Ambisafe, a US-based startup, introduced Orderbook this week, a platform where traders can buy and sell tokens from initial coin offerings on the Ethereum network. The service runs in alpha version. A
Ambisafe, a US-based startup, introduced Orderbook this week, a platform where traders can buy and sell tokens from initial coin offerings on the Ethereum network. The service runs in alpha version. Ambisafe built it to ride the ICO wave and to give both ICO founders and traders the transparency they want when buying and selling these tokens on the secondary market.
The timing works. ICOs have exploded this year. According to Smith and Crown, a research outfit focused on blockchain and cryptocurrency finance, 65 projects have sold tokens and raised more than $522 million in total.
Several ICOs have drawn massive investment. Bancor, a project building a network that makes it easier for users to launch their own blockchain-based tokens, raised $153 million in ether this month and set a crowdfunding record. Blockchain Capital and Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson backed the sale. Brave, a web browser startup, pulled in $35 million in seconds. Status, an Ethereum-based messaging platform and mobile browser, brought in more than $100 million a few weeks ago.
Orderbook operates as a set of smart contracts on Ethereum. The platform stores all assets on-chain, meaning Ambisafe never holds the funds that traders deposit. Participants can review dividend histories, trading protocols, transaction volumes and analysis from established cryptocurrency data sources. The interface displays company details and lets traders claim dividends in a single transaction. Because all trades record to the blockchain, anyone can audit the history for evidence of fraud or manipulation.
Ambisafe has guided ICO launches before. Polybius, an Estonian startup building the world's first digital bank for cryptocurrency companies and blockchain projects, raised $21.2 million through an ICO that Ambisafe managed. The company also managed ICO launches for TaaS and Chronobank.
Last year, Ukraine selected Ambisafe along with KitSoft, Distributed Lab and Titanovo to develop blockchain voting software. The team built and demonstrated a prototype using the Ethereum network as the base platform.
