The responsibility shifted during the crypto winter whereas regulators slid the vetting process for new coins to the exchanges themselves, this piled high the responsibility they were already dealing with in the fast-changing world of cryptocurrency trading.
Think about the task as head of one of the 200 crypto exchanges. You need to fund the development of a blockchain based matching engine for those coming to your site, have a safe and secure hot wallet, you need liquidity and you need to list multiple currency pairs in order to exist. Then, you need to survive a 70-90% selloff in the underlying assets. Finally, once the smoke clears the regulators say you need to vett any new coins that come to your members – this is the role of the exchanges in Q2 2019, and it is a daunting task.
The evolution from IPO to ICO to STO to IEO reflects a changing macro investing asset class where the world is dubious of the stock market. They are concerned about the 4 technology stocks driving the stock market, and they know instinctively that stocks should not have a ten-year run without some sort of disaster. This brought the rise of Bitcoin in 2008, as the Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns failures showed the vulnerability of equities – enter Bitcoin.
We are a decade in now to an era where fiat currency will disappear like the landline, the taxi cab, and a phone booth. All money will be held in some sort of digital format with the rare paper dollar appearing for payment like a doubloon.
These are the early days of crypto where acceptance is low and volatility is high. Greed turns quickly to fear and new coins blur the lines similar to the Dot.com explosion of 1996 where 90% of the companies failed in a year. The similar part of the crypto move will be that many of these public blockchains will survive and flourish and end up like Amazon, Microsoft or Apple. The technology era of the 1990’s is alive in the IEO market of 2020.
