World’s First ICCO: Palladium

We have a new game changer in the cryptocurrency space in the form of World’s first ICCO – Initial Convertible Coin offering – being offered by a Malta-based blockchain startup Palladium which intends to launch an integrated platform powered by Bittrex. The launch of Palladium is unique in the sense that it offers its clients the capability of unifying crypto and fiat-based multi-asset transactions on a single platform which is regulated by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA).

Prof. Paolo Catalfamo, Founder, and Chairman of Palladium put it in these words at the launch of Palladium:

"This ICCO is one of the most unique investment opportunities in the blockchain world. Institutional investors recognize the scale of the opportunity, but the lack of regulation has kept them watching from the sidelines. Palladium's solution will change this. Cutting-edge blockchain technology will allow customers to use regulation-compliant, multi-asset accounts to manage fiat and cryptocurrencies."

Let’s take a look at some of the salient features of this ambitious project and why it looks promising to me.

1. Strong Team: The team consists of highly skilled leaders in their respective fields – it is a good mix of people from academics, IT, fintech, entrepreneurs, international bankers and top executives with vast experiences under their belts. For details about the team, you can glance at their White Paper. Having a good team is a key component of any project especially in the blockchain space where more than 1,000 cryptocurrencies have turned out to be dead projects. Viable projects which have survived the test of time have been the ones having the most active, efficient & vibrant teams.
2. Partnerships: Needless to say that most ICO projects who have shown promise have been the ones which snatched meaningful partnerships with main players in the game. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and Stellar are the biggest examples. Palladium has forged early partnerships with Bittrex, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges based out of Seattle, U.S that lists almost 200 digital coins, and Unikrn, an e-sports betting startup based out of Las Vegas, U.S.A that launched the UnikoinGold, the largest e-gaming token of its kind last year.
3. Unified Platform: One of the biggest advantages of Palladium is its functionality as an integrated platform giving you the ability to do your fiat banking while keeping its niche as a cryptocurrency exchange. This would do wonders to the inclusiveness of general public who want to invest in this technology, but a lack of fiat-based cryptocurrency exchanges and simply the hassle of converting fiat into digital assets keeps them away. Since the majority of the cryptocurrency exchanges are cryptocurrency based most people just stay on the sidelines due to a lack of technical know-how. Even when you have different digital tokens, you need to have multiple wallets to store them safely. How does it sound if you are able to buy digital coins directly from your fiat Checking accounts, pay your bills via cryptocurrencies or simply exchange digital assets all from the comfort of a unified platform without the need of carrying multiple wallets? Palladium is promising to do all that.
4. Fully Regulated: All said and done, for an average investor it boils down to the security of their investment. What happens if the project fails? Is there some kind of regulation that governs these businesses? For most jurisdictions, the answer is still a no. But Malta has moved way ahead of everyone else with the recent passage of a comprehensive regulatory framework, and this is where Palladium is based. The project will have to follow the stringent guidelines enforced on all blockchain based businesses in Malta. This puts all the investors' mind at ease knowing their investment is in safe hands.
5. ICCO: Finally the most important & the most innovative feature of this project has been the launch of Initial Convertible Coin offering platform. The platform will basically issue ‘tokenized convertible warrant' which again is regulated by the MFSA and subject to stringent EU rules as well. This warrant will give the investors the right to convert it into shares eventually, which is three years in the case of Palladium. So you will have the choice of either keeping the digital tokens or actual ownership shares in the company.

The presale of Palladium token is underway at the time of this writing, but the actual offering would start on July 25 and run until September 30, 2018. With the rest of the Blockchain community fearful of the Crypto regulations around the world the implementation of the same in Malta has kick-started the innovation in high gear. It is indeed the uncertainty that hampers and hinders the progress.

The original Data Driven Investor article was posted here. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CDOTrends.