ASTRATUM invited to the ICO17, Berlin: “ICO — A New Way of Corporate Financing.” Aug’17
Note: BTC-Echo as leading German Cryptomagazine covered our event in German here. You can watch the recorded event, which was livestreamed on YouTube. You can find the slides of the presenters here. Read this post in Korean here. Subscribe to our newsletter on our homepage to stay up2date.
Last week ASTRATUM hosted another ICO event as a reaction to the ongoing interest and demand from the community it received after its most recent event — TOA17@ASTRATUM (“Making Sense of the Cryptoeconomy”). ASTRATUM invited again to an awesome evening at ASTRATUM garage @ IKONIC studio, Berlin. This time, it was about ICO’s, or tokensales. The event, which looked at the regulatory framework of ICOs, was organized in collaboration with the international law firm DWF, the European Venture Capital Fund Earlybird, the German Blockchain Federation and the Innovation Forum Blockchain. Windingtree, and ethfinex, two awesome international blockchain projects joined. Windingtree is having an ICO on Sep.18, while ethfinex choose another approach to create value with their token.
Again, we had full house. Interest for crypto is growing at an impressive rate. We had participants coming from Argentina, Austria, California, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland and the UK to Berlin for this event.
The event was opened by Sven Laepple, founder of ASTRATUM, who gave a basic introduction to the theme of the evening. He explained the function of a token: In addition to value storage and an investment option, an increasing share of cryptos, especially ethereum-based ERC-20 tokens, primarily serves as a means of payment within a platform, so to speak, as fuel for a project. An ICO (Initial Coin Offering), or tokensale, therefore also serves the fundraising of the issuing companies, which can finance its blockchain project with the revenues from it. Furthermore, it is characteristic of an ICO to address primarly investors who are already crypto users, as they have experience in the crypto market. In this case, the new token is usually offered in exchange for other, classic tokens (bitcoin, ethers) within an ICO. Sven also mentioned the current difficulties for the masses to be able to trade with tokens by passing complicated and lengthy KYC (“Know Your Customer”) processes. Further, the current cryptoexchanges are just too complex for noobies. Just imagine how much the market capitalization of crypto could increase, once these hurdles fall.
This question was addressed by Nikita Fuchs’s first presentation entitled “Bringing the masses to ICO”. Short and concise, he presented the problems for potential new investors (high price fluctuations, availability, storage) and focused on an entry barrier: the registration in an exchange taking into account the KYC and AML (“Anti-Money Laundery”) regulations is unbelievably deterrent for many. Since anonymity is no longer given by these regulations, Nikita invited to discuss with him the development of systems that allow and simplify the purchase of cryptos with credit cards.
The next lecture focused on “Venture Financing in a decentralized world”. Speaker was Alexander Lange of EarlyBird Capital. He first spoke about the disadvantages of classical risk financing and the difficulties faced by founders. These include, for example, time spent, access to finance and the risk of wrong investments. In addition, potential donors look more closely at the short-term potential of the project, which is why a good idea with a stringent concept behind it does not automatically lead to a successful foundation. Instead, this type of investment would tend to promote monopolies and create an immense power concentration for investors of popular corporations (Facebook, Google).
On the other hand, there is the rise of the cryptocurrencies, which, compared to classical financial products, have the advantages of high liquidity and universal accessibility. In addition, many of them are, in the form of Smart Contracts, subject to a separate legal system independent of judicial review. Problems, however, are seen in the too fast capitalization within an ICO as well as in the inconsistent regulation.
Is the classical venture capital model thus obsolete by the advent of cryptocurrencies? The recent development shows the emergence of a hybrid structure in which traditional and institutionalized investors are active in the cryptomarket and tokens are not only available through mining and crypto exchanges, but also through funds or traditional financial market participants.
The legal situation of token in Germany was presented in a lecture by Arnab Naskar and Dr. Nina-Luisa Siedler under the title “Self Regulation and German Legal Perspective”. In the course of the seminar, the speakers were very detailed in the topics of jurisprudence. Legal dimensions, which should be observed with regard to cryptic measures, include security, data protection, financial supervision and consumer protection. The problem is the precise legal classification of cryptos: by definition, they are not bound by central banks or Fiat currencies, but are accepted by users and merchants as means of payment and means of preserving value.
There is no superordinate legal framework for cryptos, each country has its own — or no — legal certainty for tokens. When planning an ICO, it is therefore important to consider in which countries the token is intented to be used, since this is decisive for the legal treatment.
The idea of self-regulation in the crypto area was stimulated by Arnab Naskar. To this end, a Code of Conduct for ICOs, own rating agencies, dialogue and self-reflection would be proposed to enable transparent decentralized self-regulation.
Subsequently, two representatives of startups presented their respective ICO plans:
Windingtree, a blockchain-based decentralized open-source travel distribution platform (DAO), plans to launch its LifToken on Sept 18th.
Ethfinex, a hybrid decentralized exchange and trading platform, focussing on ethereum, will use diffently their token to create value on their platform.
At the end of the event, Sven moderated a short panel discussion with Alexander Lange (Earlybird), Martin Köppelmann (Gnosis), Arnab Naskar (Sicos) and Nina Siedler (DWF).
An active participation of the crypto-affine audience rounded off the evening event.
Overall, it was a worthwhile evening, which in particular cast a legal glance at the evolving token economy. Companies that think about this type of financing will be familiar with the regulatory framework; Events such as these help to raise awareness about these issues. This will also lead to the token economy, the decentralized investment via ICOs, being freed from the taste of the “get rich quick” schemes.
Thanks to this great crypto audience, thanks to the great partners and speakers and all others, who supported us with lots of wowz for this event.
Thanks to to the friendly ASTRATUM crew at the bar for the great quiches and cold drinks.
Yes, it was great. We had fun, it was informative and we will do it again.
Cu pronto in Berlin.
ASTRATUM team
Just drop us an email at sayhello@astratum.com, if you want to get in touch with us, or if you’re interested to present your blockchain project at our next event. Or just follow us on Twitter Astratum.
Thanks everyone for joining and see you latest at our upcoming blockchain events!
Yours,
ASTRATUM team
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ASTRATUM is a blockchain venture studio, developing blockchain strategies, solutions and ventures. For example, we developed a next generation mobility solution with blockchain, smart contracts and IoT devices for a global leader in the automotive space, detailed a blockchain strategy for one of the world’s largest business network operators, assisted a leading European venture capitalist with his large investment in the leading decentralized crypto exchange and introduced with our dine&talk events cryptocurrencies and blockchain to top executives from leading German financial services. Further, we are also involved in the tokenization of assets, ranging from the token design, whitepapers, due dilligences, audits, token sales, advise on the right structures, technical implementation, cryptotrading strategies and additional services around the monetization and tokenization of digital and physical assets. Our international team rely on experts with outstanding professional experience and the necessary skillset to address the interdisciplinary challenges, coming with the cryptoeconomy. We believe that blockchain is a powerful backend play, and that a blue ocean strategy is the best approach to develop meaningful innovation.
Besides corporate innovation in e.g. mobility, fintech 2.0 and real estate, we develop together with partners our own ventures. One of them, project Vaagnar, is a distributed Unmanned Aerial Traffic Management system. It is based on the research done by our founder around blockchain and drones and marketplaces for the Internet of Autonomous Things. Another one is in real estate, addressing the global nomadic lifestyle and the desire for authentic moments in life. For our ventures, we are collaborating with investors and team up with exceptional individuals or teams.
We are proud to be founding member of the Blockchain Association Germany (Bundesverband Blockchain).
