Communizing Access to Digital Richness

Back in 2013 I was first introduced to Bitcoin (BTC). Quickly drawn to it as a quick buck to be made learning of it, but for some reason it did not stick to my attention and soon I moved on to other things (such as finding a new job as Naspers had decided to shut down their ecommerce operations in Brazil and focus on the price comparison business.)

So here we are a few years later, end of 2017, revolution is coming and many are still not betting on the future of BTC, difficult to assess, the principles by which is governed, the volatility of it, and all the lack of rational consensus on the forks that add an aspect of gamble to it all.

Many of the concerns and questions for BTC go around the depths, or perhaps better said, the heights it will achieve as it seems to be unstoppable, many people believe it will reach 10,000 USD until the end of 2017 (which is only 61 days ahead).

It seems to me a wider scope and wider concern to it will mean for the present and future.

For the present, it has brought a fact of communism. It has allowed for anyone to invest and believe in projects around the world with a massive potential independently from the country of where the person lives or works. Despite the fact that some countries tag cryptocurrencies as illegal, it all seems it will be allowed sooner or later. However, the point has enormous scale.

The list of cryptocurrencies is only increasing, while some are promises, others are already rising like beer foam.

Of course, providing a much wider scope for investing brings a much bigger risk for investors. It is not easy nor comfortable to put your money on a project that has its roots in Ukraine, or Singapour, or perhaps a mix of both if you are living in Brazil – how can you know if your money is safe? Who is the entity behind? Where is the bank?

That is the key, Blockchain allows for that to happen because of the system, the platform is much more robust than any banks; it is decentralized and with that, it brings a whole new game. A new game that has new rules. Users/clients will have to learn them to understand risks, timings, details.

Adding on to that, there is a new figure called ICO (initial Coin Offering), right, it sounds similar to IPO (Initial Public Offering), are they the same? Similar?

In this article Forbes.com has some light on the matter:

http://fortune.com/2017/05/05/ico-initial-coin-offering/

But others have a few goes at it:

https://baseberry.com/what-is-the-difference-between-ico-and-ipo/

https://news.bitcoin.com/scammy-waters-the-differences-between-an-ipo-and-an-ico/

https://www.bitcoinmarketjournal.com/ico-vs-ipo/

If I had to summarize it, I would use

“Indeed. It’s sort of like an IPO, except for early stage blockchain projects. It’s effectively a Kickstarter campaign that uses blockchain-based “tokens” (aka app coins, cryptocurrencies, digital assets) to raise money.” 

Startups, in order to do an ICO usually prepare a whitepaper, a document that states their intentions, their plans and the company position towards the future within the blockchain ecosystem.

“Only established private companies-those that have been in operation for a while- carry out IPOs. Meanwhile, a new start-up can use an ICO to raise seed capital. Indeed, the majority of the entities doing ICOs don’t have a ready product in the market. Most of them have not even done a proof of concept. What they have are white papers that describe and propose a viable product or business ideas.”

This democratization does not only come to people to access and invest in digital assets worldwide BUT also, the barriers for companies to have access to capital from around the world and on a huge scale have been reduced massively.

On the other hand, there is the Miners, I will have a different chapter of its own because they are truly the enablers, the oil of the engine, the workers who make all the transactions that occur in the Blockchain possible.

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