ICONOMI is a new project on Ethereum that aims to decentralize fund management. It has had quite a successful ICO so far, raising over $4.8 million from more than 1750 investors. This will likely rise over the next couple of weeks as the ICO winds down. However, beyond the fundraising activity, ICONOMI has hit upon a very important part of the crypto economy.
First, let's be clear about something - increased trading volume, liquidity, and better investor protections are good not just for ICONOMI but for every crypto project that's already established and projects that will come in the future.
Taking Fund Management Mainstream
It is no secret that crypto trading has been on the upside. The dominance of Bitcoin is at a historic low, after the rise of the likes of Ethereum. Even 'second tier' cryptos from Factom to Maidsafecoin have been on the rise and are respectable sizes today. Of course, there is always the rise of a dark horse, like Steemit as well, which skews the charts.
Given the current economic climate we are in with regards to cryptocurrencies, it is only fair to assume that mainstream interest will continue to rise. People across the spectrum are interested in learning about how they can invest in the crypto space. However, today, there is no easy way to do this.
Mainstream investors, even mom-and-pop ones, don't have the expertise to go on forums on Bitcointalk and read through hundreds of pages of comments to figure out what's going on with a project. They also don't want to have to trust exchanges, and keep their funds secure, because that remains one of the hardest problems to solve in crypto even today. Centralized exchanges are known not to be secure, but there is no good alternative. If people want to store their money offline, they will need to create scores of different wallets, addresses, etc. which is tedious.
ICONOMI is just a fund that tracks the underlying. The ICONOMI.PERFORMANCE fund is one where you have to trust the expertise of ICONOMI approved members. However, you don't really need to invest in just that one. The more powerful fund, in my opinion, is the ICONOMI.INDEX which is a passive index tracking mechanism for the major cryptos. Therefore investing in the space becomes straightforward, as you can invest in the crypto space just like you would invest in the stock space - buy a passive index fund.
ICONOMI as an idea can be a boon to the entire ecosystem, as it opens up new projects to investors that previously had no ways to invest in these projects.
We wish ICONOMI ICO and the team the very best.