In 2010, bitcoins were worth 25 cents. I told everyone I knew that Bitcoin was going to be huge.

In 2012, I published a paper about building protocols on top of Bitcoin, which later became known as the“Initial Coin Offering.” After 1.5 years, still no one had taken the action to develop the idea. To show that it could be done, I launched Mastercoin (now Omni), in 2013. Today, the Omni platform hosts assets worth half a billion dollars, including MaidSafe and Tether. Only Ethereum assets are worth more.

In 2014, I predicted other things like the hacks on overly complicated Ethereum contracts losing millions of dollars.

These predictions were largely ignored.

Now it’s 2017. For years I have been waiting for “the perfect token sale”, and I finally found it. It may sound bonkers, but I predict crypto ATMs are going to be a really big deal in the coming years, and I helped design a token, UpToken, which captures that opportunity. I’ve partnered with a crypto ATM company that I think is best positioned to make a big move in this space (Coinme), and helped them design a token for ATMs called UpToken (uptoken.org). The proceeds from the token sale will be used to deploy crypto ATMs all over the world. We want “a crypto ATM on every corner.”

Here’s why I think UpToken represents “The Perfect Token Sale”

• UpToken helps us all. Cryptocurrencies are changing the world, and a lot of people are getting left behind. Crypto ATMs can change that. Developing countries and the non-technical aren’t being reached. As ATM infrastructure improves, everyone can have access to fair money and financial services.
• UpToken doesn’t care who wins. Will Bitcoin win? Ethereum? Something else that hasn’t been invented yet? UpToken doesn’t care. In a gold rush, you’d rather be selling shovels than digging, and I think crypto ATMs represent the ultimate example of picks and shovels for the crypto economy.
• UpToken can help your favorite coin. Coinme ATMs currently buy and sell Bitcoin, and ethereum will be added shortly, but the owners of UpToken get to choose which coins are added to the ATMs after that. With UpToken, you can ensure there will be an ATM selling your favorite coin “on every corner!” (This is the main reason I am personally buying UpToken - I want to see “An Omni ATM on Every Corner”).
• UpToken already has traction. Most token sales are just an idea. Coinme has existing, operational hardware. Coinme wrote all the software, from the ATM firmware up to the web wallet. UpToken takes an existing functional technology and scales it up!
• Coinme continually buys UpToken. 1% of Coinme ATM fees in perpetuity are devoted to buying UpToken, which will be given to ATM customers as a rewards program. This “cash back” is locked from sale or transfer until the customer has done $10,000 worth of transactions at Coinme ATMs. In the meantime, UpToken can be used to pay Coinme ATM fees at a 30% discount. See the whitepaper for details.
• UpToken is scalable. In the ICO world, an idea that is worth only one million dollars might attract a hundred million dollars, which is grossly inefficient and wasteful. The perfect token sale should scale with the funds raised. If UpToken attracted a billion dollars, we’d use it all to build out our ATM network, each of which would use UpToken. In fact, the more funds UpToken attracts, the better, thanks to economies of scale.
• UpToken has no pre-sale. Most token sales give the best prices on tokens to rich insiders. UpToken gives everyone access to the best prices available. You can see on our signup spreadsheet (check out the millions of dollars pledged already!) that I am signed up alongside the rest of you, and my purchase will be treated the same as yours.

Can you see why I am so excited about this? I am posting about UpToken today in various places, even though history suggests only a few visionary people will listen. But, if you are among them, you can learn more and sign up for the token sale at uptoken.org.

You can read more about me and see videos about my “crazy” predictions on my LinkedIn profile.

Laura Shin has a nice article about this on the Forbes website: https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2017/09/21/heres-the-man-who-created-icos-and-this-is-the-new-token-hes-backing/#1d9622421183

TL;DR: I predicted Bitcoin would be big in 2010, invented the “ICO” in 2012 and tried to get someone to do the first one, but no one did. So I did. Now I have a new prediction: “UpToken is the perfect token sale.”