Globle’s founder Simon Tian discussed crypto fundraising and the future of digital assets with Cryptovest in an exclusive Q&A session. Tian is also co-founder of the Neptune project, and has been selected as the 2015 Thiel Fellow, having been awarded $100,000 by PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel through the Thiel Foundation. Tian was named one of the top 30 Quebecers under 30 by Les Affaires in 2014.
Is crypto fundraising still alive?
Even in a bear market, crypto fundraising is still very much alive. In the first three months of 2018, ICOs raised $6.3 billion, which is more than the total amount raised in 2017 by blockchain startups. Speculation and dips will always be part of the game, but as long as the technology has real potential, it’s only a matter of time before it picks back up. He points to the bursting of the 1990s dot-com bubble as an example of solid tech surviving periods of extreme economic volatility - and that could very well be the case here. Crypto financing has so many distinct advantages versus the existing model. Not only does it provide entrepreneurs with access to a bigger pool of investment opportunities, but it also gives investors more opportunities to fund causes they truly believe in.
So how does a “crypto Kickstarter” improve fundraising?
Kickstarter is a great model but it has some disadvantages. There’s a lack of execution as one of the main drawbacks of the world’s most-used crowdfunding platform. With Kickstarter, you can be in your mom’s basement and raise millions. That's a big reason why there's been a lot of failures. The platform is too easily exploitable. On Kickstarter, even when the team is in charge of operations, there is no mandated execution process. It's entirely up to the team whether there will be updates or how the funds raised were being disbursed and used.
Globle’s approach to solving this is to have everything out in the open. Full transparency into every step of a project’s life cycle on the platform, from ideation to iteration to financing. When funds are disbursed or used, everyone involved in the project sees it happen. All funds, and the way they’re being spent is transparent. Even governance is determined by participants: qualified project leads are chosen by the community because in most cases, this shouldn’t be the inventor.
What kinds of projects would Globle fund?
Our vision is to have the platform be agnostic, with no restrictions on what types of ideas get proposed, voted, financed, and developed. However, Globle aims to encourage consumer-facing projects in its early stages. Everyone is a consumer and there’s no better judge than the market. There are plans to expand the scope of project types in the future. A B2B project, for example, requires a lot more domain expertise in order to be a proper judge of project quality and Globle will support this eventually.
Will you be competing with or helping Kickstarter?
Kickstarter was the first truly successful crowdfunding platform and did an amazing job to increase awareness on how crowdfunding can be used as a model. We're aiming to improve on Kickstarter's offerings.
How do you reach out to people outside the crypto community?
So far, crypto projects have been very technical; most being innovations in the infrastructural aspects of blockchain, which inevitably attracts a specific, niche audience. Globle is different: it isn’t merely a blockchain company. It’s a social platform that pairs aspiring entrepreneurs with capable partners - much like the way Uber, Airbnb, or eBay pairs the right people with each other. We match the right people and resources with each other so that ideas can flourish.
I believe that Globle’s simple, relatable message has what it takes to reach a much wider audience; beyond the existing crypto community. A lot of people have an idea, but find it very hard to get it off the ground. Conversely, a lot of engineers, developers and investors want to be part of exciting projects, but it’s simply hard for them to have access.
What is the best digital asset for fundraising?
The current answer would be either Bitcoin or Ether, because they are the most widely used and carry the least amount of risk for drastic volatility. However, for crypto to really take off there needs to be a stabilized currency. Globle is addressing this head-on with its own Globle Coin (GBC).
I often get asked how a newcomer in the volatile crypto space could be in a position to make fundraising more secure, so I usually warned against basing assumptions on the past performance of a select few newsmakers. The first batch of widely used cryptocurrencies were, in a way, designed to be free-market currencies.
The solution, rather than pegging coins to an existing fiat currency (which has been the popular strategy for most stablecoins), is simply to create a brand new currency with certain built-in safeguards. That’s exactly what Globle is doing with Globle Coin. Essentially, GBC self-stabilizes so the risk of it being volatile is very low.
Can you present the achievements of Globle until now?
Things have been moving fast since Globle’s inception a short six months ago. We’ve built a world-class team of around 50 people who all come from extremely qualified backgrounds and are inherently motivated to see Globle come to life. The project, which secured substantial seed funding, benefits from the expertise of an impressive board of advisors. On the board there's [economist] Joshua Gans, Steve Mann - the “father” of wearables, AR/VR, and HDR - Rob Janoff [the creator of the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) logo], the Thiel Foundation... we’ve got all these incredible people involved and the recent announcement of the Globle white paper generated considerable interest.
So when can we expect to see the first user-facing results of this dream team’s hard work?
We're on track to deliver a beta version of the platform by Q4 of 2018.
What are the legal hurdles to crypto-based fundraising?
There are a lot of regulatory agencies across the world, and they are cracking down on security tokens, so it is a hurdle, but it doesn’t mean it's dead. I believe that governments are interested in fostering this new type of financing strategy, and It's a similar situation to 1933. Before 1933, the securities market was open. Anyone could start printing paper equity and selling it. This complete freedom was good for a while; it unquestionably led to significant economic development. However, a lot of money was invested in bad companies, which ultimately caused the market to crash. When this happened the government didn’t ban all securities. Instead, it passed the Securities Act, which required that a company have a set amount of maturity before it could sell to the public. It also required that all sales to the public be done in the stock exchanges.
Crypto is a new way of generating assets on the blockchain. Up until recently, there’s been no regulation - just like the days of selling securities without regulation in the 1920s. Governments today can't do much. The Chinese ICO ban as an example of misguided policy. It might have seemed like the only solution, but China then saw an increase in ICO activity. The ban didn't work.
Again, the solution is to incentivize investment in vetted projects. On Globle, it’s almost impossible to post a scam because of the election process and the smart contract. While recognizing that fraudulent securities projects will likely always be around, if Globle is seen as a trustworthy platform, then a majority of transactions will go through Globle. There are still illegal stocks being traded and getting funded. But a majority of investments happen in highly controlled and regulated centers like the TSX.
How do you see crypto developing in the coming two years? In five years?
We’re going to see a lot of growth in this space, and I believe there’s a bright future - this is powerful and promising tech.
I see it affecting all areas of our lives, both from a financial perspective and in terms of innovation and governance. While I can’t say exactly how it will happen, I agree with the many thought leaders who assert that cryptos and blockchain are extremely powerful. The pace of change is unpredictable, but this is where we are heading.
Globle is a decentralized platform for bringing new ideas to life. The project has two main features:
- Just like Kickstarter, people can submit new project ideas and crowdsource funding from the community. But that's where the similarities end.
- On Globle, ideas posted on the platform are voted on by the community. Once ideas are accepted, they get paired automatically with the optimal team and funding resources (regardless of whom its originators are) for immediate implementation.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
