Global Blockchain Congress ’18: Experts discuss the future of ICOs.

By Sumedha Bose

A wave of tokenization that has begun with the advent of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) has changed the game for startups. It has emerged as an extremely popular method of crowd funding because of its unique nature. ICOs raised $3.8 billion in 2017 alone and this year they have already raised over $12.4 billion.

The Global Blockchain Congress that is currently taking place in Johannesburg, South Africa has a lot of interesting sessions lined up. This Congress plans to ‘explore blockchain, cryptocurrencies and ICOs; focus on how the cryptocurrency industry continues to grow globally & discuss the opportunities that exist in decentralizing businesses using Blockchain.’ It is providing a platform for all global influencers in technology, civil society and innovation to come together and have a stimulating discussion about the applications of the Blockchain and ICOs which have the potential to change the world.

One of the afternoon sessions was called ‘Quadrilogue: Future of ICOs’. A total of four panelists spoke in the session.  The panelists include Eric Annan, co-founder of the crypto exchange KuBitX. Eric has been trained as an investment banker with four years of corporate engagement and he pioneered two Microfinance banks in Ghana. Next on the panel is Brian A. Konradi who is the co-founder and director of Legal, Decentra. Brian’s Linkedin profile says that he is  ‘a blockchain enthusiast and lawyer with over 16 years of experience advising clients on a variety of corporate transactions.’ The managing director of Cryptotraders ZA, Zulekha Cara, is the third panelist of the session. The company is based out of Cape Town. The last person on the panel is Shana Derman, CEO of IntelliCred.

KuBitX, also the launching partner of the Congress, has shown great progress as a cryptocurrency trading platform.  They mentioned in the summit that KuBitX has already processed 12m+ per sec with a latency of 40 nanoseconds and high security trading platform.

Brian A. Konradi, a veteran in the space of investment legality spoke about the legal aspects of conducting ICOs and why the stance of multiple nations towards the same is dubious.

While discussing ICOs, Shana Derman said that more than 80% of ICOs in 2017 turned out to be a scam, and that did hurt energy Blockchain’s credibility. She also spoke on issues concerning security and identity when it comes to ICOs.

The session saw all the panelists engaged in a rivetting discussion where they analysed how ICOs will fare in the long run. It was a highly informative and engaging session.