Earlier today (18th April 2018), it was reported by Reuters and The New York Times that the company behind Facebook’s huge data leak scandal, Cambridge Analytica, had been working from the start of this year on developing its own cryptocurrency with the aim of raising funds through an initial coin offering. The Times reported that according to Brittany Kaiser, a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, the digital coin was being developed with the aim to help people store online personal data online or even use the coin for transactions.

Reuters received data from anonymous sources which showed that Cambridge Analytica, the company that collected the data of 87 million Facebook users, was hopeful of raising nearly $30 million through the launch of their ICO. Reuters further received a confirmation by Cambridge Analytica when questioned about its previously conducted exploration for the blockchain technology, however, the company didn’t give a confirmation about the coin offering nor did it reveal if the company still intends on launching its digital coin.

Also, several reports have stated that Cambridge Analytica had secretly been promoting another digital currency. The company privately arranged a vacation trip to Macau for potential investors in support of Dragon Coin, a cryptocurrency intended specifically at casino players. According to reports from the Times, a Macau gangster Wan Kuok-Koi, nicknamed Broken Tooth has provided backing for the Dragon Coin.

Cambridge Analytica commenced work on its own particular Initial Coin Offering mid-2017 and the activity was looked after to a limited extent by CEO Alexander Nix and formed employee Brittany Kaiser. The organization’s intentions to dispatch an ICO was still in the initial stages when Nix was suspended a month ago and the Facebook information spill began to get more noticed by the public.

ICO’s has arguably become a quite alarming way of raising money, even going so far to compete with early-stage venture capital funding of some companies.

Organizations like Kodak and Telegram have opted to launch their own ICOs and have gone on to reap huge financial rewards from it. However, even as ICO’s have provided companies with a new alternative way to raise funding rapidly, it has fallen under the SEC’s eye amidst growing concerns as securities that need to be regulated.

Cambridge Analytica’s brief stint with ICOs is an odd convergence of two flawed parts of the web now going under new scrutiny (personal data and cryptocurrency).