Bittrex Rejoins Killer App Club: Another Attempt at IEO

Cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex International is back in the so-called “killer app” game with another announced Initial Exchange Offering (IEO). This time, it’s VeriBlock (VBK), a blockchain project working on delivering Bitcoin’s Proof of Work consensus to other chains through a so-called Proof of Proof consensus protocol.

The IEO, a fundraising method similar to an ICO (initial coin offering) but facilitated through an exchange, is set to start on April 2nd at UTC 4 PM. Individual investors will have to purchase at least 100 VBK (around USD 10) and up to 200,000 VBK (around USD 20,000), which sets the price of a single coin at around USD 0.1.

However, Bittrex notes in the official blog post that the price of VBK will be set in Bitcoin within 24 hours of the start of the IEO. The amount available for sale makes up 24.7% of the initial circulating supply. Investors will receive their coins on April 5th after the sale ends.

VeriBlock is a project that aims to allow any blockchain to use the Proof of Work security that Bitcoin has, regardless of their own consensus protocol, through Proof of Proof – a protocol that records snapshots of any given blockchain and embeds them in Bitcoin transactions. According to the project, this allows the blockchain to inherit Bitcoin’s security characteristics by allowing users to determine the correct chain by referencing snapshots in the event of a 51% attack.

In case of conflicting snapshots, users are warned about a potential rewrite before they can confirm the transaction, and the system also tells them when the transaction is safe to accept. The project has also launched its mainnet on March 25th, after its year-long testing phase ended on March 4th this year.

The decision to launch an IEO for VeriBlock comes after Bittrex’s fumble with South Korean startup RAID, which ended in the cancellation of this IEO. At the time, gaming analytics company OP.GG terminated its strategic partnership with RAID, and according to Bittrex, this partnership was “vital” to the RAID project, so the IEO could not proceed.

Meanwhile, cryptocurrency exchange Binance plans to announce a fourth project that will hold its token sale on the Binance Launchpad within the next two weeks, following the sale of CELR, which raised USD 4 million in less than 18 minutes. Incidentally, it was Binance’s own founder and CEO, Changpeng Zhao, who coined the term “killer app,” used to reference fundraising methods done through exchanges.