The American pioneer in photography, Eastman Kodak, has announced that it expects to raise about 50 million dollars in the Initial Currency Offer (ICO) of its blockchain-based system specialized in the protection of licensed images - better known as KODAKOne -, which was developed in conjunction with the firm Wenn Digital, a company dedicated to Big Data and Artificial Intelligence.
The announcement was confirmed by Reuters and the spokesperson of Camerone Chell, president and co-founder of KODAKOne, who stressed that the token's public offering, which is called Kodakcoin, will be held on May 21; date that has caused a huge stir in the community since the event was expected since last January.
Chell said the delays in the Initial Currency Offer were due to legal issues. The US company decided to ensure that all procedures were legal, complying with all SEC statutes, a situation that delayed the token's release:
We really took a step back and decided to make sure that all the T's were crossed and that all the points were above the I's, before embarking on a public sale. We wanted to make sure that we did it well.
Now, they will use an instrument called the Simple Agreement for Future Records (SAFT). The structure of SAFT allows viable symbolic sales of digital assets, since it limits the participation of accredited investors, said Chell. Also, companies do not need to register with the SEC to be able to carry out the financing event, a strategy that reduces paperwork.
Due to the aforementioned characteristics and the high expectations of the investors in this Initial Currency Offer, the executives behind the project predict that although the ICO requirement is for a minimum amount of 20 million dollars, because the demand is much larger, could reach to collect about 50 million dollars in total. Without a doubt, a large sum of money that could help take off the project.
Wenn Digital - the technology partner that has helped develop the platform for Kodak - has previously pre-sold tokens through SAFT to a group of accredited investors and managed to raise about 10 million dollars.
In addition, Kodak shares have also been significantly affected by the launch of the KODAKOne blockchain project, as shares jumped in January to $ 13.25 per unit after announcing the partnership with Wenn Digital for the creation of the network . A run that lasted little, since they fell to the moment in which the delay of the ICO was communicated, closing this Friday in 5,10 American dollars by unit according to sources of Reuters.
This surprising behavior of the market in relation to the assets has already happened with other firms in the market, such as the Long Island Iced Tea firm whose shares rose 500% after executives decided to add the word blockchain in the documentation of the company. A phenomenon that shows how traditional markets are related to the most emerging financial ecosystems.
To go into detail, KODAKOne is a platform that has been developed with the active participation of Wenn Digital and Kodak, being a network that aims to register and protect the copyright of any image or photograph that is stored on the network.
At the moment, the only thing that is known - besides the date of the Initial Currency Offer - is that by the use of the SAFT standard, the tokens will only be issued until the launch of the blockchain application, an event that they expect to happen later this year. In this sense, it seems that the path of blockchain in the photography industry is beginning to take shape.