I've been reading a lot of comments after the most recent EOS announcement video and it seems some people are a little confused about what just happened.
Here's my take on what the announcement means for EOS and for the whole crypto space in general. Firstly, the announcements:
- Air Drop for EOS Holders - Everpedia (block chain version of Wikipedia also being made by the founder of Wikipedia), announced they are not holding an ICO at all. The only way you can get their tokens (called IQ Tokens) is to be an EOS holder. They will "Air Drop" IQ tokens to all eos holders. That's it, no mining, no ICO.
- Korean Regional Head Of - Richard Jung former CEO of the largest South Korean Exchange (Bithumb), Exec VP Fujitsu and many other influential roles, joins Block.One as Regional 'Head Of' - Korea.
- $1 Billion for EOS dApps - Block.One announced they have officially taken in over $1.1 BILLION dollars so far in the ICO with over 5 months to go. They have announced they will spend at least $1 Billion USD on funding projects to be built on top of the eos.io platform.
Sounds good right? But what does this really mean? Let's 'unpack' the announcements and explore the impacts and implications of each one separately.
Air Drops of new Companies tokens directly to EOS holders
Honestly, this one blew me away. The market liked it, comments are positive but I don't think many people have realised what this really means...
Let's give some context into the current ICO space first...
Risk - This is a HUGE issue for all current ICO's as they are releasing a product into a global market where there is little clarity as to the legal treatment of their companies and their ICO process. Currently however there is little option to raise funds in any other way. VC's are tapped out and waiting for some actual revenue to be made from crypto businesses before they go in any deeper.
The risk is in the sale of the tokens. The projects are in a bind though as if they give them all away, they have no seed funding to build out their business. But if they sell them, they open a massive can of worms in terms of legals and they may have separate issues across hundreds of countries.
What we saw with Everpedia announcing they are not doing an ICO, and that 100% of available IQ tokens will be given, for free, to eos holders was nothing short of mind blowing. But what about funding? How will companies who give away their tokens build out their project and deploy it with no funding? The answer is in point 3 above... Block.One are funding projects so they don't have to sell tokens through the ICO process!
Block.One have effectively removed the biggest legal risk for new block chain companies and provided them with a massive, distributed network from day 1.
The companies can still retain some of their tokens for later funding, however it's my opinion this will be kept at a minimum and that best practice of "locking up" founders' tokens will be a requirement to obtain funding from Block.One.
This, combined with the fact eos will be the simplest platform for new companies to build on (shortening development time from years to months), will prove to be too good to ignore for new block chain companies and you'll see far more solid projects developing on eos than ETH in no time at all.
Finally, eos holders will continue to get free air dropped tokens from all these new companies starting out on eos.io. That will make eos holders less likely to sell after launch which happens at the same time as the ICO supply of eos drying up... You don't need to be a math genius to see what's going to happen to the price there.
New Regional Head Of
This was another bombshell. Block.One are structuring themselves as a large global corporate entity (just like the name EOS "Enterprise Operating System" suggests) They're not playing around, this is designed to be a global mega corp from the beginning.
Their choice of Korea to show their hand combined with their choice for the new Head Of position shows their meticulous planing and execution.
South Korea is the biggest crypto market by volume and by $$ entering the industry and to start their global business structure with such an experienced practitioner both in Pre Crypto business as well as huge experience in the crypto space is a bold statement.
The statement they just made (IMHO) is this: We've raised over a billion dollars from our ICO and have 5 months remaining. We have the best developers in the business, the most professional corporate structure and now we're expanding that globally. We'll have "boots on the ground" in all key regions globally and we'll spend the $$ to ensure those boots are of the highest quality to provide the most benefit to the eos community.
Just wait for it, I can see regional heads in Europe, USA, China, Australasia, India and Africa.
With that structure and expertise in place, any new company with real promise would be stupid not to launch on eos.io, air drop their tokens to eos holders and take advantage of the global network Block.one has built to ensure the success of the eos.io platform (any everything on it).
1 Billion USD for Funding Projects on EOS
I think this is pretty clear now when viewed with announcements 1&2.
Block.One will be able to ensure they have THE best projects in crypto coming over to, and / or, starting life on the eos.io platform.
When project assess the alternatives they will quickly see there is no alternative. No other platform will enable them to avoid Securities risk, secure funding and roll out a completed project in under six months. Period.
For those of you who feel you've "missed the eos boat", you could not be more wrong. I see Block.One being the first global mega company solely focussed on block chain and I see EOS as the only contender to unseat Bitcoin from it's current spot at #1 from a Market Cap perspective.
I know it's a big call, it certainly has some way to go. I was a massive ETH fan as well but I never saw the potential in ETH as I see in EOS.
I can barely wait to see where this goes in 2018/19!!
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