What Is An ICO And How To Use It For Your Global Business with Ellis Gyongyos

Michael MicheliniBusiness, Ecommerce, Podcast2 Comments


This week is for the FOMO people like me (FOMO stands for “fear of missing out” for those who don’t know). And I have been hearing about ICO over and over again the past couple months. Insane amount of friends and business associates involved. So Devin from Shadow Factory VR Agency kindly connected me to Ellis Gyongyos from Know Your Token to discuss this ICO game.

Here at Global From Asia we try to cover these newer things, and put a Asia spin on them at the same time, enjoy!

Topics Covered in this Episode

  • Introduce Ellis Gyongyos

    What is an ICO?

  • ICO and Bitcoin

    So what is the relationship of ICO and bitcoin and cryptocurrency?

  • How to invest in an ICO

    So you need bitcoin to be able to invest in an ICO?

  • Different types of ICOs + tokens

    How are investors rewarded for their investment.

  • Is ICO Investing Risky?

    Risks of investing in ICOs

  • Opportunities in ICO

    What do you see for investors, as well as entrepreneurs, in this ICO craze.

  • Structuring an ICO, as a company?

    Should someone starting an ICO, open a new company, a new project? Is this for a new company or an existing company?

  • Relationships of ICO in China and Asia

    ICOs are banned in China at the moment, what is your take on that and what is the future.

  • ICO Market hot in Hong Kong

    But it seems like Hong Kong is the place to be for the ICO market. The investor community is abuzz about it.

  • The future of ICO

    What do you see in your crystal ball.

  • Connecting with Ellis

    How can listeners connect with you?

People / Companies / Resources Mentioned in this Episode

Show Sponsors:

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Aurelia Pay. I use them for sending money to my Chinese supplier from Hong Kong – it is a cross border payment solution between China, Hong Kong and South East Asia. So when I need to make a payment to a Chinese supplier, I just hop in to place a remittance, pay to their HK bank account, and Aurelia Pay settle RMB within the same business day! Check them out

Episode Length 38:00

Thank you Ellis! It is great to have you on the show and sharing your knowledge on the ICO market. What do you all think, what will 2018 hold for this market? But I think we shouldn’t rush into something without fully understanding it, as that is when you can really lose big money. And like any investment – or decision in life- try to keep your bets safe enough so that if you lose you don’t have your spouse and kids sleeping on the streets.

Cheers everyone!

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Podcast Transcription

I think bitcoin is generally safe making a first step into the cryptocurrency space without diving effort.”

Welcome to the Global From Asia podcast where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down into straight up actionable advice and now your host, Michael Michelini.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Aureliapay. I use it personally for sending money to my Chinese suppliers from Hong Kong. It’s a cross border payment solution between China, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia. So, if I need to make a payment to a Chinese supplier, I just hop online to place the remittance, pay to the Aureliapay Hong Kong based big account and Aureliapay will settle RMB within the same business day. So, check them out online at www.aureliapay.com A U R E L I A P A Y .com or check them on their link at our show notes.

Mike: ICO, FOMO. Let’s talk about today. I’m from Global From Asia Episode 209. I feel some fear of missing out. I keep on seeing on my feeds, everybody talking about this ICO mania, a bitcoin, cryptocurrency mania. So we are doing what we can here and getting some experts on to share and learn and so what’s it? I know what FOMO is this, fear of missing out. But it’s always dangerous sometimes the rush in. So, we have with us Ellis from Know Your Token. He’s expert in this base and he’s researching and helping others understand this various investment opportunities. Also, load disclosure there’s a whole disclaimer, don’t take this is financial legal advice always be on specialist. So, this is a free podcast to help you guys out. And figure out what’s been happening all these people raising millions and millions of dollars on top of cryptocurrency inside of tokens to raise money for projects and startups and do some pretty wild things. I was talking my friends back in Wall Street. I pinged them they think this whole thing is a fancy schemes, some of them quotes they think it’s a scam and stuff. ButI think we got to keep our eyes on what’s happening and be aware. I think I’m almost 2 heads down on the Amazon space and then e-commerce just content creation takes so much time while these videos and podcasts, and blogs were making here at Global From Asia. So I picked my head up here and getting everybody up the speed just listening about this ICO. I hope this is a good one, I kind of ask like a person to know what’s happening and Ellis gives us the information. And let’s tune in now. Episode 209 we have links and everything as always on globalfromasia.com/episode209.

Mike: Okay everybody we’re here for another Global From Asia podcast here in Sheung Wan Hong Kong with our friend at Shadow Factory VR Agency and Devin my friend connected us today with Ellis Gyongyos from, Founder and CEO of Know Your Token. It’s great to have you here Ellis, thanks for being here.

Ellis: Yeah, great to be here.

Mike: I see the word Ellis I think of I’m reading the book Atlas Shrugged right now and Ellis Wyatt.

Ellis: Yeah, I’m a little behind of my reading.

Mike: He’s a cool character. That’s a good thing.

Ellis: Well I’m happy for the affiliation.

Mike: Well so today we’re talking about this hot topic of ICO which has been going crazy insane the last few months and 2017. And then we’ll gonna talk about the risk and opportunity and then a little bit of Asia and Hong Kong and China relevancy in the whole thing. So, before get into it Ellis do you mind giving a little bit of background about you and your business.

Ellis: Sure, yeah. So I founded the Know Your Token last year. We’re cryptocurrency and ICO diligence provider. ICO advisory based here in Hong Kong. Basically we look at the backgrounds involving ICO. So the background of the parties that are presenting the ICO that are issuing this new cryptocurrency or this token. And we look at kind of, we’re trying to help investors identify our risk that are associated with this offerings. Because really, if you’ve heard anything about the cryptocurrency space, someone has mentioned bitcoin to you, you’ve heard you’ve seen the numbers, people talked a lot about how things are going up, things are blowing up all over the place and there’s a lot of money to be made. And so there are definitely opportunities but we try to  help people if they gonna participate intelligently.

Mike: Got it. I have this FOMO right now.

Ellis: You’re not alone. There are a lot of people with FOMO. I bought in, It’s certainly not early in the grand scheme of things but I bought some bitcoin when I was maybe 1800 US dollars. So compared to what it is now. That’s quite low. But I didn’t buy much and so I still, even though I got in , I still wish I got even more.

Mike: Oh man I understand the show but I bought in it 300 something in 2014 I guess. It was after a crash into a thousand down into like 200 bump up and I sold out at a thousand man.

Ellis: Oh no.

Mike: Early like a year ago.

Ellis: That’s why the mantra of bitcoin enthusiast is huddle. So you need to huddle it’s just misspelling uphold. You need to huddle your bitcoin and make sure you just don’t sell no matter how high it gets ‘coz it’s gonna keep going higher.

Mike: Yeah, seems crazy.

Ellis: Yeah, so we take a look at this different cryptocurrencies especially the new projects that are popping up because this ICO which just in case anybody listening doesn’t know stands for initial coin offerings. Basically initial coin offerings are way for projects to raise funds for a project or a company or whatever the business is trying to do by issuing this digital basically this digital tokens that can represent a variety of different things. Sometimes they represent ownership of something. Sometimes you can use a token for membership in a platform or to get discount on something. So basically they issue this tokens that they basically define the value when they are issued. And people buy them and they use the fund to kind of variety of things building a platform or something like that. So, it’s a pretty new way of raising funds for a project that doesn’t sell equity. If they’re not selling equity in the company and so it’s very attractive to startups because well the owners get to raise a lot of money but they also get to maintain ownership of their whole company. So it’s very appealing on that regard and well generally ICO’s are relatively unregulated compared to maybe going for a IPO for example. There are a lot of, no matter of what jurisdiction you are in, the regulators have something to say about that.

Mike: Okay. So yeah I mean, I’ll try to reiterate maybe in my more basic terms for some of our listeners. So basically it start out with bitcoin or cryptocurrency which is basically online money?

Ellis: Yeah, sure.

Mike: Online value holding and now this new level, we type of new podcast, I haven’t cover it for a while but we have like Larry way back, Larry Salibra, I don’t know if you know him. He was on the show like episode 13 or something.

Ellis: Yeah, he’s a great guy.

Mike: Talking about cross border payments with bitcoin and we have some others like talking about how to use it in business, we talk about business. And now he’s going to an ICO level. So with the level by ICO mean taking this digital currency and then invest, not invest but buy tokens, right?

Ellis: Right.

Mike: Which then allow you to have utility in that type of platform.

Ellis: Right, yeah and in the platform can vary. Sometimes it serves like an app for example if the company makes an app, they can issue this tokens to kind of discount on me app or maybe use them to redeem for services. There are actually a very wide variety of different uses for different currencies and I think one of the most important things you can do when you’re considering investing is knowing what the heck you’re buying. Because, each ICO has a different offerings. Sometimes they are offering A and sometimes they are offering B. And so if you’ve heard about some great cryptocurrency where people bought it in a dollar or something and it’s already 20 dollars. I mean wow I wanna get in on that type of a grow. But you got, I guess you need to make sure that what you’re looking at buying into this new project is similar. Or just at least knowing how the structure, yeah.

Mike: Yeah, so I don’t know if we should, how was the best way, I think examples. Do we talk about some specific ones or should we talk about like hypothetical.

Ellis: I guess, maybe some, I’m not sure maybe, I guess some other way I talked about it in the past some kind of going over some of the maybe general risk and the kind of, so I think the opportunities they are definitely there. So I guess we can talk about that some first because are there, I feel like they are all over the news about someone buying and everything go up on a thousand percent or ten thousand percent something like that. At least it definitely happen. You can definitely get, you can definitely buy into cryptocurrency and make a million dollars. That’s possible. But it doesn’t happen to everyone. There are also chances were I was reading about the ICO recently called the “Confido” there is something like 270, 280 thousand dollars and they just disappeared. So yeah I think they run out or something and people couldn’t find them and they lost all that money. So there are wide variety of place that you could get burn by doing this some kind of making sure you approach intelligently is important. So I guess some examples are good. I think hypothetical it might be easiest.

Mike: Yeah it’s kind of better, we don’t almost one or sway somebody’s thinking.

Ellis: Yeah I think if anyone wants to participate, I’m always a proponent. I just, I want people to be a little bit, do it in a way that’s not gonna, I don’t know leave them crying.

Mike: So they first have to have bitcoin, right? Some bitcoins like the gateway into ICO and then you can get ethereum.

Ellis: Yeah so generally most ICO’s raise money by collecting bitcoin or collecting ethereum. So ethereum is another cryptocurrency based on the different blockchain than a bitcoin and it’s also high value probably seeing articles online about it. But it offers a different type of platform or bitcoin is primarily for sending value between parties. The ethereum network supports a basically a system for, it enables smart contract. So, basically you can call this contract to be self-fulfilling and people can use this smart contracts for a variety of different uses including business uses that often can cross borders. But basically this cryptocurrencies are primarily what are collected in ICO’s. So now I have also seen examples of ICO’s that are willing to accept their currencies. So if you can wire them 20,000 US dollars or something they are willing to accept that and again that type of situation may expose the project to different types of regulatory risk. For example if they are accepting fiat currency from US citizens they may very well fall under some regulations  in the US. Whereas, if they are not open to US citizens different rules apply based on their jurisdiction, based on your jurisdictions if you’re based in Hong Kong and you wanna participate that’s very different and if you’re based in China for example where this ICO’s are  currently banned.

Mike: So that’s why getting into cryptocurrency first and then to ICO rather than wire directly money into an ICO.

Ellis: Yeah, I would definitely, I think also another important thing about getting bitcoin first, getting ethereum first, is kind of having a general basic of understanding of what cryptocurrency is, what can you do with them, and how they work because if you’re not use to, basically find bitcoin for the first time you can setup a digital wallet on your phone, you can kind of go to ATM or you can go to an exchange and get bitcoin sent to your phone and you can keep track of numbers and volatility. If you’re not used to this type of concepts that can be, maybe a little overwhelming to dive head first into a brand new cryptocurrency that was just issued this month. So I think bitcoin is generally safe relatively safe way of making a first step into the cryptocurrency space without diving head first I guess.  

Mike: Okay, so then you get this tokens, the owner of that startup doesn’t actually give you any shares, what is that token?

Ellis: Yeah so token is varies quite a bit. So it’s a different projects offer you different things and actually there are number of ICO  projects that offer you basically they say that they’re gonna offer you something but they haven’t actually built anything yet. So many people, many times they’ll be an ICO where they will have a white paper. They kind of outline what they planned to do and then they start raising funds and they plan to issue this tokens eventually using the funds that they raised. But you’re really buying into, you have to trust they will deliver on what the white paper said before you can receive anything. So there’s a lot of risk involved. They are because they don’t have anything proof and you just relying on what’s written on white paper and the reputation of the people who wrote it to kind of, ‘coz they’re promising the deliver on it. So basically digital tokens, there are wide variety of digital tokens and some of them they can be like a voucher, they can used this as voucher where you have 1 token for example and you redeem it for one use of a service. So maybe it’s just like a dumb things way down if for example in Hong Kong we have FoodPanda or delivery or something like that delivers food. And they technically could issues some sort of a food panda token. And then you could use FoodPanda tokens that each ones worth like 100 Hong Kong Dollars or something. And then you could use them in the FoodPanda up to, to order FoodPanda food or obviously FoodPanda actually have a token right now. I don’t wanna know going up there, googling where can I get my food panda tokens. But who knows maybe that be awesome opportunity for them. Yeah basically that token represents a voucher for a service that FoodPanda will provide. And other types of tokens offer other things like loyalty points. For example same situation FoodPanda has their app. They say every time you order from, order something will give you 10 FoodPanda tokens or something like that. This tokens are put into your app, your account on the app and then when you get a 100 of them, you can redeem that or something. Just like any loyalty program. So those are some of the, I guess popular ways that ICO’s are structured. But also there are other ways that may be represented an interest in or ownership of assets. That’s where regulations can get quite tricky because when you’re offering something that could be classified as a security. Regulators, they want you to offer it in regulated space understandably because they want to protect the investors. So if you’re promising profit based on the ICO that can be kind of red flag that this might actually be a security and you should probably get a legal opinion before investing in that type of opportunity.

Mike: Alright, so you’re looking a lot of this part of what you do. What would you say as a breakdown of benefits before offering for this ICO like how many are like security related.

Ellis: So the vast majority of this types of programs at least either are not securities. Or they want to not be label as securities. So, just about everybody wants to say they are not security, there are few they came out and say yes, this is a token but it is a security. And because of that they try to avoid this type of classification because they want to avoid this regulated space because if they have to comply with regulators then this can be something can be quite a headache for projects. Especially because many of this new projects are, they’re quite young, they are startups, they’re funding themselves completely with this ICO’s. And so if you also have to include a budget for additional legal help, additional interactions with the regulators getting license things like that. It can lead into the funds that you were hoping to raise in an ICO. But yeah so the majority or not securities. Majority are probably a membership on a platform or all these loyalty points or probably the vast majority of them.

Mike: So when somebody invest in ICO, if it’s not a security then but the value still even if it’s a membership or utility type of benefit, that still can be profitable, right. You still hold those tokens and sell though, Isn’t that a security.

Ellis: Yeah so I’m not a lawyer. Gonna go out and say I’m not a lawyer and if you’re looking at something like this you should find the actual legal advice. But basically somebody, my understanding is that it kind of depends on what the project just promised. If the project just promising that you will be the part of the allure of the token is that you will be getting the profits based on it. Then the profit itself doesn’t have any like intrinsic value. It’s just something that they are saying the value and so then it becomes then you need to look and see if it’s a security. In this type of situations were they have the used case. They are generally classified as utility tokens where this token has the utility. I use this in this app or I use it on this online platform or might can trade it for different things or goods or services. I’ve seen different tokens for maybe you can compensate other people online for used of their computer for like cloud computing or maybe different things like that. So then they just, basically I need to use part of your computer just to store something so like transfer you some tokens and then you make some money out of that because you this tokens are technically money in that way. In that way you are being compensated for the good that you provided. But then yeah when you introduce this secondary markets the value can change quite a lot. So, if this are listed on exchanges and people are able to buy and sell them. Well this whole industry is just like your friends that talking you about it. ‘Coz there’s a lot of hype in the industry and everyone was, No, is this token gonna go up a hundred times or a thousand times like anything. And so some people if they think it is, then they go to buy it as the band token rises. The markets essentially equal out, people out but the tokens can rise just based on hype. Someone, some big player can say, oh yeah I’m looking at this token and it can make a lot of people also look at that token like oh this guys made a lot of money and he’s looking at this token, maybe this is something that I need to take a look at in. Just a hype itself can drive price to go up quite a lot.

Mike: And then so seems like we’re in this middle section of risk and opportunities and set some examples here so let’s think about this, I’ll try to recap basically there’s a few different benefits that this startups or platforms or companies or groups of people like what is, an ICO I guess everybody thinks like an IPO an initial public offering what stock market which is like company, is this a company.

Ellis: Generally, there are startup companies. Generally they have some sort of at least the most legitimate ones are companies. So they have a corporate structure, they are owned by someone, these are facts about an entity or maybe it’s based by like a non profit foundation, something like that. So there is a structure that is managing this ICO and they are the ones that are distributing, issuing the tokens. They run through this different type of entity. So yeah if you come across some people they say that we are a group and we’re issuing a token, well when there’s no company involved or when there’s no corporate entity, when there’s no official group then maybe don’t even have a website. They have not listed anywhere and no one’s heard of them. You have to start questioning where’s the legitimacy here and how do I know that this people are gonna be actually delivering what they’re gonna say or gonna do. In this space there have been a large number of scams. And so generally they are there startups, there’s small companies and once they raise funds they generally grow quite a lot and they turn into whatever their program is trying to turn into their platform.

Mike: Got it. So let me recap again. So a company starts, once to raise funds. So like IPO is always so hard to do, it usually kind of long time to do on IPO on the NASDAQ or says it usually an exit almost or liquidation almost, not liquidation wrong word, like a way for the founders to get some money back and to go into markets. But this seems happen at the beginning now. ICO seem to happen to start.

Ellis: Yeah, especially the once that you’re seeing that they are talking about something before they even have a product. They just have a white paper, maybe they have a snappy website that someone through together, they’ve got a little video on their was stick figures or something showing how the funds will go from this person and then it makes money for this people. Yeah this type of projects are they kind of scary because you look at them and you see well there’s no proof that you  can deliver on any of these stuff and you’re raising 800 million dollars or I just made up number. But it’s very much earlier on.

Mike: So would you say, I mean we’re in Hong Kong on the show we talked about Hong Kong, covering Hong Kong or are these BBI or US Corporations are these groups or this entities like are they established somewhere or this groups of people.

Ellis: Yeah, they generally, there are some areas that are deemed more crypto family. Hong Kong is a generally crypto friendly place. You’ll see a number of companies that are based here much friendlier than China for example as you said ‘coz ICO are banned there. I guess if someone comes to you and says I represent an ICO coming out on China well you got some more questions, you should be asking. But a lot of ICO are coming out of Switzerland or even if they based somewhere else like the US many of them will also set up a foundation or a show company or something like that that’s based in Switzerland because a friendly tax laws and also about there’s a generally crypto friendly regulatory environment. Now that’s kind of changing someone is past 6 months or year and as Switzerland as the Swiss government starts to look at that. But they definitely kind of prefer some of this tax friendly that is not saying that they are all coming out of tax havens but there is a skills towards this tax friendly areas with the, also with the privacy. Privacy is a big part of this cryptocurrency, there’s a reason crypto is in the name. It’s because it kind of in starting up well bitcoin, many of the bitcoin users were anonymous and many of them and still are and so they say anonymity in this privacy about controlling your on data, controlling on your own transactions, controlling your own finances is very popular on this area. So being able to based somewhere like Switzerland where data privacy laws are, they are very different than in somewhere like the US or China. So people try to based on the regulatory framework.

Mike: Makes sense so it doesn’t have to be a startup it could be an established company or it’s been a new company just for this new ICO to raise funds for the specific type of project or utility.

Ellis: Definitely. So yeah there are some more established companies that are also looking to do to have an ICO and it’s really just when you think about it. They identified a platform or project they wanna do or platform they wanna build or something like that and they look at the money to have and they look at the money they need to do it and if they need more money than some of them are considering, well maybe I should do an ICO and you look at if it fits the model what you’re trying to do. Maybe it doesn’t involved a blockchain, doesn’t involved this type of de-centralization or this type of you want this types of users using your platform well then then maybe some of these people look over this companies even if they are established can look at an ICO.

Mike: Got it. Is there any marketplaces that exist, beginning all these or is it just all over the internet?

Ellis: Yeah, so you can definitely find well I guess the majority of information is all over the internet and that’s part of what I do and know your token or kite as I call it. So our kite we look at, we look at this, we try to gather all this information from all around this different forums and this different announcements because sometimes you’ll see that an ICO says something on its website and then it says something different on its Twitter page or Reddit page or something like that. I mean so basically I’m trying to compile and conglomerate all this information from all around the internet. But there definitely list online of for example even ICO-list.com is one of them. Basically just have a long list of different ICO’s that are raising money. The dates that they’re planning on starting, the dates that they put an ending. I personally, I look at coin schedule there’s coinschedule.com they have some, they have a pretty comprehensive list of ICO’s but even better they have some great stats about the trends that have been happening in ICO’s that you can look at the amount of money that was raised in 2016 and the amount of money that was raised in 2017 and hint because of quite a lot. And that will be interesting in 2018 holds when some people speculate there’s a bubble here, some people say the ICO’s are gonna have to slow down because regulators are gonna catch up. These are the things. So, basically yeah, you can find list of this online to end, they kind of tell you about where you can, what their names are and basically some very basic details. Then generally if you want to find real information about an ICO you need to go to the projects website which is sometimes the companies website. Sometimes they differ. But also telegram chats and sometimes WhatsApp groups, WeChat groups, there are variety of different groups where information is kind of compiled and people are asking questions and you can, some of them joiner 20,000 people in the chat or something.

Mike: Yeah, I’ve been in some groups, I just can’t keep up.

Ellis: It takes a lot of focus to go there and find what you are looking to find, otherwise it can be quite overwhelming but yeah so I recommend some of those, but also there are exchanges, there are cryptocurrency exchanges that list some of this tokens that have already completed our ICO’s. And that way for example if the ICO’s raised money and I don’t know for example, I’m looking at ICOlist.com and the top one has connect the job and I never heard of this ICO as I was saying earlier one of the most interesting things about the space is that no matter how many ICO’s you look at there are always more, like I literally do this full time and no matter like everyday, every other day someone comes up to me and says Hey have you heard of connectjob the ICO and I’d say No, I haven’t ‘coz there’s always more that no matter how many you look at this it seems to be new ones. But anyway, so its says connectjob finished their ICO. They have their tokens that they distributed them, they are on the blockchain somewhere then sometimes they’ll partner with the exchange, or the exchange will pick them up and they can sell, you can buy or sell the tokens on that exchange. And that’s kind of how some people who buy in to the ICO kind of sell hope to get a profit. Or other people who miss the ICO still want to participate in this platforms. They can go there and pick up tokens there. So really yeah I guess the main place is to look all over the internet in general. This listing sites that are compiling this lists of ICO’s and then also this exchange is themselves.

Mike: Okay, great this has been a good Ellis thank you so much for sharing. I know you had some speculations or like talking about the China, Asia I mean we are in a good spot. I mean Hong Kong seems like a good spot. Asia seems like a good spot, do you  think? Or what are you thinking about for where we are right now.

Ellis: Yeah, Hong Kong is a pretty crypto friendly area. There’s definitely a thriving community. There are number of like crypto startup spaces. You can talk, there are a lot of bitcoin associations were active here. They’re really great then, even the Fintech Associations are also looking into this ICO space. Me, I’m just looking at for example there’s a place called the Genesis block. They just open up in Wan Chai. It’s like a co-working space that it’s a geared towards crypto startups or ICO’s are different things like that. They have a bunch of cryptocurrency ATM’s there so if you have no based in Hong Kong, you have never bought any bitcoin or ethereum or anything like that, it’s a good place to go.

Mike: Funny story. I was like in last time, I’m buying bitcoin I did bitcoin ATM with Robert Lams and people are always crazy. I was like sticking in Hong Kong dollar it’s like 2014 or something to buy that. It was in a deli shop, a basement at Lan Kwai Fong or something.

Ellis: Oh my goodness. Yeah, things have become slightly more accepted now with Genesis block operating on the ground level of their building or first floor.  But anyway, there’s a lot of, there is a thriving community here and I think so yeah as I said right now ICO’s are banned in China. But I think a lot of people are talking and it looks that the ban there is going to be temporary. I guess technically it might not be, but definitely looks like it’s going to be a temporary ban which is really kind of interesting when you think about kind of regulatory environment in Hong Kong and how it interacts with the regulatory environment in China. Saying, a lot of people say China banned ICO so that they could kind of  take the time to  develop regulations, develop their own block chains structures. These type of things to kind of have well, as many people say like there’s some good ideas outside of China and they could get good ideas inside of China but they don’t know is line up. You can Uber a car in the US.

Mike: Yes, separate world. China has always has been its own world. They wanna be, I think. Their own little world.

Ellis: Yeah and you can Uber a car and then you can DiDi a car and whatever it is, you’re still getting a car that’s very similar. So people, a lot of people are speculating that’s kind of why China issue this regulations if they kind of take a step back and look at things. If the regulatory environment or basically if China opens up to ICO then there’s a lot new, there’s definitely interest. There’s whispers over in China and people talking about it and so there’s definitely interests in this different forms of fundraising and if China is suddenly a place where that can be available if this type of fundraising’s available to Chinese people as well, this trade citizen as well. It really could change kind of how ICO looks in general. Basically the numbers that I was saying about on Coin schedule they might get much larger when you adding few more billion people who could participate in it.

Mike: It’s been nuts. I mean I’ve seen it where they like, I remember at least I sold on, actually it was my wife that sold it. I sent it to her in China, PTC China. They sold our coins on before we got closer shut down whatever happens.

Ellis: Most of them are lying dormant, I’m not sure exactly.

Mike: Yeah, people are going nuts trying to buy bitcoin and I remember I’m in China TV they have a bitcoin logo and then they have like a warning sign on TV. This is like 2013, 2014 they have like warning people so it’s true I think to have, well I  mean on WeChat is kind of online money, well it’s just RMB but they have their own version for sure.

Ellis: Definitely.

Mike: So, I do think a lot of research do and thanks so much for your time Ellis. How can people learn more about what you are doing?

Ellis: Yeah, so I have a website right now it’s knowyourtoken .com everyone is welcome to email me if they have any further questions ellis @ knowyourtoken.com and that’s easy enough to, should have email if you any questions, I’m always happy to help. A big part of what we’re trying to do is keep investor safe. Mostly, keeping investors intelligently. So if anyone is interested in this space, we’re always happy to try them and help you get more information, help you make a smart decision and kind of avoid some of the risk that are associated with this space.

Mike: Great we need you. Thanks so much, thanks for sharing. I’m sure it will help people even  got amaze them, new ideas and more understanding on this growing industry.

Ellis: Yeah I’m happy to be here, thanks a lot. Cheers.

Mike: So what do you guys think? Thank you so much Ellis for sharing with us and getting things rolling in our little Global From Asia community world here. I hope you guys appreciate that. It’s a little bit different but I don’t think it’s so different. Some of my friends say hey always Amazon guys are getting into ICO’s now and I think that’s what you guys are doing. You don’t, we’re on the cutting edge of innovation and technology. By listening to this podcast you’re actively learning and trying to enrich your life and have a different life than others. So we need to pay attention to this things seems happening. I hope you’re learning but also not rushing in. I think we should understand it more as well. So, let me know what you think are you bitcoin millionaire? Are you rolling that dough raising money? We’re actually talking about some more potential guests about coming on to share about their ICO’s. Some interesting things, some millionaires being made as we speak. And we got to decide what we want in our lives, I don’t think we should just run from the opporunity to opportunity either. We got to be cautious and careful on what’s happening. And it takes years to build the network and knowledge but it’s about community. I’ve seen this some on my feed logs a lot so I wonder what you guys are doing on. I’d love to hear from you mike@globalfromasia.com for ideas we do more ICO talks, bitcoin talks. We’ve have Larry way back in the day talked about it 4 years ago on the show. And now it’s evolving but we’re all about going Global From Asia. Thanks again for listening and always show notes globalfromasia.com/episode209. Take care.

To get more info, on running international business please visit our website at www.globalfromasia.com that’s www.globalfromasia.com. Also, be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.

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Tags: asia, business, career, china, corporate, e-commerce, ecommerce, entrepreneur, guide, hong kong, tips

2 Comments on “What Is An ICO And How To Use It For Your Global Business with Ellis Gyongyos”

  1. Josh

    This guy should stop slandering! I do not know the ICO he spoke about, However if he understood ICO’s there is alarms with all ICO’s and freakouts due to failed projections rather than just scammers!

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