With the state of Delaware recently passing a bill which will allow traders, investors, and start-up companies to use the Blockchain as a way to bypass exchanges in the trading of stocks, the next step in replacing the antiquated market system may be now just beginning to take off. That is because Wall Street is suddenly ready to go big time into the Blockchain technology game, with a former Goldman Sachs trader garnering $200 million for his new company using an ICO (Initial Coin Offering) versus an IPO (Initial Public Offering) to raise capital.
Who needs IPOs when you have blockchain, and a lot of people willing to throw good money, or rather cryptocurrency, after bad something totally unknown.
Presenting the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) for Tezos, a blockchain startup which has tapped a virtually unlimited source of funding, and has raised over $200 million in just four days. Tezos is already the biggest ICO in history and with the sale scheduled to continue for another 8 days, may end up raising over half a billion dollars.
Recently, blockchain startup Block.One hit a record funding, raising around $185 million in the first five days of the crowdsale. Prior to that, another startup, called Bancor, netted nearly $150 million in contributions during the first three hours of its ICO.
What makes Tezos different from a recent surge in similar such offerings, is that this ICO is not based on Ethereum and instead operates on an entirely new blockchain, a "self-amending cryptoledger" that rewards developers who upgrade the network's protocols and allows for "seamless," consensual upgrades of those protocols (read the white paper here for more detail). Which, as Mashable points out, makes it a competitor to Ethereum.
Established by a husband and wife team, Tezos is an independent smart contract system built as an alternative to Ethereum. The platform has been under development over the last three years. Arthur Breitman and Kathleen Breitman used their extensive experience to develop the new blockchain solution.
The Tezos tokens, Tezzies or XTZs, can be purchased with both Bitcoin and Ethereum, and as of this morning, there is no scarcity of demand: Tezos has already raised 53,575 BTC and 273,838 ETH, for a total of approximately $210 million at current prices. This already makes the Tezos ICO the largest in history (overshadowing the recent Bancor ICO, which raised $153 million). It may also explain the ongoing drop in ETH prices observed in recent days. - Zerohedge
Very quickly the ICO is replacing the IPO, and could put the death some trading desks that facilitate the creation of Initial Public Offerings at many of the nation's big brokers. And when you add in the growing platform of Crowdfunding to the mix, very soon investors, traders, and entrepreneurs won't even need the services of banks, brokers, and perhaps even Wall Street to build a business, or to invest their money into equities.