Aussie blockchain startup Havven has kicked off its ambitious $37 million initial coin offering today, seeking to raise funds to make its goal of being cryptocurrency’s first ‘stablecoin’ a reality.
Havven’s founder Kain Warwick told StartupSmart earlier this month Havven was hoping to be part of the next wave of cryptocurrencies, picking up on Bitcoin’s shortcomings by being “decentralised, permissionless, and stable”. Havven’s business model revolves around the concept of a ‘stablecoin’ — a digital currency similar to Bitcoin or Ethereum, without the price volatility.
The startup hopes to achieve that through two different tokens that work in tandem with each other, one called a ‘nomin’, and one called the ‘HAV’ token (which users can purchase via the token sale). The HAV token acts as collateral; users are able to lock them away for periods of time, with the escrowed tokens serving as a backing for the second ‘nomin’ token.
With the value of the collateral tokens backing the stable tokens, users of the stable token can have more confidence that the currency is backed by value, much like how the US dollar was once backed by gold.
Creating a stable store of value on the blockchain has puzzled developers in the space for a long time, and if Havven is successful in its project, Warwick says the team will have solved “a very large problem in cryptocurrencies, second only to blockchain scaling issues”.
The startup’s $US30 million ($37 million) token sale will run for just a week, closing on March 6. The team is confident it will sell out, which would result in the project being Australia’s largest token sale, surpassing Power Ledger’s $34 million raise in October last year.
But $US25 million of that $US30 million may have already been claimed, with Warwick telling StartupSmart Havven had received more than $US25 million in pre-sale pledges from individuals and crypto investment funds.
“Over 50% of those pledges are from large funds, and we have a few more still to announce and work out the paperwork for. We’ve also kept a firm line offer of a 30% discount for everyone through the expression of interest period,” Warwick said earlier this month.
“It’s hard to know how many of the pledges will follow through, but 95% of the funds I’ve spoken to will be completing their purchase, so I expect the pledges to equate to over $US20 million of the sale.”
And while it’s too early to predict the outcome, Havven’s project has drummed up a large amount of interest internationally and the startup’s Telegram channel has more than 25,000 users.
