TokenStars Launches First Project to Tokenize Celebrities with ICO Scheduled for August TokenStars Follow Jul 24, 2017 · 3 min read

Hello world! We are TokenStars, the first blockchain company to tokenize massive celebrities. And we are excited to announce the launch dates for our first project, the ACE token crowdsale. Pre-sale is scheduled for August 1, 2017, and the ICO is planned to go live on August 24, 2017.

We at TokenStars are aiming to disrupt talent development by providing funding resources to athletes and other celebrities and decentralizing talent sourcing and promotion. Our ambition to tokenize people starts with ACE — a project supporting young and experienced tennis players. With tennis being one of the most popular sports globally, ACE aims to introduce 1 billion tennis fans to the blockchain world. The second project to tokenize football stars will be launched later in August 2017.

Pavel Stukolov, CEO and Co-founder, TokenStars

Pavel Stukolov, experienced entrepreneur, CEO and Co-founder of TokenStars:

“At the moment, the top 10 athlete management agencies have $1.19B in yearly commissions and 3,731 years of contracts signed.

The industry is bigger than the GDP of Serbia, Bahrein, Brunei or Cyprus.

ACE disrupts this market, decentralizing it and sharing the value among the community.”

Founded by Pavel Stukolov, a Russian entrepreneur with a strong high-tech and financial background, the project brings together a unique advisory board of star tennis players, global top coaches and scouts, who have a deep knowledge of the industry, e.g. Sergey Demekhine, A-level Global Professional Tennis Coach Association (GPTCA) certification holder, tennis coach with 8 years of experience, former ATP tennis player and Vera Zvonareva’s head coach in 2010–2011 (#2 in WTA rankings, rising from #22 at the beginning of coaching) — Wimbledon & US Open 2010 singles finalist, Australian Open 2011 semi-finalist.

Sergey Demekhine, Coaching & Scouting Advisor, TokenStars

Sergey Demekhine: “Lack of funding is a typical problem which almost all tennis stars faced as juniors. Their funding options are limited by parents’ money, loans from friends, and small grants from local tennis federations and talent management agencies. The top 10 TMAs have over $25B in contracts under management and have a monopoly on deciding who is going to have a career and who is not. Mistakes based on gut feeling are inevitable in this process. As a crowdfunded project, ACE has the potential to disrupt tennis talent representation and protect rising stars from being overlooked.”

TokenStars also has strong support from its first believer and investor, Forbes top-30 Internet entrepreneur Elena Masolova:

Elena Masolova, Investor, TokenStars

“Aspiring tennis players need approximately $100K a year to build a career. Some have to put everything at stake — just like Olympic medalist and 5x Grand Slam winner Maria Sharapova, who came uninvited from Russia to Nick Bollettieri Academy in Florida at the age of 9. Her father had to work as a dishwasher just to cover her bills. Later she earned $36.5M in prize money and $285M in sponsorship deals. With ACE, young players like Maria Sharapova can get funding for academy costs, coaches, sparring partners, and tournament participation, as well as help with signing sponsorship agreements.”

The successful initial sale will allow ACE to support at least 20 tennis players and 2–5 established PROs who have already accumulated celebrity status. Depending on the results of the token sale, ACE might manage to sign several full-time coaches and open a small academy for ACE juniors.

At the later stages, TokenStars will use the shared infrastructure and launch the new verticals to tokenize aspiring celebrities, including football, poker, basketball, and hockey stars, plus cinema actors, musicians, and models.