secondary title

1. Self-introduction

Glad to have the opportunity to share today. But it's a pity that I can't come to China again. I have been to Asia in the middle of last year. It was a great trip to Asia, and I miss the food in Asia, but more importantly, the community.

secondary title

2. Coinlist’s entrepreneurial story

Coinlist was born in 2017, which happened to be the hottest time for ico. It was originally the result of the cooperation between AngelList and Protocol Labs for the token sale of Filecoin. But in the process of cooperation, everyone found that each project actually needs the exact same series of services. So in 2017, CoinList was established separately to provide services for projects and help them succeed.

Filecoin itself had a successful token sale, raising $250 million on the Coinlist platform. It is a very good thing for a project to have such a starting point. When we cooperated with Filecoin in 2017, our team was still very small. Later, we recruited more people and helped more projects, such as Blockstack and many other projects after that.

For project parties, Coinlist can provide services including: public display of new projects that are about to be released on the platform, so that investors can decide whether to participate; provide compliance, due diligence, KYC and other services for project parties, so that project parties can judge Whether the investor is a qualified investor; provide data and analysis tools to facilitate the project party to understand the sales situation; token distribution (token token) after the sale is completed, which I will introduce in detail when I introduce our transaction and wallet functions. All in all, we are to provide some logistical services for the project side, so that the project can focus more on technology and community building.

Coinlist is very strict in selecting cooperation projects. In the past two and a half years, more than 3,000 projects contacted us, but only 12 of them finally cooperated. In other words, when we decide who to partner with, we do it through deliberation, and we vet the project side before we announce it.

secondary title

3. Customers and stories of Coinlist

Let me share with you the stories of some successful projects in the past few years.

Filecoin was the first project on the Coinlist platform and they managed to raise $250 million. They have excellent teams and excellent technology. What I find most interesting is that some of their technologies already exist. For example, there are already many applications on IPFS (Filecoin's storage layer). At the same time, Filecoin's tokens are also launched very quickly, and investors will be able to get the tokens they subscribed for this year.

I believe everyone remembers that the sale of Filecoin was carried out in August 2017. At that time, ICO was in a very chaotic period, and there were many scammers. Many people pretend to be the project party to cheat money, so during the Filecoin sales process, we spent a lot of energy convincing investors that we are the official sales platform.

Of course, the situation is much better now, the entire encryption field has become more orderly, and the popularity of Coinlist has also increased. So now there is no such problem. But 2017 was really bad.

Our latest project is Solana. It conducts a token sale on the Coinlist platform, but it uses an interesting sales method - an auction to determine the token price instead of a fixed price determined in advance.

We believe that in the cryptocurrency space, auctions will be the future of token pricing during the fundraising process. Because there is a lot of uncertainty in this field. But auctions are a fair way to allow investors to participate in the pricing process. Whoever bids high can get the tokens, and those who bid low can't buy them. But in any case, the token price is determined by the market, not the project party.

Solana also announced yesterday (April 7) that it will be listed on the Binance exchange this week. This is less than a week after their token sale on Coinlist. So they're progressing very rapidly, and we're very pleased with them.

Next month, there will be other projects (Celo) that will sell tokens through auctions. In the future, more and more projects will be auctioned, allowing the market rather than the project side to determine the price of tokens.

We did the Nervos project last year, which has an excellent team and strong technology. It's very interesting that we don't know how much the demand for tokens will be before the token sale. This is also a very interesting point in the encryption field, that is, before the project is released, it is not known whether the token sale will be good or not. Because the encryption community is all over the world, you have no idea in advance how many people will be interested in the project and how much the subscription amount will be. The launch of the Nervos project was very successful. The last round raised more than 70 million US dollars, which was subscribed by global investors. But until the sale closes, we really don't know how much money will be raised in this round.

So when Nervos was officially sold, the Coinlist team sat in a room, pressed the button, started the sale, made sure that there would be no problems with the process, and then watched the subscription amount getting higher and higher, and sent a message to the Nervos team, congratulations They, tell them the sales are doing really well and the subscriptions are going very fast.

So in summary: What Coinlist does is to help projects provide investors with the opportunity to participate in the early investment of the project before the tokens are listed for sale on the exchange (secondary market circulation).

One of the good examples is Solana. Before it officially listed on Binance, it first raised a round on Coinlist. The price of the token after the auction was 0.22 US dollars per token. We hope that the price of the token will be even higher after being listed on Binance. .

secondary title

4. How Coinlist does due diligence and selection

Next, I will share with you how I think investors should do due diligence, how to judge the quality of a project, what kind of projects they should invest in, and the evaluation of projects is reasonable and objective.

Because Coinlist has researched more than 3,000 projects in the past few years, communicated with tens of thousands of investors, and indirectly communicated with hundreds of thousands of investors, so we have accumulated some ideas on how investors evaluate projects and how to do due diligence.

Of course, the most important thing is that investors must agree with the mission and goals of the project, but how to find and participate in the right project at the right time? I think it can be divided into six steps. These six steps represent different parts of project quality:

1. Team

Whether the team background is strong, whether it has done similar products, and whether it has the ability to support the vision of the project. Although everyone has different dimensions to evaluate the team. But the core should be to evaluate the background of the team to ensure that it has sufficient ability to complete the product and project mission;

2. Products

The product is convincing. If there is a specific target user, will the target user use the product, find it useful, and will continue to use it in the future? Because the network must have long-term value, so that the token will continue to appreciate in value. Therefore, to ensure that products and solutions must be powerful technologies and products;

3. Market

The target market of the project should be large enough. Whether the problem the project solves has a large market, whether it will attract a lot of users, and whether it can create great value for the world is very important. Many projects look attractive, but the target market is very small. We believe that it is important for a successful blockchain project to have an attractive product, but the target market should also be large enough;

4. Trading conditions

It depends on whether the trading conditions are favorable to investors. Such as pricing, lock-in period, etc. Of course, the trading conditions also depend on the team, product, market and other factors.

That's why we think auctions are a great way to do it. Auctions can solve the problem of transaction conditions to a certain extent. Use the market to determine the price of the token. Investors will only participate in token financing when the auction drops to a reasonable price, which is an active choice rather than a passive acceptance of the project party's pricing.

If you want to learn more about the auction mechanism, you can take a look at Solana (already completed) and Celo, a new project we will be working on within a month.

The above four parts, whether you invest in projects in the traditional or encrypted market, have the same.

But beyond that, crypto projects have two unique dimensions that also require investors’ attention.

5. Legal structure

Legal structures are an interesting thing. Because the legal structure of traditional projects is the same. But in the crypto market, the legal structure of projects varies widely. So investors must confirm that the legal structure of the project is reasonable and acceptable to you.

Due to time constraints, this aspect cannot be explained. But you can look at your trusted investors (institutions), whether they have already participated in the investment of the project, consult friends, lawyers, etc. But the legal structure is a more difficult aspect to judge, and it is also important.

Of course, as the blockchain industry matures, the legal structure of projects will also become increasingly standardized. But in the past few years, this dimension has been very difficult to judge, but it is very important.

6. Token Economics

This aspect is the most difficult and will take the most time to share with you.

Token economics will mean different things to different people, and it is a brand new concept and field. But for investors, token economics is very important when deciding whether to participate in the fundraising of a project, especially a project that starts selling tokens before the main network is launched.

I think token economics needs to think about two types of issues:

(1) If the network or product is successful, will the token appreciate in value as a result

How to understand it? There are many projects whose technology, network and products are successful, but whose tokens cannot appreciate in value. So some kind of design is needed so that the token will appreciate in value as the network develops.

Share an example. Fiat currency: such as the US dollar, renminbi, or any other type of fiat currency, they have no appreciation path or at least the appreciation path is not clear.

The more people use fiat currency, the more people transact and the wider the use, but the value of fiat currency does not increase. Therefore, legal currency is only a medium for value transfer, and its own value will not increase as a result.

In the encrypted world, the project party must use the design of the token economy to allow tokens to appreciate in value due to events such as network development and reaching milestones.

To sum up, the success of the project's technology and products should be reflected in the subsequent increase in the price of tokens. This is a very important point in judging the value of the project. Investors also need to dig carefully. Also for Coinlist, when we review projects, we place a lot of weight on this. We will judge whether there is a certain design that makes the project token at least have the possibility of appreciation in the future.

(2) Incentives, whether the interests of network participants are consistent

The question of whether incentives and networks are aligned is to ensure that all interested parties are not acting dishonestly. This part is difficult and subtle, and I will do my best to explain it to everyone.

Unlike traditional enterprises, there is no centralized third party in the token network to control the network to ensure that there is no fraudulent behavior. If there is a centralized control party, if the supplier does not deliver in time, then it can be punished or not cooperate from then on. Fraud can be punished.

However, there is no centralized third party in the token network to provide incentives or punishments to other parties, so the network itself needs to have corresponding incentives and punishment mechanisms.

For example, in the POW blockchain, the incentive method is mining fees. Miners provide computing power to keep the network running normally; there is a similar design in the POS blockchain. If the miner node does well, it will get transaction fees, and if it does not do well, the pledge deposit may be lost.

In summary, motivation is a very difficult and delicate question to answer. The core issue is: investors need to judge whether miners and users will perform their duties after the network goes online, that is, after a complete decentralized operation, whether bad actors will be punished, and whether the punishment and incentive mechanism are consistent with the purpose of the network .

secondary title

5. The importance of regulation and compliance

Now I would like to share with you the changes in regulation and compliance, as well as the impact of the "Safe Harbor" just proposed by the United States on the industry and regulation.

Why is compliance and regulation important? The most important reason: because regulation can make or break a project. If the projects are not compliant when they start, maybe they can escape supervision for a while, but over time, they will become a big problem when they accumulate.

Not many things constitute an existential challenge for a project. Regulation and compliance is one of them. If it is not compliant, the project is likely to be in trouble. A very successful project can fall apart in an instant.

Of course, regulation and compliance are very grand issues. Different countries and different provinces and states in the same country have different regulatory requirements, so I cannot introduce them one by one.

But I will share the regulatory and compliance issues that projects often face from a high-level perspective. For projects, the most important challenge (and must be solved) is whether the token is a security token. Securities represent the ownership of companies, and different countries have different regulations on securities.

For most projects, the goal is to turn tokens into commodities or products rather than specific security tokens (investment targets). Because security tokens tend to be subject to a higher degree of regulation. In the United States, the SEC regulates securities, and each country has different regulatory agencies. Once identified as a security token, there will be different requirements for the information disclosure of the project party, the region of the token transaction, and the type of investor.

We are seeing a growing trend around the world to judge whether it is a security token - whether the network is already live and the token is useful in the network. A utility token would generally not be considered a security token.

Second: If the token has other uses besides trading, such as providing some kind of service, it will also help to identify it as not a security token;

Third: decentralization. If there is no centralized controller to control the distribution and supply of tokens, it also helps to judge that tokens are not security tokens.

secondary title

6. Interpretation of the Safe Harbor Token policy proposed by the US SEC recently

Next, I will take a little more time to share the US "safe harbor" proposal. This is actually just a proposal made by Hester Peirce, one of the five SEC commissioners, but we hope that this proposal will soon become a real rule or bill.

secondary title

7. Future development plan of Coinlist

In the past few years, Coinlist has been doing token sales for projects, and has also helped many excellent projects. But in the future, we will provide trading functions, which can formally trade encrypted assets held by investors on our exchange. In addition, the wallet function is also provided, so that users can store their assets on the Coinlist platform and trade them at any time. So why provide these features now?

Those who have participated in ICO before should know that you will receive an email from the project party telling you to send them the address according to the instructions, and then the project party will deposit coins according to the address. But there are many risky links in this process, for example, if you paste the wrong address. There will be great risks and uncertainties.

We want to make the token sale process easier. If you participate in Coinlist’s token sale, you can choose to let the project party transfer the tokens directly to your Coinlist wallet address. It does not require you to register a new wallet, manage private keys, and copy and paste private key addresses. The account password you use to log in to the Coinlist wallet is the same as the account password you used when participating in the token sale. The same transaction process can also be completed on Coinlist's exchange. Of course, you don’t need to participate in the ICO, and you can simply trade in the secondary market on Coinlist.

This is a huge step forward for us. In addition to providing transaction and wallet functions, we will launch more functions in the coming months. At present, our trading interface is still very simple, but we will launch a professional version soon, and the supported trading pairs will also increase, such as mainstream currencies such as BTC and ETH, and project tokens that cooperate with Coinlist, although they are new currencies, But the potential is huge. In addition, as time goes by, we will support more and more currencies.

Coinlist is an exchange registered in the United States, so we focus on the US market. But we also welcome investors from other countries to participate and use our services.

We are committed to providing service and support for high-quality projects. The highlights of my personal career include: the successful fundraising of Filecoin, and their tokens will be launched this year; the sale of Nervos last year was also very successful; and the recent sale of Solana, the auction was very successful, and the final pricing Most others are satisfied, plus they will be on Binance soon.

Interactive Q&A

Interactive Q&A

1. How are the projects on Coinlist performing?

Among the projects that we provide fundraising services, there are many projects whose tokens have not officially entered the exchange trading. The one that can provide data is Origin, which was listed on the exchange this year, and its price has tripled. We will also pay close attention to the performance of Solana, which is about to be listed on the exchange, and hope that more projects will provide us with data by the end of the year.

2. Coinlist is an SEO compliant token issuance platform. Many projects do not allow Chinese citizens to participate in the subscription of public tokens. This has hindered business in Asia. Will Coinlist have any strategic layout for the Chinese market in the future?

When we help projects conduct token sales, we are very cautious about compliance and supervision. But which investors are allowed to participate in the token and which markets are targeted for it is the project party's own decision. We are the provider of the service.

But we continue to pay attention to the changes in regulations in various places, and judge what we can do and what we cannot do based on this. So I also encourage everyone to register through the link I posted before to keep up. If your country or region cannot participate now, you may be able to participate in future regulatory changes.

3. What do you think of cross-chain projects?

The topic of cross-chain is very interesting, but first of all it is a philosophical question. Before judging specific cross-chain projects, you must first answer this philosophical question. If you believe that there will be many successful chains in the blockchain field in the future, and each chain is suitable for different scenarios, then you need a cross-chain solution to solve the interaction between chains; but some people think that there will only be one chain in the future , so the value of the cross-chain will drop. And I personally think it is the former, so I think there will definitely be a solution to the problem of cross-chain compatibility, allowing users and assets on different chains to interact.

Therefore, my personal opinion is that cross-chain has great potential. There are also many good cross-chain projects, such as COSMOS and Polkadot mentioned in the comments, although neither of these two projects have announced their sale on Coinlist. The only project we have announced that we will raise funds in the near future is Celo, although it is not a cross-chain project. So I still encourage everyone to click on the link I sent before, and follow our website, WeChat or email to learn more.

4. How do you view the impact of the black swan event on March 12 on the entire industry or project?

I don't think the plunge on March 12 will have a long-term impact on the crypto world. The encryption industry is very robust. We have experienced plummets and skyrockets. This is just a common process in this industry. But what I find most interesting is that after the black swan event, the market rebounded sharply, which just proves the resilience of the market.

So I think it may have an impact in the short term, and some investors may not be willing to participate, but in the long run, the encryption industry will grow and good projects will succeed.

5. The project you choose, if the regulations change later, is it still compliant?

To the best of our knowledge, no project has been found to be non-compliant or illegal after raising money on Coinlist. We always choose to cooperate with the best projects. Therefore, no misconduct by the project party was discovered after the fundraising was completed.

6. What do you think about AI plus blockchain, and what is the connection?

AI and blockchain, at least for now, are two separate technologies. Maybe there will be some way to combine the two in the future, but they are still independent for now. Let me make an analogy: Will the Internet plus AI produce good projects? The answer is yes. You can definitely apply AI technology to the Internet field to make some interesting products. But I don't think AI plus blockchain will produce something special, just a combination of two powerful technologies, nothing special. For example, Coinlist has also worked on the AI ​​plus blockchain project Ocean Protocol before. Their technology and team are good. We are also very optimistic about this project, but they are just one of many good projects.

7. Why are there not many people using Defi now?

I think the reason is that Defi is still in a very early stage. There are already two meanings. First: there are still relatively few DeFi applications, so as more and more DeFi applications are used in the future, users will also increase accordingly.

Second: the interface of DeFi and decentralized products is not user-friendly, so I think the optimization of the interface will attract more users.

To sum up: the development of DeFi requires three points: the encryption industry becomes more popular and the user base expands; the interface of DeFi applications needs to be optimized; more DeFi projects that can provide value to users are needed.

8. How does Coinlist serve Chinese people? After all, some projects do not allow Chinese people to participate, and Coinlist does not have a Chinese interface. Does Coinlist plan to enter the Chinese investment market?

Again, we are a U.S. company, and we must follow U.S. regulations while also paying attention to the regulatory rules of other countries around the world. Nationals of some countries cannot participate in certain programs due to their own laws.

But we encourage everyone to register on our website or the Mike form, so as to receive timely information on changes in international regulations or related regulatory rules.

9. What is the future plan of Coinlist?

Coinlist will not only help the project to sell the highest quality tokens, but also provide trading and wallet functions, such as trading mainstream currencies such as BTC and ETH, and tokens of cooperation projects such as Algorand.

Finally, I would like to encourage everyone to take a look at our website, see what projects you can participate in, try out various functions of the website, and provide us with feedback.

We are very happy to cooperate with a series of excellent projects such as Filecoin, Nervos, Solana, Ocean, Blockstack, Trust Token and Kadena in the past few years.

Finally, thank you all again. I wish you a nice weekend. During the epidemic, stay healthy.