Original author: 1912212.eth, Foresight News
The once glorious CoinList is no longer what it used to be, and its wealth effect and brand reputation are no longer as good as before. From a highly anticipated public offering platform to its current glory days, what happened to CoinList?
1. CoinList Overview
CoinList was formerly founded by the famous angel investor Naval Ravikan, who is also the founder of the American equity crowdfunding platform AngelList. Uber, which made a global sensation many years ago, completed crowdfunding financing on it.
When Ravikan found that blockchain was in its infancy, he decided to create a blockchain version of AngelList. During the ICO boom, the Filecoin team was also preparing to raise large amounts of funds, and then Filecoin founder Juan Benet and Ravikan jointly created this crowdfunding platform that later became famous in the cryptocurrency circle. Although the two founders co-founded CoinList, and the product and operation personnel were also from AngelList, the CEO was someone else, Andy Bromberg.
Andy graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science, and co-founded the Stanford Bitcoin Group to promote Bitcoin. In addition, he is also the co-founder and CEO of Sidewire.
After briefly taking charge of CoinList for a few years, although he was still its co-founder, he focused his main energy on the newly created non-custodial payment wallet beam. Its CEO was replaced by Graham Jenkin, but he did not serve for too long before being replaced by Raghav Gulati again.
Raghav Gulati previously served as a venture capital partner at sha for nearly 6 years, and then worked as a product engineer at Shyp, Backplane, and KEEP. He has served as co-founder and CEO of Apex since 2019. The Apex team cooperated with CoinList in June 2022 to improve the latter's user experience. After joining CoinList, he became its vice president of product management and was eventually promoted to CEO.
CoinList's product business has now been organized into two major sections, namely the three major platforms of trading, OTC, and staking for the user side, and the launch, test network, seed, registration and other functions for the developer side.
Despite the negative impact of the bull market turning into a bear market and a series of thunderstorms, CoinList still achieved good results. In the review of 2022, it stated that a total of 1 million KYC users were added. In 2023, after the market rebounded, 600,000 new users were added. European and Asian users grew the strongest, with more than 1.5 million users registered and participating, and cumulative token sales exceeded US$20 million.
However, during the growth of CoinList, what has been criticized is the very strict KYC certification.
In the past, when KYC was not strict, many users would often purchase identities through intermediaries for batch authentication in order to obtain higher returns. This method was later discovered by CoinList and severe penalties were imposed.
In May 2023, CoinList issued a special warning that "there are serious dangers and consequences to purchasing CoinList accounts from third parties. Purchasing accounts directly violates the CoinList Terms of Service and will result in the immediate termination of the relevant accounts." In addition, since the seller who created the account is the owner of KYC, they can retrieve CoinList and regain access to their account at any time. The account seller can then withdraw funds, which will cause irreversible losses to the account buyer. Malicious sellers can even try to hold accounts for ransom by trying to regain access to "sold" CoinList accounts. CoinList will not be able to assist users in recovering their assets in this case.
Not long after, a considerable number of users who bought accounts in China found that their accounts were banned in batches, and withdrawals were suspended, and even the remaining funds were confiscated by the platform.
In fact, CoinList, which focuses on compliance, is very strict about KYC. Users in many countries in the jurisdiction will be prohibited from participating in new project public offerings. For example, the United States and China are often strictly prohibited from participating in any projects. Before each new project is sold publicly, users need to select the corresponding country and region and submit certification information. If they do not meet the regulations, they will not be able to enter the public sale.
In December 2023, CoinList paid a $1.2 million settlement to OFAC for violating OFAC-related sanctions. CoinList Markets LLC opened accounts for 89 users, almost all of whom specified "Russia" as their country of residence, but provided an address in Crimea when opening an account.
CoinList's strict KYC protects its own brand compliance to a certain extent, but it also makes many players lament the loss of wealth.
II. Some projects with higher return rates (2020-2021)
The last bull market cycle was the most glorious era for CoinList. Many well-known projects that have achieved huge returns participated in the public offering. It is no exaggeration to say that as long as you grab it, you will make money. Star projects such as NEAR, SOL, and FLOW have made CoinList famous in the circle.
Solana Public Chain
In March 2018, Solana's seed round raised $3.2 million ($0.04/token), in June 2018, the genesis round raised $12.6 million (approximately $0.20/SOL), in July 2019, the validator round raised $5.7 million at a unit price of approximately $0.225/SOL, and in February 2020, the launch round raised $2.4 million at a unit price of approximately $0.25 for SOL.
In March 2020, an auction of 8 million SOL tokens was completed on CoinList, raising $1.76 million, equivalent to $0.22 per token. If calculated based on the historical high of $260, the return is as high as 1,180 times.
NEAR public chain
In August 2020, the NEAR shard was publicly funded on CoinList and provided three options:
Option 1: 0.4 USD per unit, locked for 40 days, 25 million tokens in total, each person can buy at least 500 tokens and at most 100,000 tokens;
Option 2: 0.34 USD per unit, linear lock-up for 1 year, each person can buy up to 5 million tokens;
Option 3: 0.29 USD per unit, linear lock-up for 2 years, each person can buy up to 5 million tokens.
In the end, it raised nearly 30 million US dollars. It is worth mentioning that at that time, due to excessive traffic congestion and overwhelming community participation, CoinList had to postpone the public sale before it was finally completed.
In the last cycle, NEAR hit a near-record high of $20.6. If calculated based on the cost price of $0.34, the return was as high as 60.5 times.
FLOW public chain
In August 2020, Dapper Labs, the developer of the FLOW public chain, completed a financing of US$11.4 million, including 20 institutions and 5 NBA stars. The previous round of follow-up investors include Samsung NEXT, Andreessen Horowitz and its Cultural Leadership Fund, Union Square Ventures, Venrock, Accomplice, Animoca Brands, AppWorks, etc. New participating investment institutions include Coinbase Ventures, Distributed Global, etc.
In September 2020, the Flow public chain token FLOW created by the Dapper Labs team was sold to the community at a private sale price of $0.1 per unit, with a total of 100 million tokens available. Although it was already at the end of the bull market when it was listed on Binance, causing the price to fall again and again and eventually fall into silence, if calculated based on the historical high of $35.6, it would be a return of nearly 356 times.
Previously, some players made a fortune on the FLOW project simply by using multiple accounts to subscribe to new shares.
MINA Zero-Knowledge Proof Public Chain
In March 2022, Mina completed a US$92 million strategic and private round of financing, led by FTX Ventures and Three Arrows Capital, with participation from Alan Howard, Amber Group, Blockchain.com, Circle Ventures, Pantera and others.
Mnia Protocol is a pioneering protocol for zero-knowledge proofs, and it has received a lot of attention in the last cycle. It was launched on CoinList in March 2021, and 75 million MINA tokens will be issued in two rounds at a unit price of $0.25. Subsequently, CoinList reduced the purchase limit from $1,000 to $500.
If calculated based on the historical highest price of $6.68, the return is 26.72 times.
Celo public chain (now L2)
In February 2021, Celo completed a $20 million financing round, with a16z, Greenfield One and Electric Capital participating.
In May 2020, CELO completed a Dutch auction on CoinList, raising a total of US$10 million, with an average token settlement price of US$1. If calculated based on the historical high of US$10.95, the return rate is more than 10 times.
3. Some projects in the period of wealth effect fading (2021-Present)
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. After 2021, the projects launched on CoinList often performed mediocrely or even fell below the public offering price, which once caused many doubts. For example, NYM, AXLER, GAL, Arch, and CYBER. Through sorting, it was found that projects launched at the end of the bull market were often affected by the market turning bearish. When funds began to flee, even if the project was endorsed by a well-known VC and had good fundamentals, it was difficult to escape the negative impact of cyclical fluctuations.
Some of these projects continued to perform well after the market rebounded at the end of 2023, but more were quickly forgotten by the market and disappeared without a sound.
Casper public chain
In 2020, the project raised US$28.5 million in financing, with participating investors including Consensus Capital, HashKey Capital, AU 21 Capital, Blockchange Ventures, GSR, etc.
In March 2021, the total amount of public offerings on CoinList was 100 million CSPR, accounting for 1% of the total, and the price of each CSPR was $0.015. After the listing, it broke through $1.3, and then fell all the way, and now fluctuates around $0.04.
Axelar Cross-Chain
Founded in 2020, Axelar is built on Cosmos technology to provide interoperability with Ethereum and other chains.
In July 2021, it completed a US$25 million Series A financing round, led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Dragonfly Capital, Galaxy Digital, North Island Ventures, Robot Ventures and others.
In February 2022, it completed a financing of US$35 million, with participation from Dragonfly Capital, Polychain Capital, North Island Ventures, Rockaway Blockchain Fund and others.
In March 2022, the cross-chain interoperability protocol Axelar sold 50 million tokens at a price of $1, with a minimum participation amount of $100 and a maximum of $750. The transaction was launched in the second half of 2022, and then fell all the way. It briefly hit $1 in early January 2024, and the current price is still below $1.
Ondo RWA Conference
Ondo Finance creates and manages institutional-grade financial products such as U.S. Treasuries and money market funds, and builds DeFi protocols around these products. Ondo is committed to developing decentralized, composable protocols and providing services tailored to the needs of organizations, DAOs, and high-net-worth individuals.
Ondo Finance was founded in 2021 by Allman and Pinku Surana (two former Goldman Sachs employees) and completed a US$20 million financing in April 2022. The round of financing was jointly led by Founders Fund, a venture capital fund co-founded by top Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, and Pantera Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Tiger Global, GoldenTree Asset Management, Wintermute and others.
In May 2022, Ondo Finance sold 400 million tokens on CoinList at a price of $0.055 per token, with a minimum participation of $100 and a maximum of $2,000. More than 16,500 people participated in the public offering and purchased its native Token ONDO, accounting for about 2% of its total issuance (a total of 10 billion tokens).
ONDO was launched for trading in January 2024, with the highest price exceeding $0.3. So far, the return has been less than 6 times.
NYM Privacy Public Chain
Nym is a privacy platform that provides strong network-level privacy against sophisticated end-to-end attackers and anonymous access control using blinded, re-randomizable, decentralized credentials.
Nym Technologies completed a $2.5 million seed round in 2019, which was a token financing round, with participation from NGC, Lemniscap, and Edenblock. In July 2021, it completed a $6 million Series A round led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Eden Block, Greenfield One, Maven 11, Tioga, and 1kx.
Then in November, it completed a US$13 million financing round led by a16z, with participation from DCG, Tayssir Capital, Huobi Ventures, HashKey, Fenbushi Capital and others.
In February 2022, CoinList sold more than $30 million of NYM Tokens. The event attracted record demand on CoinList, with 1.19 million unique registrants during the 5-day registration period. The price of a single coin is between $0.25 and $0.5. It broke through $1.8 shortly after it went online, and then began to fall. As of now, the price of the coin is still below $0.2.
Project Galaxy (now renamed Galxe) NFT Infrastructure Protocol
Galxe is the Web3 credential infrastructure dedicated to helping Web3 brands build better communities and products.
In January 2022, Galxe received US$10 million in financing, led by Multicoin Capital and Dragonfly Capital, and participated by Spartan Group, Sky 9 Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Binance Smart Chain Growth Fund, Folius Ventures, Jump Capital, Sfermion, HashKey, Injective Protocol, Matrixport Ventures, Solana Ventures, Alameda Research and others.
In February 2022, the project plans to sell a total of 10 million GAL Tokens (a total of 200 million) at a unit price of $1.5. All shares of the project (10 million GAL) in the public sale on the CoinList platform were sold out 50 minutes after the sale started, with more than 1.07 million users registered to participate.
Shortly after it went online for trading, GAL benefited from the NFT market and briefly broke through $17, but then began a downward trend. The current price is $1.8, only $0.3 higher than the public offering price.
CyberConnect Social Protocol
CyberConnect is a multi-chain decentralized social graph protocol that enables developers to create social applications and a platform where users can own their own digital identity DID, content, connections, and tokenized channels.
In November 2021, CyberConnect completed a $10 million seed round of financing, led by Multicoin Capital and Sky 9 Capital, with participation from Animoca Brands, DraperDragon, Hashed, Mask Network, etc. In May 2022, it completed a $15 million Series A financing, led by Animoca Brands and Sky 9 Capital.
CyberConnect’s public offering accounted for 3% of CoinList’s total offering volume, with a public offering price of $1.8 per coin, while the institutional price of the Series A round was $3 per coin, and it subsequently raised a total of $5.4 million on CoinList.
After it went online, it once broke through $17, and the return rate was nearly 10 times based on the historical high. If it is based on the current price of $7, the return rate is only 3.8 times.
NEON Solana EVM Compatibility Solution
NEON is a fully compatible Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), enabling developers to use all familiar Ethereum tools and build seamlessly on Solana.
In November 2021, Neon Labs completed a US$40 million financing round led by Jump Capital, with participation from Three Arrows Capital, Solana Capital, IDEO CoLab Ventures and others.
In May 2023, NEON sold 50,000,000 NEON on CoinList, accounting for 5% of the total circulation, at a price of $0.1. After a long period of dormancy, it peaked at $3.8 at the end of 2023, with a return of nearly 38 times, and now the price has fallen back to $1.4.
Chainflip cross-chain transaction protocol
Chainflip is a decentralized, trustless protocol that allows seamless value transfer between any blockchain, including BTC, EVM, and underlying networks.
In August 2021, it announced the completion of a US$6 million financing round, led by Framework Ventures; and in May 2022, it announced the completion of a US$10 million financing round, with Framework Ventures, Blockchain Capital and Pantera Capital participating.
In September 2023, the token supply for sale on CoinList was 4,500,000 FLIP tokens (ERC-20), each token was priced at $1.83. After the listing, it broke through $7 and now fell back to above $5.
Archway Public Chain
Archway is a public chain in the Cosmos ecosystem that provides fast and low-cost transactions through built-in developer incentives.
In March 2023, Archway's development company Phi Labs completed a US$21 million seed round of financing in March, led by CoinFund and Hashed, with participation from 1confirmation, IDEO CoLab, Figment, Blockchain Capital, Wintermute, Chorus One, stake.fish and others.
In May 2023, the total supply of ARCH Tokens will be sold on CoinList at a price of $0.2 per token.
After it went online for trading, it began to fall, falling to around $0.05. At the end of this year, it rose to $0.28, and then fell back to around $0.18, which is still lower than the public offering price.
Subsquid zero-knowledge cross-chain data query
Subsquid evolved from a project at the Kusama hackathon Hackusama to support DApps built on Substrate, reducing data retrieval time for developers and improving API reliability.
In November 2021, it completed a US$3.8 million seed round of financing, led by Hypersphere Ventures, with participation from Zeeprime Capital, Lattice Capital, Illusionist Group, Digital Finance Group (DFG), etc.
In January 2024, CoinList will sell 53, 480,000 SQD tokens (4% of the total supply) at $0.094 per token.
zkLink is a cross-chain DEX based on zero-knowledge proof
zkLink is a multi-chain integrated trading platform based on ZK-Rollup technology. It aims to link multiple chains, aggregate the liquidity of different ecosystems, and make it possible for native DeFi assets on different chains to be traded and combined with each other.
In October 2021, it completed a US$8.5 million seed round of financing, led by Republic Crypto, with participation from Arrington Capital, DeFi Alliance, Huobi Ventures, GSR and others.
In May 2023, it completed a financing of US$10 million, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Ascensive Assets, SIG DTI, BigBrain Holdings and Efficient Frontier.
In January 2024, a total of 31,250,000 ZKL (ERC-20) will be sold for token distribution on CoinList, accounting for 3.125% of the total supply, with a token price of US$0.15 per coin.
4. Projects to be launched this year
In the early stage of the bull market after the market rebounded, CoinList also made continuous moves. After launching two projects in January, it will publicly sell two projects in early February, namely the relatively popular public chain and DePIN. We will wait and see how they perform in the future.
Nibiru Public Link
Nibiru is the Cosmos ecosystem L1 blockchain, providing support for smart contract centers such as DeFi and RWA.
In April 2023, Nibiru completed a $8.5 million seed round of financing, led by Tribe Capital, Republic Capital, NGC Ventures and Original Capital.
On February 2, 2024, L1 blockchain Nibiru will launch a community sale of NIBI tokens on CoinList. The community sale will have a supply of 60 million NIBI tokens (4% of total supply); the price is $0.05.
Meson decentralized physical network
Meson Network focuses on DePIN+AI, aiming to create a decentralized physical network authorized by people. The Meson Network "DePIN" node is developed using user-friendly technology.
In June 2021, Meson Network completed a new round of millions of dollars in financing, led by Libertus, Mask Network and Hash Global. Other participating investors included Grayscale's parent company DCG, Hashkey Capital, Permanent Ventures, BixinVC, etc.
In January 2024, it completed a new round of strategic financing led by Presto Labs with a valuation of US$1 billion. The specific amount of financing was not disclosed.
On February 9, 2024, CoinList will sell 2.5 million MSN tokens (2.5% of the total supply) at a price of $1.75 per token.