I've been working with the team at hCaptcha on their drop-in replacement for Google's reCAPTCHA.

Most interesting: when you're completing a reCAPTCHA, you're doing volunteer work for Google. With hCaptcha, the company compensates the website owners for the labelling work the end-user is doing.

We're rolling out the live product now - no token sale to shill or anything like that - and I'm sharing to get it in front of anyone who runs a website and wants to activate hCaptcha as a passive monetization tool. Compensation in USD for US-based sites.

Sign-up: hcaptcha.com
Telegram: https://t.me/hcaptchachat
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hcaptcha

Seems like this subforum might enjoy...

Full post: https://medium.com/human-protocol/transfer-your-tokens-9-600x-more-efficiently-on-ethereum-using-the-bulk-api-fbc2f10669ed

(Copy and paste) summary to save you the click:
"If you’ve developed on Ethereum before you have probably noticed how limiting transfers can be. Sending tokens to many Ethereum addresses is slow and expensive when using the standard methods defined in the ERC20 standard. This has prevented wide adoption of Ethereum’s public chain for micropayments and other high-volume use cases.

As part of our work on the HUMAN Protocol we needed to scale settlements to handle billions of task payments per day. Turns out this is possible to do in a backwards-compatible way even on the Ethereum mainnet. We call it the Bulk API.

Many of our friends at other projects have asked us to share these results, so in order to give back to the community we are open sourcing our reference implementation. We will also be proposing the Bulk API as an extension to the existing ERC20 standard so that everyone can benefit from faster and cheaper token transfers to multiple Ethereum addresses."

I recently posted an article on the subject in The Startup: https://medium.com/swlh/initial-coin-offering-ico-alternative-ppm-private-placement-95752f78c500. Article is copied/pasted below to save you the click.
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tl;dr: It seems most American legal minds are steering clear of the "traditional" token sale in favor of a private placement memorandum - selling equity in the project, often with rules that say the equity can be converted to token (or may be accompanied with token, or may that equity may be issued and then bought back with token) if/when the government gets around to offering a real solution.

Loopholey, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss," yada yada.

A few companies have done this or are doing this, including FileCoin and 27v. Anyone aware of any others? Would really love to speak with them.
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Article below:
Initial Coin Offering Alternatives Gain Steam as Startups Seek a Compliant Track
In my role as an American token founder and advisor, I hear about different ways to “do a compliant ICO” each week. Each seemingly has its moment in the sun before a major law firm or regulator shoots it down — I’m looking at you, SAFT agreement — as the broader market waits for a new asset classification or legal clarification.

One seems to have made its way to the forefront, and it appears to have some staying power: the Private Placement Memorandum. In other words, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

(Disclosure: I’m not a lawyer or legal expert of any kind. None of this is legal advice — it is only the observation and opinion of a cryptocurrency market participant.)

You might not agree the Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) should be considered an “ICO alternative.”

I hear you.

The PPM is, after all, a sale of equity. You’re welcoming individual investors to your capitalization table just the same way you would following a traditional startup financing path.

But there are two major benefits of running a crypto-token project fundraise with a PPM:

There’s no ambiguity here. We know how a PPM works from a legal perspective. A PPM generally does not touch the SEC (unless the company chooses to).
The PPM agreement can establish future rules. Filecoin’s PPM states you can earn a discount on the purchase price of your crypto-token if you agree to a longer vesting period. Others offer liquidation preferences or guarantees.
Many crypto-token project PPM sales, like EasyTutor and 27v, leverage that second bullet in a way ICO folks should dig: if/when the U.S. government gets around to establishing some rules, an individual investor may convert their equity investment to project token.

This is especially true when a PPM is paired with a SAFT agreement, like with Filecoin. (And may not be true if the PPM offer is paired with certain SEC filings — do your diligence.)

At such a time, the investor would have the option to realize the benefits of a crypto-token utility (if applicable) and/or converting to a tradable and liquid investment asset.

In the end, an investor is able to jump in on the next great blockchain project, resting assured their project is on solid legal ground and that they have a real stake in the outcome of the business, while (perhaps) holding the right to convert that investment to crypto-token at a later date. That’s a great position for those who want to get into blockchain or crypto but are more risk-averse.

This option is not without downside, namely that PPMs run counter to the general spirit of a crowd sale as they can only be offered to a targeted group of accredited investors and they should not be broadly marketed to the public.

The fact remains that such a structure is, as of today, the only option I’ve heard lawyers accept as viable and compliant without reservation.
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Author here - happy to answer any questions. In the time since the article posted, I've heard of at least 3 other token-based projects doing a PPM. Certainly seems to be the best answer at the moment.

Confirming that I am a blockchain advisor on this project.

This is a project that has been attempted (in a few different ways) but never successfully executed. I've spent time with the 27v team and believe they're the ones who can actually execute - they're experienced, thoughtful, and care deeply about the user experience. I'm happy to be a part of it.

Lots of misinformation out there about what went wrong at Munchee - as an advisor, I decided to punch up a summary of what I heard and saw: https://medium.com/swlh/what-went-wrong-at-munchee-ico-sec-subpoena-a468cba42e10

Today in Hacker Noon: https://hackernoon.com/crypto-token-listing-sites-are-an-upsell-scheme-48bce663551b

I've noticed an increasing number of formerly-free token listing sites now charging or attempting to up-sell project owners following submission.

Worse, I've seen listing sites offer a free listing, publicly rate the project poorly (like 1.5 out of 5), and when the project owner reaches out to ask why/address concerns, they're sold they can request a "deeper review" for the low, low price of 1 BTC. (Putting Bitcoin Market Journal on blast.)

There is lots of stuff like this. I'll be writing about this in greater detail soon.

In the interim, I've decided to launch my own token listing site and pledge to never ask for a dime. No promoted listings, no advertising, no anything.

We're building our listings now so if you have something to submit, head to http://www.tokenlist.xyz/submit-a-sale/ . Would also appreciate feedback - I tried to find the right amount of pertinent (actionable, interesting) information so that we don't overload and it remains a reasonable amount of work for me (and my group) to maintain these listings.

I wrote about the interesting approach Intiva is taking in regards to compliance in Observer: "One strategy, employed by the ongoing Intiva Token project, is to offer the token as an equity shareholder benefit. Intiva Health offers a small amount of equity to accredited U.S. investors the same way many technology startups do today, and they issue a corresponding amount of token as a shareholder benefit. This means a token buyer receives the benefit of owning equity in a career management platform for licensed medical professionals while also receiving a token to be used as a utility on the platform itself."

Link: http://observer.com/2018/03/government-fails-to-classify-cryptos-token-issuers-struggle-to-comply/

Wonder where ya found this one! 

Cool three-part podcast series by Coloring Crypto and a video... some great insights by Jackson Palmer and Ross Nicholl.

Love the quote they pulled for the feature image: "Bitcoin has 21 million, we made it so there's 100 billion of them. And that was literally inspired by Dr. Evil."

Jumping off point: https://medium.com/@gabemott/the-origin-of-dogecoin-3b212e8beb74

FWIW: The way this is presented, it looks like they have a partnership with ETHLend. Based on activity in the ETHLend Telegram channel, this is not the case - looks like they're just active in lending and borrowing.

   



69% of Americans have $0 in savings. The only app that lets you set rules for saving, powered by micro-transactions.  Set aside money for saving every time money leaves your bank account.  No debit card required.  Built on Blockchain, governed by Smart Contracts.  FDIC Insured accounts backed by BBVA Compass Bank.






- Token Homepage: https://www.trevilabs.co/
- White paper: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/f7d204_c047133883c4494ba30aa1c34af46f18.pdf
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/trevi_co
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Trevi.Co/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/17773914/

Tokens Generated: 1 billion Trevi Token (TT)
Private Sale: 2 million TT 01/29/2018-02/11/2018
Public Token Sale 4 million TT: 03/01/2018-05/01/2018

Technology: 4%
Development: 16%
Payroll: 46%
Operations: 20%
Marketing: 14%



- Miriam Jones - CEO - 11 Years CEO Experience
- Michael Carian - CCO - Art Director - Cashmere Agency
- Saf Elmansour - CMO - Head of Mobile Marketing - USA Today
- Tommy Goode - CTO - Senior Dev - Verigo
- Andrew J. Chapin - Advisor - Founder benja/benjaCoin, Author "Art of the Initial Coin Offering"

A utility token for a set of digital royalty programs, rewarding consumer behavior for retail businesses.

Our parent company, Digital MKB, builds white-label mobile applications to empower retail stores in their effort to improve customer retention. The most important feature is a personalized digital loyalty program, which began as a simple effort to digitize the famous paper stamp-card. Because of our further developments and growth we have found a solution for enabling variable rewards, and a deep level of analytics. We have many existing retail partners (in the Netherlands) and are rapidly expanding this customer base.

Our next release will allow end-users to buy, sell, and trade loyalty reward points through RetailCoins.

The Digital MKB team is launching RetailCoin with a presale happening now. You can find details about the RetailCoin presale at our website.

NOTE: WE WILL NOT ASK FOR ANY SENSITIVE INFORMATION OR AIM TO FACILITATE TRANSACTIONS OVER BITCOINTALK.

- Token Homepage: https://retailcoins.eu/
- White paper: https://retailcoins.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Whitepaper.RetailCoins.pdf
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/retailcoins
- Telegram: coming soon
- Team members: @andrewjchapin, @hugoleijtens

Tokens Offered in Private Presale: 10,000,000 RC
Private Presale Period: NOW
Hard Cap: 2262 ETH
Tokens Offered in ICO 2018: 140,000,000 RC
ICO Period: 1 Feb - 15 Mar 2018
Hard Cap: 60304 ETH

Partners & Advisors: 3,000,000 RC
Employee Token: 2,000,000 RC
Founder Token: 1,000,000 RC
Operation Token: Remaining balance
Total Supply: 7,000,000,000 fixed, non-inflationary

How does RC work & how can it be gained/spent:


Token Buy Back Program - After two years, you can offer your tokens to be apart of the buyback program, which we will buy back for the same purchase price.  This will be locked in the smart contract.  We will provide a subordinated loan of 7 years with 4.85% interest.  After 7 years term you will receive your original investment.

Coin Stabilization Programme - 50% of the Foundation profits used for Coin Stabilizations.  We will buy back tokens periodically to ensure value stability.

No pump & dump schemes - Each of our team members has a vested interest in the tokens.  All team members will buy tokens during the presale period.

- Hugo Leijtens, Co-Founder & Architect
- Gijs Paijmans, Co-Founder & SMB Sales
- Salsabil Ohorilla, Designer
- Antoine Jansen, Business Development Director
- Ahmet Comert, Customer Success Manager
- Aron Groot, Marketing & Communications
- Wilco Bakker, Blockchain Developer
- Domagoj Rukavina, Senior Software Developer
- Slavo Stimac, Software Developer
- Ivo Katunaric, Software Developer
- Frans van Haarlem, Advisor
- Michiel Hoogenboom, Advisor
- Bas van Os, Advisor, Advisor
- Andrew J. Chapin, ICO Advisor. CEO at Benja (and lead of benjaCoin ICO), Author of Art of the Initial Coin Offering, Member of ICO Governance Foundation.

Bounties were a great way for hobbyists to get some free token/altcoin, a great way for ICO managers to stretch their marketing dollar, and, it turns out, a great way to grab the attention of the SEC.

With the SEC cracking down on bounties (and perhaps airdrops, etc.), it seems like the bounty party is over.

Published some thoughts today in Hacker Noon: https://hackernoon.com/rest-in-peace-ico-bounty-programs-fc1e1e04e867

Link: https://hackernoon.com/rest-in-peace-ico-bounty-programs-fc1e1e04e867

As I wrote in Hacker Noon today, the SEC is now cracking down on American ICO projects which offer bounty programs. Sharing this here for obvious reasons - heads up!

I wrote Art of the Initial Coin Offering, a short book which offers my personal perspective as a token founder as we worked our way through an ICO launch. I dig into conceptualization, building a marketing strategy, token generation, compliance, and more on our way to a sale launch.

I'm sharing this here because I cover a lot of the topics that are discussed in this sub-forum, not because I want to sell copies. I think a lot of the readers here would find it valuable, whether considering your own token launch or as a hobbyist curious about what goes into such an effort.

If you're interested in access to a PDF (via Attach.io) of the book, I'm happy to accept crypto. I'll make the book available for the grand price of whatever you think it's worth. Literally whatever. PM me.

Alternatively, it's available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Initial-Coin-Offering-Crypto-Token-ebook/dp/B075RRWGT1

Stoked to share that the book is now available on Amazon!

Link: http://a.co/i7SS4bO