Hello Monaco magazine Spring-Summer 2018 - issue HM03 | Page 54
INVESTORY
Regulation — the regulators will continue to move in on Bitcoin
and ICOs but they will not eradicate them. They are becoming an
important tool to raise capital and regulation will pave the way for
institutional investors to provide more capital.
Blockchain Tidal Wave — even if you do not invest in Bitcoin or
ICO’s, expect Blockchain digitization to affect you. Everything from
how your votes are recorded to how your medical and property re-
cords are kept, to how you exchange money. It will have an impact
on your life in the next year and definitely in the next few years. The
big institutions will fight to avoid being eliminated by Bitcoin and
Blockchain innovations. It threatens to take away their monopoly in
financial transactions and data management.
Don’t expect banks, notaries, lawyers or government departments
to lie down dead and be eliminated. They will adopt Blockchain
themselves; they will adopt roles within the new wave of digitiza-
tion. In the process they will become more efficient and more re-
sponsive to customer wishes to take greater control of their own
data and money.
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HelloMonaco’s Crypto Pick
w And then there is the juggernaut TELEGRAM ICO which pre-
launch in private sales was targeted to bring in close to one
and a half billion dollars in two phases and oversubscribed at
times. In total if we count the much debated public distribu-
tion phase, then that latter public launch is expected at time
of press by some pundits to drive the value of the TON token
to between $3 and $5 billion euros. This would definitely make
Telegram’s ICO the leader by far to-date. Coins from that single
ICO, if predictions are reliable (and they may not be), could pos-
sibly be valued at more than the 4 billion dollars that the whole
ICO/Crypto market raised in 12 months in 2017.
The World Economic Forum has
predicted, that by 2027, 10 % of
global GDP is likely to be stored
on Blockchain platforms. This
is a mini-boom in itself and
att racts start-ups who raise
capital by issuing coins.
w You must have heard of WhatsApp messenger. Telegram is
the competing messenger-App with a big following in Russia
and elsewhere. It is the brainchild of Pavel Durov, already an
icon in Russia for creating VKontakte, Russia’s version of Fa-
cebook. Telegram has global supporters among Bitcoin and
Blockchain aficionados for a total to-date of about 200 mil-
lion users.
Money has flooded in from Asia, the United States and Rus-
sia to buy into his ICO private sales. Telegram coins are called
TONs. Initial funding «guesstimates» are already at almost
$4 billion if one counts the two private sales target and add
the much debated public launch. This is a mega-jumbo ICO by
any measurement and made more attractive because it is a real
business as opposed to a «currency» like Bitcoin.
w One notable statistic: Etherium, which after Bitcoin is argu-
ably the best-known Crypto, was funded with 20 million dol-
lars. It has millions of users and a market cap of about 80 billion
dollars. Telegram is raising up to 200 times that much given
the «guesstimates» at the time of press!!! Will it be a winner
for all its investors? We can’t say for sure, but it will be a game
changer. It also proves that the ICO market is an important
source of venture capital (while bypassing conventional ven-
ture capitalists). Telegram has the potential for changing the
Crypto Top 10 league table (by market cap), which still has Bit-
coin in first place.
52 / Hello Monaco Spring–Summer 2018
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