A quick hit from Reuters, June 28:
Digital currency sales jumped to $13.7 billion in the first five months of the year, nearly double the amount raised for the whole of 2017, according to a report released on Thursday by PwC’s strategy and consulting division Strategy& and Switzerland-based Crypto Valley Association.
Technology startups in the blockchain space around the world have raised funds by selling cryptocurrencies, or tokens directly to investors in initial coin offerings (ICOs), bypassing banks or venture capital firms as intermediaries.
Blockchain, the technology that underpins bitcoin and other digital currencies, is a digital ledger that provides a secure way of making and recording transactions.
This year’s virtual currency sales from 537 coin offerings topped last year’s total of $7.0 billion, and included mammoth offerings from Telegram, a messaging service founded by Russia-born entrepreneurs Pavel and Nikolai Durov in 2013, and Block.one’s EOS currency, the report said.
Telegram raised $1.7 billion without its tokens sold to the public. EOS, an infrastructure project for decentralized applications, raised more than $4 billion in a year-long token offering that started in the middle of last year....MORE
