We’ve had some questions from the community about the below-ICO price of TIME. Here’s our analysis.

ChronoBank’s crowdfund was a great success, collecting $5.4 million in virtual currencies. TIME tokens were sold at 0.01 BTC each, or 100 per BTC, though a large number of people took advantage of the early bonuses that secured them up to 130 TIME/BTC.

Since the ICO ended, TIME has generally traded between 0.008 and 0.01 BTC, though at times it has been as high as 0.014 and as low as 0.005. So what’s going on?

Bitcoin rally

The first factor to bear in mind is that TIME, like any other crypto project, is subject to the whims of the cryptocurrency markets. Speculators will quickly dump one coin if they think they can make a better short-term return on another, and in relatively thinly-traded markets that can have a significant impact (just as a large investor buying can).

The context to the last six months has been a remarkable bitcoin rally, with the price of bitcoin rising from below $1,000 as our ICO ended to almost $3,000 in recent days. Whilst many traders initially dropped alts to enjoy bitcoin’s appreciation in value, we have seen a new dynamic enter the markets. In previous times, alts would typically crash in BTC terms during a rally, even if they more-or-less held their value in USD terms (which varied from coin to coin). In this instance, that was true at the start but since then we have seen TIME and other alts largely hold their value against bitcoin.

In TIME’s case, this means that a token that was bought for around $6–8 is now worth three or four times that, even if it stands at around 80% of its BTC value. As the numbers above show, different investors work in different currencies; some think in fiat terms, others in BTC terms. This tension means that some investors will be happy and others less so; you can’t tell what currency people are thinking in, and you can’t force them to work in the same one. The fact that TIME is still at 0.008 is encouraging; under normal crypto market dynamics, it might still be worth around ICO price in USD, or more like 0.003 BTC.

Less of more

The practical upshot is that TIME is worth a little less of a lot more valuable currency. There is a direct parallel in the traditional markets here.

The FTSE 100 — the UK’s major stock market index — is currently trading near an all-time high. What has pushed it to these levels is not simply the fundamentals of its constituent businesses; the UK and global economies are sadly not that robust. It is changes in the value of the pound against other currencies, especially the dollar, that have pushed it higher.

Brexit and the recent election are clear examples of what happens. When a significant event like this prompts negative sentiment, the pound falls in value, reflecting reduced confidence in the UK economy overall. But the FTSE has risen, because these are multinational companies and earn substantial revenues in dollars — and a dollar now buys more pounds.

Net, nothing has really changed. The shares are worth more of a less-valuable currency.

Similarly, the TIME token is worth less of a more-valuable currency.

The long-term picture

These are typical crypto market dynamics and are to be expected in the short term. As things stand, the bitcoin (and recently Ethereum) bull is casting a shadow over the rest of the crypto world. The markets are awaiting cues on specific issues — particularly a resolution to the scaling debate and UASF, and likely where Ethereum will top out. How these factors play out will inevitably have an impact on TIME and most or all other cryptos in the short-to-medium term.

Longer term, it’s less of an issue since the question comes down to fundamentals. ChronoBank has not yet launched its full service, and so this is still an extremely early stage in its development. We’re still putting together the core software and securing business leads, but the price of TIME is not yet driven by revenue flows — it is entirely speculative.

Once launched and serving the clients and workers from our partnering businesses, LaborX will provide significant revenues that will make it easier to value TIME in terms of traditional indicators like P/E ratios. At that point, we’re confident that we will see some very healthy price rises. In the short term, as speculators jump in and out of different assets, we will inevitably see fluctuations — though that also represents an opportunity. Smart money accumulates in a downturn, and sells as the price rises, rewarding not just risk-taking but patience.

There are many examples of crypto projects that have followed precisely this pattern. Most recently, Waves — which traded at below ICO price in BTC terms for many months — has seen a spectacular increase in value as new functionality and partners have been added. From a 30,000 BTC or $16 million ICO, WAVES now stands at a market cap of 218,000 BTC or $600 million (700% and 3,800% respectively). These percentage gains are nothing out of the ordinary in the crypto world. Increasingly, the era of instant 3x or 10x rewards post-ICO appears to be over. For a well-funded project with a strong business proposition, though, it can easily still be achieved in a year.

For more information about the ChronoBank, please visit chronobank.io