The money raised by initial coin offerings (ICOs) has now surpassed early stage venture capital (VC) funding. As of August 2017, the amount raised was US$ 1.2 bln according to CNBC. ICOs are now an accepted way out for startups who would like to raise funds to get their projects off the ground. Yet, what exactly is an ICO? The Economist perhaps has come up with a decent enough definition, “ICO “coins” are essentially digital coupons, tokens issued on an indelible distributed ledger, or blockchain, of the kind that underpins bitcoin, a crypto-currency. That means they can easily be traded, although unlike shares they do not confer ownership rights.”

Now a partnership between Monaize and Komodo has resulted in the world’s first decentralized Initial Coin Offering (dICO) emerging on the scene. Monaize is a project that is working on providing e-banking solutions to SMEs and freelancers while Komodo is a cryptocurrency project that provides anonymity through zero knowledge proofs and security using delayed proof of work (dPoW) protocol.

Understanding Monaize dICO

The Monaize-Komodo partnership will allow token sale participants to use Komodo platform’s Jumblr and BarterDEX technologies to exchange coins using cross chain atomic coin swap, therefore launching the world’s first dICO. This enables them to issue and distribute ‘native cryptocurrencies’ without the involvement of any middlemen. According to BarterDex, it is possible to exchange dozens of coins on their platform without any central exchange. Coin developers will be now able to launch their sales while still being able to protect investor privacy. A dICO allows startups to launch a coin without riding on a parent blockchain with the additional benefits of anonymity and security due to Komodo’s dPoW protocol.

The Monaize dICO will be launched on Friday Nov. 10 at 12 p.m. (GMT). During the dICO Bitcoin (BTC) or Komodo Coin (KMD) tokens can be swapped for Monaize (MNZ) tokens. A special dICO wallet has been developed by Komodo for the sale. Coin exchanges will happen across blockchains through atomic swaps with automatic order matching. Additional information regarding the dICO and a tutorial on the process will be released in the coming days.

dICO will solve crucial ICO issues

In theory an ICO seems to a silver bullet, a panacea for all the yearning startups of the world who are starved of funds. In practice, the abundance of ICOs have brought with them their own problems. One of the biggest problem is that most ICOs are launched on just one or two platforms, Ethereum and Waves being the most popular. We at Cointelegraph have covered the problems surrounding ICOs being concentrated on few blockchains. The scramble of investors to secure tokens during an ICO have led to periods of ‘clogging’ on Ethereum, which has made the cryptocurrency unusable for hours for all users. This overdependence on just one or two blockchains has led to centralization of ICOs, which in turn raises problems of security, stability and lack of diversification. Imagine what would happen if one of these chains suffered an attack? The disaster would be compounded because of the lack of diversity in the ICO landscape.

Simplifying business banking

Monaize is emerging as a ‘challenger bank’ in that they aim to provide services to an underserved segment containing SMEs and freelancers that have been ignored by the mainstream banks. Users will be able to conduct business banking using the Monaize app along with their revolutionary KYB (Know Your Business) process be able to open business accounts in a matter of minutes. The KYB process is so simple and sophisticated that all customers need to provide are photographed documents for the system to check and verify them in minutes. The e-banking service also include a Mastercard that is dispatched under five days. All e-banking customers will also be provided immediately with an IBAN on account opening. Monaize are also able to capitalise on third party service providers, who can plug into their open platform to provide professional liability insurance, finance and payment solutions.

Monaize as an introduction to the blockchain

Blockchain innovation with banking is at the heart of Monaize’s plans. They plan to capitalise on this crucial feature and launch services such as global payments, fiat-pegged cryptocurrency integration and on chain KV storage. A cryptocurrency wallet is in the works and will be available on the banking application in the second quarter of 2018. All of these products and services built right into the Monaize e-banking application will allow for greater interaction with blockchain technology. Monaize will also create a suitable environment in which people who are new to blockchain can explore the technology for the first time and get access to cryptocurrencies. This will hopefully give rise to greater use of digital currencies and lead to their proliferation. In short Monaize-Komodo partnership is helping banking meet blockchain.

All in all it is a win-win situation for everyone involved. Finally we have a project that focusses on the little guys, SMEs and freelancers, helping them succeed and that is what we need. More and more people have been following Monaize on Telegram and Slack as well as through email subscriptions. The project encourages you to join the conversation through these channels as well.