the bigger country and declare its own independence.

Then its economy was in tatters. Lawlessness reigned. High levels of unemployment, lack of sanitation, short supply of potable water, and ethnic conflict were conditions that marred Singapore. About three million people, half of who were unemployed, occupied an island that was sandwiched between two large and unfriendly states: Malaysia and Indonesia. Ethnic Chinese and Malays were divided by race and language and often fought street battles.

Both economy and political situation were dire and mutually reinforcing.

1960s conventional wisdom in economics held that every nation, especially a small one, needed a hinterland to succeed. Singapore had none. The status-quo wisdom of development economists was that multinational corporations were great exploiters of cheap land, labor and raw material.

Forced to by all means to find work for their people, the leaders of Singapore engaged in promoting “globalization” before it became fashionable to do so.  The reason why Singapore embraced globalization one generation earlier than other third world countries was because it had no choice but go against the dependency theory that was the predominate economic thinking of then.

But globalization was but one sign of manifestation of a bigger picture. At the heart of the Singapore model is the social contract that was articulated between the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) run government and the people of Singapore. In essence, it said that while the people were willing to accept more government control, give up some individual rights, and work hard, the government would create the environment that would deliver prosperity and a better quality of life.

The idea of social contract is not new.  Rousseau was among one of the most prominent theorists of social contract. In his view, the larger the bureaucracy, the more power required for government discipline. Normally, this relationship requires the state to be an aristocracy or monarchy (as far as he is concerned, both could be elected). Rousseau argues that the political authority (with which people are in social contract) will have two parts, sovereign (generic, legislative, representing the general will, which he defines as the rule of law) and government (particular, administrative day-to-day).

The autocratic dominance of the ruling PAP also provided confidence that national policies based on the social contract would remain stable in the short run, while continued efforts would be made to plan for Singapore’s long-term challenges.  And they did.

In the period of 1960-1999, Singapore had been able to achieve an average annual economic growth of 8%.  Singapore became one of the fastest-growing countries from 1970 to 2000, and the country has been classified as a ‘Growth Miracle’ and as an ‘Asian Tiger Economy’. As a result, World Bank officially classified Singapore as a “developed economy.”

The Singapore story is a thorn in the side of development specialists from the school of thought that Samuel Huntington has labeled as ‘convergence’ theorists, who believe that all desirable characteristics of national development (democracy, free markets, higher standards of living, etc.) reinforce one another. While democracy in Indonesia after Suharto and in the Philippines after Marcos has caused even more economic uncertainty and overall poverty, it has been the reign of an autocratic regime in Singapore that delivered economic development.

1. As the democratization of third world countries in Eastern Europe, Latin America and East Asia has shown over the last decade, being elected to office by the general populace provides no guarantee that national leaders will be free of corruption, effective, or dedicated to the national interest. In the case of even President Salinas of Mexico, a moderately respected elected president by Latin American standards, the national interest came second to his personal interest to keep the instability of the Mexican economy brewing while he changed jobs to become the head of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Contrary to the unanimous pushing by his economic advisors who were convinced that Mexican currency and financial markets could be saved from imminent collapse if an immediate devaluation of the currency was made before his retirement, Salinas did not act for fear of blotting his reputation. Like the Mexican example, the financial collapse of democratic Thailand and Russia in 1997 showed that elected leaders who come to power with substantial expectations on their shoulders after intense campaigning in which they promised significant national (social and economic) development, can never be immune from mortgaging the future of their people to finance grandiose if imprudent national projects that among other things, serve to enrich the cronies that helped in the outcome of the election in the first place.

2. Apart from effective governance, Singapore government exercises considerable discipline in managing its economic affairs. While PAP ran on a socialist platform to get elected, it was careful of which industries the government nationalized. Usually, the government did not intervene in markets it felt the private sector was doing a good job of meeting Singapore’s economical interests. This policy was outlined in a speech called “Survival” that former foreign minister, S. Rajaratnam, delivered in the early 1970s. In the speech, Rajaratnam told that the government supported state-run corporations like Singapore Airlines and Neptune Ocean Lines because the private sector did not have the ambition nor the financial backing to start such essential organizations that would make possible trade with the developed countries.

3. Importance that the government has attached to Singapore’s human resources development and the investments it has made in its own people. While the PAP ruthlessly crashed all independent labor unions and consolidated what remained into a union umbrella group called the National Trade Union Congress (NTUC), which it directly controlled, it did set up technical schools as well as paid foreign corporations to train unskilled workers for higher paying jobs in electronics, ship repair, and petrochemicals. For those who still could not get industrial jobs, the government enrolled the participation of the NTUC in creating labor intensive, “un-tradable” services, mostly for the purposes of tourism and transportation.