Upcoming ICO: AirSwap ICO to Fund Cryptocurrency Exchange
The ink has barely dried on the announcement by Overstock’s new tZero exchange and another exchange for cryptocurrency trading is in the works. Airswap similarly wants to create a decentralized platform for digital tokens to trade, which would give upcoming ICOs more options when targeting places for their coins to be bought and sold. The Airswap ICO, which is scheduled for Oct. 10, is designed to raise the capital for the exchange.
The wave of exchanges by which investors can speculate on upcoming ICOs comes amid a spate of guidance and comments from regulators from the United States to Australia – not to mention ICO bans put in place by China and now South Korea policymakers – warning investors about the risks of possible ICO fraud. The warnings are also meant to alert issuers such as the upcoming AirSwap ICO that they are being closely monitored.
The AirSwap ICO is raising money via tokens for an exchange that will give buyers a platform on which to trade digital tokens via smart contracts on the Ethereum-based blockchain. The exchange automates the trade so that the need for a centralized specialist is eliminated, unlike a national securities exchange including the NYSE.
AirSwap is introducing a system comprised of what it calls makers and takers, which seems to be a way of characterizing supply and demand for the AirSwap ICO tokens.
AirSwap’s Sam Tabar tells CNBC that ICOs replace the need for venture capitalists. Incidentally, that thinking flies in the face of some recent trends by which the market is finding ways to blend both the expertise and capital of venture capitalists with blockchain-based fundraising deals such as initial coin offerings. Meanwhile am AirSwap advisor, Bill Tai, is also a venture capitalist.
Most of the 1,000 or so cryptocurrencies that have been introduced so far via ICOs trade in centralized cryptocurrency exchanges such as the USD 1.6 billion Coinbase, for instance. If AirSwap and tZero want to take a page from Coinbase’s book, they should be sure and implement a customer service line for traders, which CoinBase reportedly did in response to a bevy of customer complaints.
