Blockstack hits one million user milestone, unlocking $6.8 million in additional funding

According to a recent blog post, Blockstack PBC has successfully registered one million “Verified Users,” giving the company access to the remaining capital from its late 2017 token sale. The details of this Dec. 2017 STX offering prevented Blockstack from accessing 80% of the funds raised (worth nearly $50 million at the time) unless the startup could reach specific milestones. Blockstack reached Milestone 1 when it launched the Stack blockchain in Oct. 2018, whereas Milestone 2 locked away 40% of the raised funds until Blockstack registered one million human-owner accounts. Blockstack’s net return from reaching this latest milestone totaled only $6.8 million since (at least) a portion of the funds were held in crypto.

Why it matters:

• One million accounts is a notable milestone for any network, especially as numerous projects flood the market with new offerings and compete to win attention among an already thin user base.
• Blockstack also says out of its almost two million registered user names, more than half of them are human-owned accounts and not created by bots. Of course, no process for weeding out bots from real accounts is perfect, including Blockstack’s attempt to independently verify its milestone by using third-party advisors (who operated as part of the Blockstack Token Fund entity).
• Raising at the peak of 2017’s crypto bubble did not work in Blockstack’s favor. What was once nearly $20 million is now around $6.8 million, a drawdown of 66%. Blockstack intends to use the remaining capital to fund its engineering efforts as the company prepares for the launch of Stacks 2.0 in Q2.