The Initial Exchange Offering is a fundraising event that is administered by a cryptocurrency exchange on behalf of a token issuer. A token issuer is typically an entity that is creating a cryptocurrency as an asset class to raise capital. Such a token issuer usually pays a listing fee and subsequently a percentage of the tokens sold to the cryptocurrency exchange.
In return, the cryptocurrency exchange is obligated to sell the issued tokens and list the token on the exchange after finishing the fundraising event. More importantly, the exchange is incentivized to actively market the tokens as it receives a percentage of the tokens sold in the offering. Thus, in an IEO, the token is marketed both by the issuer and the exchange.
An IEO shouldn’t be confused with an ICO, the difference is in the distribution. whilst in an IEO the token issuer uses the exchange to distribute the token, in an ICO, the token issuer sets up his own platform to distribute the token by themselves.
Table Of Contents
- IEO Cryptocurrency Listing Criteria
- Pros and Cons of IEO's
- BitTorrent
- Fetch.AI
- Celer Network
- Dos Network
- VeriBlock
- TOP Network
- IEO-Facilitating Cryptocurrency Exchanges
IEO Cryptocurrency Listing Criteria
Those days, IEO’s sprout up almost as fast as cryptocurrencies. The process starts with a preliminary review that requires groups to submit both logistical information about the token and identifying information about at least one of the team members behind the project. Tokens that make it to the full review must complete a compliance procedure to ensure they can be listed within the U.S, being a primary market. After the compliance review is completed and conditions fulfilled, a committee of IEO members examines the blockchain’s features, market interest, user cases, and the team behind the token, among other characteristics. The developers also have to prove they have enough assets to back up the new token.
Once satisfied that everything is in place, exchanges require developers to pay a given fee and comply with given procedures in order to be listed. According to Shihara, CEO of Bittrex, a great engineering team that can work on the fly when things go awry is a big plus:
“We need to have confidence that as things are breaking that these guys are actually able to fix it and sometimes fix this stuff on the fly. Having a great engineering team and great leadership team matters significantly in the listing process.”
Pros and Cons of IEO's
Pros
- Only credible tokens are sold on the exchange because it is directly or indirectly related to the reputation of the exchange.
- Simplified process for startups and developers.
- More options for customers. Exchanges provide a selection of coins for new coming customers and give traders more freedom and transparency.
- Exchanges also benefit token issuers with a complete setup, as well as creating a trustworthy relationship between exchanges and developers.
- It is easy to implement IEO as assuming that there is a large difference in the distribution method. The IEO is also more stable and secure than IOC that is open for fraud and scandal.
- Exchanges also offer better user interaction for a user-friendly interface. It enables new users to interact with IEO and contribute to the project of their choice.
Cons
- It might be time-consuming to create accounts on different exchanges.
- Every exchange requires a KYC (know your customer) procedure.
- It is easy to manipulate the token price.
- Users and sellers need to bear the exchange-related expenses such as transaction and listing fees.
Case Study of 6 IEO Projects after Launch
1. BitTorrent Token (BTT) — IEO: Jan 28, 2019
US-based BitTorrent was issued by TRON Foundation and BitTorrent Foundation. It was launched on the Binance exchange on January 28, 2019, 3:00 PM (UTC). The token was to be used at first by BitTorrent clients to bid for and earn in exchange for allocation of upstream bandwidth. It was later to be used for capabilities including purchasing content, tipping live-streaming performers, and crowdfunding the creation of new works.
Token Details
Symbol: BTT Blockchain
Type: Tron
Role of Token: Utility
Public Sale Hard Cap: $7,200,000
Total Token Supply: 990,000,000,000
BTT Tokens for Public Sale: 59,400,000,000 BTT (6% of total token supply)
Public Sale Token Price: 1 BTT = 0.00012
USD Token Distribution: No lockup Accepted
Currencies: BNB, TRX Token
Private Sale Token Price: 1 BTT = $0.000177
Private Sale Allocation: 11% of Total Token Supply
Private Sale Vesting Period: Vesting monthly over 12 months
Seed Sale Token Price: 1 BTT = $0.000177
Seed Sale Allocation: 11% of Total Token Supply
Seed Sale Vesting Period: Vesting monthly over 12 months
TRON Foundation and BitTorrent Foundation Team:
Justin Sun - CEO Founder and CEO of TRON & BitTorrent
Justin Knoll - VP of Product Management
Marcus Zhao - Head of Public Chain
Rebecca Bronstein - Senior Product Designer
Cong Li - Head of Developer Community Division
Pavel Lagutin - Senior Product Director
Yue Fang - Project Manager
Utkarsh Khokhar - Engineering Lead
Steve Siloti - Senior Software Engineer
Zhimin He - Director of Engineering
Padam Thakur - Software Engineer
Elaine Wu - Software Engineer
The token took off with a price of $0.00012 on January 28, demand for the token pushed the price to $0.000517 as of January 31, however it was followed by a price drop in February, the biggest so far as the price plummeted to $0.000424 as of February 2, 2019. The token then recovered, traded at $0.001130 as of February 5, 2019, which was the highest price ever recorded so far. As of April 19, 2019, the price of the token is $0.000742, given the price at the IEO was lower than the figure of April 17, the project is concluded to be successful.
2. Fetch.AI (FET) - IEO: Feb 25, 2019
Fetch.AI, originating from the United Kingdom, brings together machine learning, artificial intelligence, multi-agent systems, and decentralized ledger technology to create an economic internet—an environment where digital representatives of the economy’s moving parts (data, hardware, services, people, and infrastructure) can get useful work done through effective introductions and predictions. These agents can be thought of as digital entities—life-forms that are able to make decisions on their own behalf as well as on behalf of their stakeholders (e.g. individuals, private enterprises, and governments). It was IEOed on Binance on February 25, 2019, 2:00 PM (UTC).
Token Details
IEO Platform: Binance Launchpad
IEO Opening Date: February 25, 2019, 2:00 PM (UTC)
IEO Closing Date: March 2, 2019, 2:00 PM (UTC)
Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Symbol: FET
Blockchain Type: Ethereum
Role of Token: Utility
Public Sale Hard Cap: $6,000,000
Total Token Supply: 1,152,997,575 FET
Tokens for Public Sale: 69,204,152 FET (6.0021073331399% of total token supply)
Public Sale Vesting Period: No lockup
Token Distribution: Within 15 days after the token sale ends
Accepted Currencies: BNB
Token Sale Format: Standard
Private Sale Allocation: 11.6% of Total Token Supply
Private Sale Vesting Period: 3-month lockup, then vesting over 3 months
Seed Sale Allocation: 11.6% of Total Token Supply
Seed Sale Vesting Period: 3-month lockup, then vesting over 3 months
Fetch.AI Team
Humayun Sheikh - Co-founder and CEO
Toby Simpson - Co-founder and CTO
Thomas Hain - Co-founder and CSO
Jonathan Ward - Head of Research
Troels Rønnow - Head of Software Engineering
Maria Minaricova - Head of Business Development
Arthur Meadows - Head of Investor Relations
As of February 28, 2019, it had a price of $0,376811. The token has largely been unsuccessful owing to the fact that the only time it surpassed this price was on March 4, 2019 with a marginal price gain of $0.378129. Thereafter, the price has been on a downward trend with the lowest recorded on April 12, 2019 at $0.177584. The token as of April 19, 2019 now rests at $0.209074 which is unsuccessful given price once amounted to $0.376811 on February 28, 2019.
3. Celer Network (CELR). IEO: March 19, 2019
Celer Network Token from Singapore was launched on Binance on March 19, 2019, 2:00 PM (UTC). It is a leading Layer 2 scaling platform that enables fast, easy, and secure off-chain transactions for payment transactions, as well as a generalized off-chain smart contract. Founded by four PhDs from MIT, Princeton, UC Berkeley and UIUC, the network enables everyone to quickly build, operate, and use highly-scalable decentralized applications through innovations in off-chain scaling techniques and incentive-aligned crypto-economics mechanism designs. Celer Network is on a mission to fully unleash the power of blockchain and revolutionize the way decentralized applications are built and used.
Token Details
IEO Platform: Binance Launchpad
IEO Opening Date: March 19, 2019, 2:00 PM (UTC)
IEO Closing Date: March 24, 2019, 2:00 PM (UTC)
Country of Origin: Singapore
Symbol: CELR
Blockchain Type: Ethereum
Public Sale Hard Cap: $4,000,000
Total Token Supply: 10,000,000,000 CELR
Tokens for Public Sale: 597,014,925 CELR (5.97014925% of Total Token Supply)
Public Sale Token Price: 1 CELR = $0.0067
Public Sale Vesting Period: No lockup
Token Distribution: Within 15 days after the token sale ends
Accepted Currencies: BNB
Token Sale Format: Standard
Lottery Ticket Allocation: Enter the IEO’s lottery ticket allocation
Private Sale Token Price: 1 CELR = $0.015
Private Sale Allocation: 15.5% of Total Token Supply
Private Sale Vesting Period: Vesting over 3 months
Seed Sale Token Price: 1 CELR = $0.0065
Seed Sale Allocation: 11.5% of Total Token Supply
Seed Sale Vesting Period: Vesting over 10 months
Team Members of Celer Network
Mo Dong - Co-Founder
Junda Liu - Co-Founder
Xiaozhou Li - Co-Founder
Qingkai Liang - Co-Founder
Yunjia Dai - Core Developer
Yan Zhang - Core Developer
Michael Zhou - Core Developer
Zixuan Wang - Core Developer
Alex Wu - Designer
Sirong Li - Marketing & Operations
Windy Wang - Marketing & Operations
The token was launched on March 19, 2019; the token price as of March 25, 2019, totaled $0.25148. There was a rise from 0.23745 the same day, then the token peaked at $0.27618 on that day but spiraled down in the coming days registering a low of $0.017732. The price rested on $0.017993 as of April 19, 2019.
4. Dos Network (DOS). IEO: March 11, 2019
Dos Network is a blockchain-based decentralized oracle service network that is developed to boost blockchain usability with the help of real-world data and computation power (launched on Bitmax). Siyuan Hua is the project lead, former software engineer and tech lead at Google, early Bitcoin evangelist, crypto expert and researcher, who has developing smart contracts and Dapps since 2017. He has an MS from Carnegie Mellon University.
Launched on March 11, 2019, Dos Network had a price of $0.049545 as of March 14, 2019. The price has been dipping ever since with feeble attempts to recover. As of March 22, 2019, the price came to $0.046443, it dipped further to $0.044106 on March 26 and was at its lowest on April 12, 2019—$0.020855. As of April 19, 2019, the price totaled $0.020184, lower than initial price hence proving the project unsuccessful.
5. VeriBlock (VBK) - IEO: Apr 02, 2019
Veriblock is an Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) project launched on Bittrex. VeriBlock created the Proof-of-Proof consensus protocol which utilizes the blockchain of the one superior cryptocurrency to secure the blockchain of the other. The team is led by Justin Fisher as the CEO who has been a foster of tech companies.
Launched on April 2, 2019, it had had a downward trend in price from April 6, 2019, when it totaled $0.109564. The price on April 11 was $0.064197 USD, consistent with the downward trend. On April 19, the price gained a bit to reach $0.086861.
6. TOP Network (TOP). IEO: Mar 26, 2019
TOP Network founded by Stever Wei (formerly Huawei’s General Manager for Online Innovation) is a high-performance blockchain with a powerful array of service-level infrastructure, including the world’s first decentralized cloud communication services. TOP aims to build a business-friendly blockchain platform that handles real-world businesses—of any type, size or, volume—on the blockchain.
Launched on the Huobi global exchange on March 26, 2019, the price the next day was $0.008753 and steadily rose till March 31 of the same year and reached $0.03887 which was its peak, it, however, started a downward trend from there with the lowest price recorded after on April 11 at $0.012544.
IEO-Facilitating Cryptocurrency Exchanges
Binance
Binance is a Chinese cryptocurrency exchange founded by Changpeng Zhao in 2018; a computer science graduate from McGill University (Montreal, Canada). Since then, its 1.4 million-transactions-per-second capability has attracted 6 million users, making it the world's largest crypto-exchange. As of March 2018, it is the largest exchange by daily transactions. After the prohibition of Chinese authorities of cryptocurrency operations, it changed its jurisdiction and now the offices are located in Hong Kong and Tokyo.
Bitmax
Founded by George Cao, BitMax is a Singapore-based crypto exchange launched in July 2018. The bitmax.io domain name was created on February 23, 2018. The exchange offers crypto-to-crypto trading of 36 coins in 72 pairs with three markets (BTC, USDT, and ETH).
Bittrex
The cryptocurrency exchange is a brainchild of Bill Shihara who previously worked for Blackberry and Amazon as an engineer focusing mainly on security. The team behind Bittrex is a mix of top minds from top firms such as Microsoft, Blackberry, and Amazon. Over the years, Shihara (CEO) and his team have been concentrating on building a secure digital currency exchange.
Houbi global
Meaning “currency” in Mandarin Chinese, Huobi was founded in 2013 by Leon Li, an alumnus of Tsinghua University and computer engineer at Oracle before founding Huobi. Based in Singapore, the company now has offices in Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, and the United States. In August 2018, it became a publicly-listed Hong Kong company. Following a 2017 ban on Bitcoin exchanges by the Chinese government, Huobi stopped Bitcoin withdrawals. Huobi China continues to operate as a blockchain consulting and research platform. As of March 2018, Huobi processed around $1 billion in trades daily.