ICO News: Virtual Gifting ICO Sells Out in 1 Minute
There is a new record for the fastest token sale in Asia and maybe even the world. Gifto is a decentralized virtual gift protocol on the Ethereum blockchain, and its ICO sold out in one minute. Buyers spanned 100 countries, and Gifto raised USD 30 million. They might have sold out even faster but they blocked investors from China, the United States and Vietnam amid "legal conditions" surrounding cryptocurrencies.
Also, they toyed with the idea of raising USD 50 million but decided to keep their word to investors with its hard cap. The company plans to launch a beta version of its decentralized virtual gifting platform in Q1 2018, and based on the results of the Gifto ICO they are well on their way.
Considering the support that Gifto had in the days leading up to its ICO, the results of its crowdsale aren't too shocking. Their private sale was three times oversubscribed, and their white list of interested buyers was building in anticipation. They started the Gifto ICO on Dec. 14 at 8 p.m. Singapore time and it was over at 8:01 p.m. Gifto vetted the investors in its deal via know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) protocols.
The Company You Keep
Not all token sales that sell out right away turn out to be a success. The Tezos project depleted its digital tokens supply in a matter of hours, but that project has been stalled from internal problems plaguing the startup.
But Gifto is the product of a company called AIG. Not the insurer, but Asia Innovations Group, which whose backers include the likes of the co-founder of gaming company Zynga as well as the vice president of Oculus at Facebook.
AIG already has a proven business model, including a platform with more than 100 million users and projected revenue of USD 130 million in 2017 driven largely by their flagship Uplive product. Uplive is a centralized platform for virtual gifts, but it's come across some limitations. They're developing the decentralized Gifto platform using blockchain technology, meaning it can be used by any content creator. The Gifto protocol is their universal gifting protocol.
