US cracks on companies raising $100mn in 10 minutes; would India even care to blink?

The red-hot market for “Initial Coin Offerings” in a much speculated turn of events, fell under radar of the Securities and Exchange Commission in a recent report which concluded that the “coins” in one prominent ICO were in fact securities.

Blockchain industry thought leader and founder of Token Summit(responsible for popularizing the use of cryptographic tokens as an investment tool) William Mougayar has a contrarian view.

"The guidance offered by SEC will help 'elevate the standards' of entrepreneurs seeking to leverage the investment vehicle.", William Mougayar

Regulations and compliance close great instruments of investment except the ones publicly listed on stock exchanges.

Cryptocurrency investment, on the other hand, is not currently regulated by SEBI — or similar agencies, offer an accessible scheme of a venture investment.

And, well, it played out pretty well — Case in Point: look at how ETH team continue to grow rapidly.

In an open letter to to SEC, celebrity investor, Tim Draper notes

“I want the U.S. to be able to share in this bright future rather than giving all the benefits to countries like Switzerland, Singapore and Japan, who have taken leadership positions in the Crypto industry.”- Tim Draper

I take one up on his words, but I am not at all concerned about his cause.

There’s a chapter of innovation being written right now in human history, through technology enabled tokens that can aid in large scale innovation and transformation.

What I’m more concerned about, is whether the Indian economy, poised to be the digital transformation leader in the world by various industry pandits, will really rise up and go all out this time?

To me it seems thought, that the odds are stacked against us both historically and with the current inertia among the status-quo.

While our own folks are literally running everlasting technological tour-de forces, we never really managed to build a single technological breakthrough that could have a network effect encompassing the global markets — no global monopoly under our belts.

Blockchain and India, both the idea when they juxtapose in mind, I don’t see a very rosy imagery

First thing that comes to mind — ‘GOI will regulate and legalize cryptocurrency’ a recent hot air among media outlets and connected folks.

But rational thinking leads me to the insane thought — ‘Shouldn’t GOI ponder on legalizing Marijuana first?’

Fun Fact: Marijuana sales in US circa 2016, amount to almost 1/3rd of Global Bitcoin Market Capitalization(current).

Well, whatever the reason might be — I’ve got all the reason to believe that India will be able to create much greater impact on technological advancement this time around.

Quite apparently so, some of us will need to hop on this particular bandwagon, be a part of the hustle.