ICO News: Winklevoss Twins Back Blockstack
The Blockstack ICO has raised USD 50 million. While impressive, it's not the highest fundraising event from a token sale. But Blockstack has something going for it that not every startup can claim. Winklevoss Capital, whose founders are the famous twin brothers, invested in the deal. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss most recently made the headlines for becoming billionaires after reinvesting the settlement they received from the Facebook lawsuit in bitcoin.
In addition to the famous Winklevoss twins, the Blockstack ICO attracted hundreds of other investors, including Union Square Ventures and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, the latter of whom recently pledged the rest of his career to cryptocurrencies.
Reinventing the Internet
Blockstack says the web is starting to show its age, evidenced by hackers who are able to access websites and other centralized services even on the cloud. The startup is looking to decentralize the internet. It's creating a new version of the internet for decentralized apps that allows users to own their own app data. They appear to be doing this with a virtualchain that sits atop a blockchain.
The company's token sale stands out because they charged the same price for their digital token to all investors — $0.12 per token. Many past and upcoming ICOs offer discounts to the major investors, but Blockstack seems to have created a level playing field for Main Street investors as well. They also designed their ICO to attract buyers who would likely hold onto the tokens rather than flip or speculate on them for a quick profit.
And while the size of the Winklevoss holding is unclear, we know that it is not greater than USD 6 million, as Blockstack set a limit to the number of tokens that the largest investors could buy. The Blockstack digital tokens remain in development, and the proceeds from the ICO will be used toward the building out of the company's platform and app ecosystem. Ryan Shea and Muneeb Ali, the Blockstack founders, appear to have created the model token sale that could serve as a case study in how to do an upcoming ICO.
