亚洲投资者绕开禁令继续投资ICO

Pent-up demand from Asia is driving the booming global market for initial coin offerings as regulators in China and South Korea try to curtail such fundraising activity.

来自亚洲的被抑制的需求正在推动全球首次代币发行(ICO)市场的繁荣，即便中国和韩国监管机构在试图遏制这类筹款活动。

Companies have raised about $3.2bn this year through coin offerings, up from less than $300m last year, according to Coindesk, a data company that tracks global issuance. The ICO market enables start-ups to bypass banks and traditional underwriters of capital raisings, by selling digital tokens that can be used to purchase their products at a later date.

据追踪全球代币发行的数据公司Coindesk表示，今年企业通过代币发行已筹集了大约32亿美元资金，而去年还不到3亿美元。通过销售数字代币——日后可用来购买其产品——ICO市场让初创公司得以绕过银行和传统的募资承销商。

Asia, particularly China, has been closely linked to the development of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.

亚洲，特别是中国，与比特币等加密货币的发展一直密切相关。

While the digital fundraising trend has been global, data from KYC-Chain, a company that performs due diligence on ICO investors, show that demand for ICOs is coming predominantly from Asia.

虽然数字募资趋势是全球性的，但根据对ICO投资者进行尽职调查的公司KYC-Chain的数据，ICO需求主要来自亚洲。

“This is the trend that we are seeing with all the token sales using our technology right now,” said Edmund Lowell, KYC-Chain’s founder and chief executive, who noted that the company’s own token sale had experienced the strongest demand from the region. “Asia is where the demand is highest.”

KYC-Chain创始人和首席执行官埃德蒙•洛维(Edmund Lowell)表示：“使用我们的技术，这是我们现在从所有代币发售看到的趋势。”他指出，该公司自己的代币销售经历了来自亚洲的最强劲需求。 “亚洲是需求最大的地方。”

About 70 per cent of so-called “bitcoin miners” — companies that use computing power to create new bitcoins — are based in China, according to Blockchain, a software platform for digital assets. That has left Asia with vast reserves of digital currencies to invest in ICOs, said Daniel De Weyer, a former Swift executive who now invests in ICOs.

根据数字资产软件平台Blockchain的数据，大约70%所谓的“比特币矿工”——利用计算能力创造新比特币的公司——都在中国。环球银行金融电信协会(Swift)前高管、现在投资于ICO的丹尼尔•德维尔(Daniel De Weyer)表示，这让亚洲获得了庞大的数字货币储备去投资于ICO。

“Because a lot of the cryptocurrencies are held in Asia, it only makes sense that a lot of the investors are looking to put their holdings to work,” Mr De Weyer said.

德维尔说：“由于亚洲持有大量加密货币，有大量投资者寻求充分利用所持货币是完全合乎逻辑的。”

But the region has seen some of the harshest regulation on ICOs and cryptocurrencies. In September, the Chinese government banned the digital offerings, calling them a “form of unapproved illegal public financing behaviour”. Korea followed that month with a similar ban.

但该地区已出现了一些针对ICO和加密货币的最严厉的规定。9月份，中国政府禁止了代币发行，称其为“未经批准非法公开融资的行为”。随后韩国也在当月出台类似禁令。

But the halt on ICOs has not stopped investors from buying into the deals. In China, over-the-counter bitcoin sales rose from 5 per cent before the ban to more than 20 per cent in November.

但叫停ICO未能阻止投资者买入这类交易。在中国，场外交易比特币销售已从禁令颁布前的5%，增至11月的逾20%。

“There’s a joke: China bans bitcoin every day,” said Ryan Xu, a Beijing-based bitcoin miner and ICO investor.

北京的比特币矿工和ICO投资者Ryan Xu表示：“市面上有个笑话说，中国每天都禁止比特币。”

Many Chinese ICO investors have either moved to OTC markets or relocated offshore in order to continue their businesses. For example, Mr Xu’s company, Newstyle-Collinstar Capital, has headquarters in Australia, South Korea and China.

许多中国ICO投资者为了继续他们的业务，或者前往场外交易市场，或者转移到境外。例如，Ryan Xu的公司Newstyle-Collinstar Capital在澳大利亚、韩国和中国都有总部。

A recent ICO launched by start-up Gatcoin, which is seeking to raise $35m, has so far attracted more than 50 per cent of its investors from Asia, KYC-Chain data showed.

据KYC-Chain数据显示，初创公司Gatcoin最近发起了一次ICO，目标是筹集3500万美元，目前所吸引的投资者50%以上来自亚洲。

US investors in the sale accounted for 14.33 per cent of the demand with buyers from Korea just behind at 14.28 per cent. Indian traders ranked third, taking about 13 per cent. Hong Kong and Vietnam were also among the top-10 sources of investment.

发售交易中的美国投资者占了总需求的14.33%，韩国买家以14.28%紧随其后。印度交易员排名第三，约占13%。香港和越南也在前十大投资来源地之列。