New York, May 22, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today at Consensus 2017, AlphaPoint, a financial technology company that powers digital asset networks and provides institutions the AlphaPoint Distributed Ledger Platform (ADLP), announced a new full-service Asset Issuance and Custody solution enabling clients to launch, manage, trade, and maintain Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). As an extension to ADLP, the new solution provides operators a secure, scalable, and streamlined solution for issuing digital assets and deploying them both to end users and the trading community at large.
What is an ICO?
ICOs provide a way for the public to fund proposed products and projects by purchasing tokens native to those projects during crowdsale events, in exchange for national currencies or established cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin or Ether. ICOs are a way for blockchain startups to raise capital outside the traditional Venture Capital (VC) world. The majority of ICOs are not selling equity in a venture, but rather a token that will provide fuel to power a new application to be built using funds collected. While regulatory uncertainty remains regarding the treatment of specific ICO designs, ICOs are becoming an increasingly popular funding vehicle.
ICO funding ballooned by a factor of 10 from Q1 2016 to Q1 2017, going from $6M to $69M. Over the same time, traditional VC investments in blockchain companies dropped over 30%, from $173M to $118M in Q1 2016 and 2017, respectively. Digital currencies, which are the primary mechanism to participate in ICOs, have seen their prices trend up sharply during the same timeframe, with Bitcoin passing $1,800, Ethereum briefly crossing the $100 mark, and Litecoin passing $30 for the first time.1 Recent notable ICOs include: Blockchain Capital raised $10M in 6 hours, Cosmos raised $16.8M in 28 minutes, Gnosis raised $12.5M in 12 minutes, and Aragon raised about 25M in 26 minutes.
“Leveraging blockchain technology to digitize assets continues to gain momentum in 2017. New crowdfunding models are a particularly exciting trend, with over $165M in tokens sold via ICOs this year,” said Igor Telyatnikov, President and COO of AlphaPoint, “Today we are happy to announce our support, enabling clients to launch, deploy, trade, and maintain ICO tokens.”
Expanding ADLP Capabilities
ADLP offers customers the ability to host crowdfunding events (e.g. ICOs) and rapidly list newly-issued assets on exchanges running AlphaPoint’s award-winning infrastructure. The module includes a suite of tools for structuring, monitoring, and managing assets pre- and post- crowdsale.
New capabilities include:
- Issuance of a token onto a public or private blockchain
- Pre-ICO services and support:
- Setup, launch, and hosting of ICO website with registration and crowdsale triggers
- Complete toolset to structure and issue tokens, incorporate metadata and external references, and to creates templates for rapid follow-on products
- Creation and management of user wallets for crowdsale participation (Bitcoin, Ether, Ripple, Dash, etc.), as well as ongoing maintenance
- Creation and management of wallets to secure custody of issued token
- Post-sale services and support:
- Administrative features including dashboards, reporting, and customer service - including full-featured block explorer for each token issued
- Integration support to operator exchange and/or third party exchanges
- Ongoing maintenance, management, and hosting of hosted wallets and user administration features
- 24x7 technical support, including site maintenance for content changes, notifications, and feature additions
“This is an exciting time for technology to drastically change the way companies gain access to capital,” said Joe Ventura, Founder and CEO of AlphaPoint. “ICOs create a new source of funding to accelerate innovation, and we are proud to be building the technology platform to support those initiatives.”
AlphaPoint’s Distributed Ledger Platform (ADLP) is a leading blockchain digitization and trading platform, which interoperates with over 20 ledger technologies. ADLP enables firms to digitize financial instruments, create trading venues for those instruments, and manage assets through their lifecycles in concert with existing tooling and infrastructure. Today, AlphaPoint also announces its membership in the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and Hyperledger consortia.
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About AlphaPoint
AlphaPoint is a financial technology company that powers digital asset networks on 5 continents. It provides institutions the AlphaPoint Distributed Ledger Platform (ADLP), enabling customers to digitize assets, launch new products and services, and reduce operational costs. In 2016, AlphaPoint partnered with CME Group and The Royal Mint to develop a new gold trading platform, scheduled to launch in 2017. AlphaPoint is led by a seasoned team with over 200 years in financial technology, with offices in New York City, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. For more information, please visit www.alphapoint.com.
1 CB Insights - “Blockchain ICO Funding Gains Steam Vs VC Investment” (May 12, 2017)