The accelerating pace of cryptoassets’ launch styles & funding experimentations since 2009

Since Nic Carter analyzed and classified cryptoassets launch styles & funding in his master's thesis, "A Cross-Sectional Overview of Cryptoasset Governance and Implications for Investors", the pace of innovation has been staggering.

It’s interesting to see how these experimentations & dynamics have evolved through time. From Bitcoin’s Fair Launch in 2009, acting as a fair distribution mechanism rewarding active participants. It then became almost all about raising funds, with little place for bootstrapping security & network effect or regulatory compliance. But the 2018 bear market halted this dynamic, the get-rich-quick scheme faded way, and ICOs became increasingly less trendy & frequent throughout the year.

Projects started using the programmability of smart contracts to bootstrap active network participation (Livepeer, NuCypher) by coin holders and favor future active validators, delegators, voters or workers.The community looked for off-protocol on-chain funding mechanisms (@MolochDAO) and new ways to govern tokenized networks and insure a fair distribution (@thibaud’ continuous organization). At the same time, the industry is navigating through regulatory constraints or accepting those constraints & stepping up its game (Blockstack). We expect these trends to continue and the pace of experimentations to keep growing and we are excited to see if regulated investments can be programmed in a fair & accessible way.