Of course China’s forgotten social network is doing an ICO

Of course China’s forgotten social network is doing an ICO


ICOs have been one of many breakthroughs within the tech trade in 2017. Initially it was simply these within the blockchain area who have been conscious, however because the 12 months went on plenty of current enterprise grew drawn to the concept of elevating cash with out the standard route of VCs and misplaced fairness.

The 12 months ended with greater than $four billion raised by way of ICOs. It’s truthful to say that the idea is widely-known and that has has already been confirmed in early 2018.

Witness exhibit A: Renren, the corporate that was once-hailed as China’s Fb however has reinvented itself in latest occasions after dropping China’s social battle, is doing an ICO — often known as token sale.

China banned ICOs (and bitcoin) last year, however Renren can qualify as a U.S. agency since it’s listed on the New York Inventory Alternate. Whereas that may circumvent the Chinese language ban, it’s positive to lift consideration among the many SEC, which has already taken motion in opposition to ICOs that violate securities laws.

Renren didn’t reply to a request for remark and clarification.

The corporate’s Fb-like service ran out of steam in China as Tencent’s WeChat messaging app and Weibo’s Twitter-like service rose to dominate the nation’s social media panorama. Relatively than folding, Renren went after new areas together with logistics, funds and even by way of a flurry of investments from 2014-2016.

Now it’s specializing in social once more with RRCoin, a token that it plans to promote by way of an ICO, according to TechCrunch’s Chinese partner Technode. The plan is to develop a platform for social media that may enable different apps to attach with customers in the end rewarded with incentives for engagements, though it seems that the total whitepaper for the token sale has not been launched but.

That’s not not like the methods behind Courageous (BAT) and Kik (KIN) which goal to incentive consumer engagement with “attention-based” tokens, however it’s exhausting to see how this transfer will revive Renren given the corporate’s years-long droop.

WeChat and Weibo are simply too far forward at this level. For a Western perspective: Would the identical method breathe new and sustainable reside in Western social has-beens Friendster or MySpace? Unlikely, and that’s the identical situation right here.

One space the place Renren could also be on to a components with the next probability of blockchain-based success is trucking.

That’s sounds odd for a corporation rooted in social media, however it’s doubling down on the trucking area after it acquired U.S.-based Trucker Path, a social platform for the trucking trade with an obvious 600,00zero customers. The corporate additionally gives an app that connects transportation brokers with carriers.

Renren had previously invested in the startup, however now it added a magic phrase to its future plans for the enterprise: “blockchain.”

That’s proper. Close to the top of the brief announcement of Trucker Path’s acquisition is the next quote from Renren chairman and CEO Joseph Chen.

“Presently, the 2 main rising know-how areas are synthetic intelligence and blockchain. With the acquisition of the Trucker Path social platform and the Truckloads freight market, the Firm will likely be well-positioned technologically to drive innovation inside this necessary trade.”

The corporate plans to concentrate on the enterprise aspect of Trucker Path and introduce the blockchain.

To be truthful, there are literally good uses-cases for the blockchain on this planet of logistics, from monitoring meals, to a worldwide ledger for freight and normal logistics, so this isn’t fairly as absurd as the iced tea company that shoved ‘blockchain’ into its name for inventory value advantages. However nonetheless the plans are obscure at this level, though that isn’t deterring buyers.

These two bulletins have despatched Renren’s share value upwards, with the inventory value leaping greater than 75 p.c since buying and selling resumed on January 2. That’s not fairly crypto-like positive factors — bitcoin jumped 18-fold throughout 2017 — however it’s one other signal that established companies are trying on the blockchain.

For extra perspective, a five-year view of the bounce:





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