$39 Million Mobius ICO Sells Out in 2 Hours on Stellar, Not Ethereum

Mobius Network , a turnkey blockchain-enabling
data platform, closed its MOBI token ICO in just
two hours. More than 55,000 registered for the
public token sale, the first to be built on and
supported by Stellar, as opposed to Ethereum.
The sale was originally scheduled to run through
Feb. 18.
The token sale hit $39 million, according to
crowdfundinsiser.com, and could be the largest
ICO of 2018.
The MOBI token allows companies and consumers
to exchange data by smart contracts and plug
into the blockchain ecosystem.
Individual buyers were limited to a maximum of
25,000 tokens each in order to ensure as many
people could participate as possible in the sale.
Only Stellar Lumens (XLM) was accepted as
payment.
ICO Follows Record Pre-
Sale
The MOBI pre-sale was the largest of Q4 2017
and of 2018, with more than $35 million in sales,
and was oversubscribed by an additional $10
million.
“It’s important for us to continue to help push
the blockchain community into safer, faster, and
more secure protocols,” said David Gobaud, CEO
and co-founder of Mobius. “Our patent-pending
technology will have broad implications for
businesses being able to operate more efficiently
and with greater capability in the blockchain
ecosystem. Our successful offering is further
validation of our token’s real-world utility.”
Mobius secured an additional $1.9 million in
investments via the Y Combinator SAFE (Simple
Agreement for Future Equity). Participants
included Angel Chain Capital, based in Beijing,
and Waltonchain, a blockchain ecosystem. These
investors participated in both the token sale and
SAFE investment round. Waltonchain also has a
Top 50 token listed, the Walton Coin (WTC).
“Mobius’ blockchain software is the perfect
synergy to Waltonchain’s hardware expertise in
building next-generation smart devices,” said Dr.
Mo Bing, CEO of Waltonchain. “We believe the
team and company have a bright future and can
help us lead the hardware revolution — creating
scalable blockchain solutions and integrating
secure smart contracting capabilities on our next
generation hardware devices. We look forward
to building exciting things together.”
Bridging Blockchain And
Internet
The core premise of Mobius is to bridge the gap
between the Internet and blockchain, which will
facilitate the mainstream adoption of the
blockchain.
Mobius closes the gap between the two through
a multifaceted solution creating easy developer
tools, a consumer DApp Store, and a “Smart
Market” to allow efficient transactions of
processed real-world data between autonomous
agents.
The individual segments of the project can
themselves be different blockchain based
companies.
Primitive developer tools and protocols are the
first problem identified by Mobius towards the
mainstream adoption of the blockchain. Current
blockchain developer APIs and frameworks are
very hard to use. Mobius plans to convert
millions of traditional app developers into
blockchain developers through simple and
standardized protocols.
The Mobius dApp store will facilitate easy
discovery and adoption of distributed
applications. The Mobius tokens will be the
default payment option on the dApp store,
however, by using Mobius APIs, developers can
accept payments in other cryptocurrencies.
A comparable example would be Stripe, which
enables a vendor to accept payments from
different networks like Visa, Mastercard via a
single interface. This will provide a broad
audience base to the dApp developers. Projects
facilitating inter-blockchain communication are
based on a similar premise.
Also read: ICO analysis: Mobius
Smart Market Protocol
The final aspect of the Mobius Network is the
creation of smart market protocol which will
facilitate buying and selling of services and data
between multiple parties in an auction like
system. One of the use cases of the smart
market protocol is automated bidding and
selling data feeds coming in from IoT devices via
smart contracts.
Mobius is based on the Stellar platform. Stellar
can support around 1,000 transactions per
second, along with microtransactions. The MOBI
tokens will be used for transactions within the
platform, although developers can also receive
payments in their own tokens. Network effects
will incentivize developers to use MOBI tokens.
To promote the platform, users and developers
will be rewarded with MOBI in the initial stages
of use.