E-commerce veteran Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) subsidiary tZERO (tØ) has formally announced an initial coin offering (ICO). CEO Patrick Byrne announced the news at the Money 20/20 conference in Las Vegas yesterday. Overstock is planning to sell up to 500 million digital tokens via an initial coin offering that will launch next month.
The tZERO token, according to statements, will trade on the alternative trading system (ATS) being developed by the firm.
Overstock might seem like an unlikely ICO issuer, but the company has been an early adopted of cryptocurrencies. It was one of the first companies to accept payment via Bitcoin, and has formed tØ that is creating the first SEC-compliant exchange for companies to trade digital tokens. It’s that tØ exchange, spurred by a July regulatory finding, that would be financed via the ICO sale.
Patrick Byrne commented on the news:
While many doubted, the tZERO team worked hard, to be at the tip of the spear in creating and launching credible, capable and institutionally scalable blockchain technologies for crypto assets. Today those efforts are attracting interest from both the crypto community and the largest global institutional funds.
This is intended to become the largest ICO of all time, topping the $257 million raised by FileCoin in August.