I recently got turned onto Polymath blockchain company- website here https://polymath.network/. I felt intuitive that it was an extremely disruptive idea, as it claims to facilitate the movement of trillions of dollars into the blockchain. It took me quite long to truly understand the concept and it's potential, so I thought I would do a quick write-up and explain it here, as I understand it and also facilitate a conversation from people more knowledgeable than me. To be clear, I have no affiliation with them, I'm just an interested investor/ crypto fan and considering participating in their upcoming ICO, which will be announced on January 19. I hope this helps you gain some level of clarity on this project!
Polymath is a platform that will facilitate companies (both blockchain companies, and traditional companies) to "incorporate" on the blockchain so to speak, allowing them to launch their own tokens that others can invest in. So, if you own a restaurant for example, and want to start a coin that your friends could invest in, Polymath is a platform that will generate your company a token to be able to do this. You could perhaps understand it best by thinking of it as a blockchain New York Stock Exchange. The platform ensures, to some extent, the legitimacy of the companies on the platform by requiring them to meet certain standards - though it's not clear to met yet what those standards are or how they are determined.
They are claiming that they have a long wait list already, including large, publicly traded companies (they don't mention names) that will use this platform to launch a token for their business. I believe this platform will be a very legitimate way for businesses to begin raising money through the blockchain. I feel many traditional investment institutions- venture capital, private equity, lenders, will use this as a platform to finance companies, making this platform and its coin extremely valuable.
The way I see it, the wild-west of ICO's that we are seeing now simply won't last. There's no way to evaluate the quality of these companies, and this is a step in the right direction. I feel in the long-term, it will probably replace stock exchanges, but in the short term it will be just another really compelling way for companies to raise money through the blockchain economy.
As someone who is considering investing in the ICO, I'd love to hear your comments, insights and questions about this project! My big questions and concerns about this project are:
They are pretty heavily banking on regulation coming into the space, and catering to traditional investment funds. Seems like a good idea in the short-term, but do you feel this will eventually this will be replaced by a totally decentralized, regulation-free blockchain exchange?
What would prevent a major corporation, like Apple or Amazon, from using this to incorporate on the blockchain and begin raising funds there immediately? I imagine there's probably some legal concerns for them, and any insight here would be helpful.
For anyone out there who works in venture capital or private equity- what are your thoughts on this? Would this provide value for funds that would help them move more capital onto blockchain companies?