Lykke, a Swiss startup seeking to build a global marketplace powered by blockchain technology, has begun its Initial Coin Offering (ICO) campaign as the company looks to raise CHF 1.5 million.
Lykke seeks to sell 30 million Lykke coins at the price of 0.05 CHF each. Lykke coins represent ownership of Lykke, an exchange for trading financial instruments built on top of blockchain technology.
“Lykke is looking for investors who want to change the face of the global market,” Richard Olsen, co-founder and CEO of Lykke, said.
“Our goal is to upset the inefficiency and unfairness of the existing financial system, giving people a better way to manage their money and their assets.”
The crowd sale is available to anyone over 18 years old (except for US citizens) and will run until October 10, 2016. Individuals can purchase these tokens using the Lykke Wallet application for iOS or Android devices using Swiss francs, US dollars, bitcoins and ether, the native cryptocurrency of Ethereum. (more information here)
The Lykke Wallet lets users purchase “any kind of financial instrument,” trade them in a peer-to-peer manner, with “second-by-second interest payments.”
“We want to give our customers and those who believe in our vision a chance to participate in owning part of the company,” Olsen said.
Lykke’s technology
Launched in 2015 and headquartered in Zurich, Lykke is building a single marketplace where any sort of financial instrument can be traded and settled. Unlike the structure of traditional markets, Lykke aims at being a “level playing field to which anyone with an Internet connection can have access.”
By using blockchain technology, Lykke offers immediate settlement and direct ownership for zero commission. According to the company, revenues will come from providing liquidity, offering issuance services, and supporting institutional clients.
Lykke uses the Colored Coin protocol to list financial instrument on the blockchain in the form of a digital tokens. Colored coins follow the idea of “coloring” a specific bitcoin – the issuer guarantees to hand out the underlying assets to the person, who returns the colored coin.
According to its whitepaper, all of the software underpinning the Lykke Exchange are being developed in open source.
The Lykke ecosystem will be composed of several elements: the Lykke Wallet for core currency trading with 0% commission; the Lykke Exchange, a semi-centralized online exchange for trading financial instruments issued in the form of colored coins and a marketplace for retail and institutional clients; as well as the yet-to-be launched Competition Platform, which will allow users to crowdsource the most innovative ideas.
Lykke also plans to partner with banks, corporations, and municipal entities to speed up adoption of its software wallet though white-labeling.
Lykke Exchange was developed since December 2015 and went live in beta on March 2016 with wider industry testing starting in May 2016. The exchange was initially launched with the Lykke coin, shares of Lykke, and started two innovative projects: colored coins for music rights and colored coins for CO2 certificates.
The company is looking to include several asset classes such as future and options on digital assets, crowdfunded loans for retail and private equity financing for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME), contracts for difference, zero coupon bonds and other fixed income, and natural capital bonds, among others.
Lykke received initial seed funding in 2015. Philipp Netzer, an investor in the country says that “Lykke is the begging of a giant movement that will trigger a lot of very important changes in the financial industry.”
Prior to founding Lykke, Olsen was the chairman and co-founder of OANDA, a Canadian-based foreign exchange company.
You can be part of Lykkes Initial Coin Offering here.
