All successful startups have something in common — their product or service solves a problem or fills a business or retail consumer need. Thus an important part of identifying your startup’s space in the economy is understanding the market that you are targeting.
This article is the first in a series examining how you can build a deeper understanding of your target market. From there, we’ll look at developing go-to-market strategies that will result in customer traction and ultimately drive the success of your startup.
Defining a Market
A market definition is a set of characteristics that identify the group of businesses or…
Supporting crypto token price through real world value proof points
Per Nexsis & Lupercal Capital:
Market Context & How we got here
2018 in cryptocurrency has been marked by a significant decline in the market through to August, with prices across most major cryptocurrencies collapsing to a fraction of the all time highs achieved at the start of the year.
There have been a variety of reasons driving a change in market sentiment: regulation had a significant impact on the ICO market, whilst uncertainty as to how regulators would approach the industry more generally created significant FUD (fear, uncertainty & doubt) around the use, access and treatment of crypto currencies in major markets.
And how projects can respond
Introduction
Although 2018 has seen many successful ICOs, with total capital raised having already surpassed the 2017 total, the market has changed significantly, and running a successful ICO is becoming more difficult.
Part of this change is due to the evolving nature of investment, markets, and levels of scrutiny by ICO purchasers (which we’ll explain in our next article). Another key change surrounds the difficulty of raising funds from the global public at large due to regulatory risk.
Investment from the ‘global public‘
In the early days of ICOs (/the DAO), the application of regulations to global token offers was unclear and/or untested, so the level…
Governments to Discuss Global Crypto/ICO Regulation — Our predictions on the outcome, & what it means for your project
The start of 2018 has seen governments’ approach to the regulation of cryptocurrency take centre-stage and become a defining issue for the industry this year. As regulatory agencies scramble to address the extraordinary growth of 2017, their approach towards the technology is having an ever-increasing impact on cryptocurrency markets, and the viability and risk profile of proposed ICOs.
At this stage, the growth and future direction of ICOs and crypto-technology seems heavily dependent on international regulation. …
The regulatory approach towards ICOs and crowdfunding is increasingly divergent. Learn why, and what lessons this could hold for your ICO/ cryptocurrency project
ICOs were a headline FinTech development of 2017 — they became widely known as a new, potentially low-cost means of capital raising for start-ups (and increasingly, existing companies). This somewhat overshadowed the use of a hugely popular FinTech development that emerged in around 2015: crowdfunding.
As we’ve written elsewhere, ICOs are a little like a hybrid between IPOs and crowdfunding. ICOs take the potentially low costs, popularity, and broad range of potential investors/purchasers associated with crowdfunding. They can also have some of the attractive ‘investment potential’ associated with IPOs (which is typically lacking from crowdfunding).
And how to choose your advisory team to address this
Regulators are continuing to focus on ICOs and the cryptocurrency market, and many are taking an increasingly forceful approach to exercising their regulatory powers. The commercial importance of this ever-increasing regulatory scrutiny is clear in how the markets have reacted over the past few weeks.
Whilst Chinese and South Korean restrictions on cryptocurrency have had a major impact, the US SEC has been amongst the most public in its regular and detailed criticism and expressions of concern about the industry/market.
The SEC has been increasingly active of late, issuing cease and desist and other orders to prospective ICOs. …
In his opening remarks to the Securities Regulation Institute at a January 22, 2018 event, the SEC Chairman, Jay Clayton, reiterated what many advisers and founders associated with cryptocurrency projects and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) had feared — the SEC will be taking at closer look at at their involvement in the industry.
The SEC Direction
Of particular concern to the SEC are ICOs where lawyers and other advisers are involved to, on one hand, assist promoters in structuring offerings of tokens that (at least on the face of it) have many of the key features of a traditional Initial Public Offering (IPO)…
A defining feature of 2017 for cryptocurrency — and FinTech more broadly — was the rapid adoption of Initial Coin Offerings as a means of capital raising.
As we’ve written previously, we think 2018 and beyond will see the increased adoption of blockchain technology by existing businesses (though ICOs remain attractive for innovative start-ups). We also think the regulations will make the overall environment for ICOs uncertain, but carefully-planned ICOs assisted by suitable expert advisory teams could continue to flourish.
So, is an ICO a good method of capital raising for your business?
How does an ICO work?
We’ve written extensively on this elsewhere, but…
Lupercal Capital advises existing companies and start-ups on successfully applying blockchain technology to their business. To learn more, go to Lupercalcapital.com or email enquiries@lupercalcapital.com to discuss with our expert team.
Background
Whether bitcoin’s price recovers to US20k, rises beyond that, or falls significantly, what is clear is that the underlying blockchain technology that bitcoin pioneered is here to stay.
The blockchain’s potential has been recognised for some time by financial institutions, major technology companies, governments, academics and forward-thinking firms (including in work by Lupercal Capital’s experts in 2013/14).
As we have written previously, there are parallels between businesses’ adoption of blockchain…
Lupercal Capital (lupercalcapital.com) is an expert cryptocurrency advisory company. If you’re thinking about an ICO/crypto project, or want to learn more about cryptocurrency, blockchain or ICOs, feel free to contact us at enquiries@lupercalcapital.com.
Cryptocurrency— A Recap.
Bitcoin was first proposed as a kind of ‘new money’ — a revolutionary new payment system that could bypass the control of central banks and governments, and avoid reliance on concentrated third-party payment and transaction systems.
But the distributed technology proposed by bitcoin’s pseudonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, had significantly greater application than was first considered. …
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Strategy advisory firm specialising in startups and big data https://lupercaladvisory.com
