Flashback to a year ago: the price of one ether was a measly $US80, Bitcoin just $US1500. Modern-day market leaders like Bitcoin Cash and Cardano were just a twinkle in developers’ eyes.
The initial coin offering (ICO) craze was in full swing in places like the US, China, and Scandinavia, with companies like Brave and Status blazing through astonishingly successful ICOs. A raise of $60 million plus was not only unsurprising, but almost expected.
But back in Australia, the blockchain scene was a veritable tumbleweed. Aside from local trading operations such as Coinspot and BTCMarkets, and larger corporate-focused options such as blockchain consultant DigitalX, there wasn’t much happening in the Australian blockchain and ICO ecosystem. Cryptocurrency was the realm of savvy early adopters, and many startup founders still hadn’t grasped how this revolutionary technology could totally change their industries.
Looking at this from an outsider’s perspective, it might seem like Australia was missing the blockchain boat, but a quick look at the development ecosystem today reveals that’s certainly not the case. Strong, real-world companies, backed by positive attitudes towards regulation, has presented Australian companies with a golden opportunity for blockchain implementation.
How our delay was our advantage
Having ‘first mover advantage’ in the tech world is generally lauded as a significant advantage, as companies getting their products to market first have a greater chance of capturing funding, users, and attention.
But there’s one key difference when applying the first mover advantage theory to the blockchain space: product. Multitudes of blockchain startups who rode the early-2017 ICO rush did so on the back of a vague whitepaper, a hastily cobbled-together team, and a $40 WordPress theme.
Take Tezos for example, which received an eyebrow-raising $US232 million last July to create a competitor to market incumbent smart contract platform Ethereum. Its platform launch has been delayed nearly a year, with investors left empty-handed and questioning the troubled startup’s processes.
Another example is Golem, a company tackling the ambitious project of a “decentralised supercomputer”, who completed their ICO in November 2016. The project’s mainnet launch occurred just last month, over a year since the company’s inception, and the Golem token price has taken a beating throughout.
Investors today have learnt from these mistakes, and now value projects with real-world use cases and established businesses far above those banking on ICO capital to build their business from scratch.
Australian founders have also learnt, and some of the country’s most successful crypto startups are all with products in the market or are based on established, successful businesses. Power Ledger, CanYa, BlockGrain, and Horizon State are just some of the examples of Aussie blockchain companies who are doing real, demonstrable things with their ICO funds.
This is also where Liven has the upper hand, being the longest-running company to ever commence an ICO in Australia. Revenue-generating since 2014, and with over 200,000 customers using the app, LivenCoin is backed not only by a star-studded team of founders and advisors, but also years and years of partnerships and investment.
A friendly approach to regulation
Increased confidence in the Australian government’s regulation and legislation has also allowed local blockchain companies to thrive, with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) not only releasing well-positioned guidelines but also actively engaging in consultation with companies looking to begin a token sale process.
“We want to ensure innovative firms understand the regulatory framework they may be operating under and ensure they meet any obligations they may have when raising funds in Australia,” ASIC Commissioner John Price said in September last year. This is a good deal friendlier than, say, China’s ban on ICOs, or a US Congressman’s recent call to also outlaw them in the US.
Companies commencing token sales have praised the government’s cooperation and willingness to engage with the emerging funding method, with early movers actively engaging with regulators further to try and improve the regulatory landscape for everyone.
Thanks to this, the blockchain scams and vaporware which have continued to plague other markets has been noticeably and thankfully absent in Australia. Hopefully — touch wood — dodgy actors will stay out of the space or be proactively investigated by regulators, lest they tarnish the good work done by the companies building our ecosystem.
Great, but what does this mean?
All of this equates to somewhat of a golden age for blockchain companies Down Under. A blockchain renaissance, an aligning of the planets — call it what you want, now’s the right time to be raising funds and building decentralised applications.
Australia has been able to learn from the mistakes of other companies and jurisdictions, not rushing in blindly and hoping for the best, but taking a considered and cautioned approach — somewhat of a rarity in startupland.
The ecosystem has begun to support the industry also, with blockchain-specific accelerators and incubators, and venture capitalists throwing their support behind what some call “as big as the internet”. Did you know big four Australian bank Westpac was one of the first investors in now $US8 billion cryptocurrency company Coinbase? If that’s not confidence, I don’t know what is.
Liven has taken advantage of all the benefits these heydays have to offer, drawing on legal advice from Australia’s best ICO-savvy law firm, and enlisting advisors from some of the country’s most successful token sales.
The golden age is here baby, and we’re living it.
Read more about how The LivenPay project is building a stable cryptocurrency for the real world, and making the capabilities and benefits of blockchain technology accessible for brick and mortar businesses and everyday consumers in this announcement.
Website: livenpay.io
Telegram: @livenpay
Download the app: Liven