When the sale was announced, we spoke about the benefit of bringing our existing business and its partners to the market. We talked about how this would offer a shorter path to a usable, stable, and meaningful token. benjaCoin ICO People nodded along but in the year since, something became clear: people didn’t really care. Don’t get me wrong: existing businesses have run successful token sales. Kik and Telegram certainly did, raising more than (a combined) $1.8 billion. For the most part, though, it’s been business as usual. New businesses with unknown teams trying to raise millions more through a than they would in an early Angel round. token sale This has been bad. It is bad. I’m still here begging someone to please change the record . Finally, it seems the tide is changing. The catalyst could be the number of token projects that have failed since 2016 and 2017, or perhaps a cry for stability in what is (week to week) a volatile crypto market. The market has even assigned a name to projects from existing businesses: . the reverse ICO And there are some real reverse ICOs on the way. is the “universal gaming token” from Australia-based PlayUp. PlayUp has spent the last four years becoming a fully-licensed sports betting provider, and expanding into 70 countries through the acquisition of multiple fantasy sports and betting-related companies. They claim 500k+ users and have former cricket and rugby stars on their team. You’ll find the team at events and they appear to have dozens of employees. PlayChip I can’t really speak for the quality of their , their token structure, or anything else, but this is a primetime, real, existing company with a legitimate use case and user base. offering This is exactly the kind of company that should be running a token sale. Fantasy sports and gambling are some of the most popular token sales (thanks to the clear use-case) but have brought this kind of user-base or operations to the table. It’s exciting. . none Someone changed the damn record finally Do you know of other exciting reverse ICOs? Hit me up on Twitter . I’m making it my mission to amplify these projects. Andrew J. Chapin is the Co-Founder & CEO of Benja , head of the benjaCoin token project, author of Art of the Initial Coin Offering , and a token advisor for several projects. This November, Andrew is running the New York City marathon for Athletes to End Alzheimer’s .

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