Coinbase considering Initial Exchange Offering platform! Coinbase, a US Based cryptocurrency exchange, is strongly considering an Initial Exchange Offering platform.
The news was revealed by Kayvon Pirestani, Coinbase’s Head of institutional sales in Asia during a panel at the Invest: Asia Conference on September 11th.
The IEO Platform could be announced within a few months, with Pirestani reportedly revealing that the exchange believes that an IEO represents a “really interesting opportunity” for the business.
IEOs have emerged as an alternative model of token offering where the centralized crypto exchange acts as a form of the underwriter. Whereas an ICO was backed by the project and the tokens, an IEO is backed by the crypto exchange.
The crypto exchange generally operates sales and vets both the projects and prospective investors.
IEO’s have been used before, most notably, Binance’s native token Binance Coin (BNB) as well as Binance’s Launchpad token offering platform.
For timeline, Pirestani indicated that a potential IEO announcement may come in a few months – the exchange’s pursuit of regulated securities offerings remains in the infancy stage.
Coinbase has been on a buying spree of securities dealers – Keystone Capital Corp, Venovate Marketplace, Inc., and Digital Wealth LLC – back in 2018. Coinbase had announced at the time of those acquisitions that they represented the beginning of a process to become a fully regulated broker-dealer under the supervision of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). If Coinbase is approved for a broker-dealer license, the platform would be able to offer fully compliant blockchain-based securities.
Perestani reportedly confirmed that the broker-dealer licenses had eventually been obtained by the exchange, but they’re working on repurposing the licenses.
What do you think? Do you think IEO’s are just the next ICO? Are they different? We know the SEC is cracking down on ICOs. Let us know what you think on our Facebook page!
