Anyone who has followed the ICO space even briefly will see it likened to “the Wild West.” At a moment when ICOs and exit scams are frequently used in the same sentence, Civic supports the implementation of guardrails in the space to ensure it remains welcoming to prospective investors and partners. Currently, lack of oversight, along with the absence of identity verification protocols to foster trust, are both detrimental to growth. The opportunity cost of not implementing safeguards is the reallocation of financial resources that would otherwise have been directed at promising ICOs.

Today, we announce that Hub, or Human Trust Protocol, will work with Civic to verify users with reusable know your customer (KYC) data from Civic’s Secure Identity Platform (SIP) to enable the growth and adoption of ICOHub, the very first algorithmic ICO rating service. Within ICOHub, projects will be assessed with a trust score derived from how well the teams authenticate their claims, while users will be able to stake tokens and predict the outcomes of ICO projects.

That Hub’s Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT) has already generated $13.6 million of the $20 million offering speaks to strong interest in implementing such safeguards. The Civic and Hub collaboration marks a milestone in decentralized identity verification and could fundamentally contribute to increasing trust in the emerging blockchain space.

Growth of projects in the blockchain space will depend on the players in it embracing some measure of self-policing. With this move toward verification, ICOs are taking a huge leap forward in building trust and legitimacy with the public. We welcome Hub into the Civic family with open arms.