Thread by @lawmaster

I was in Hong Kong last week and one of the most dominant conversation topics were Initial Exchange Offerings (IEOs) - basically copycats of Binance Launchpad. And it's becoming a huge theme for Asian exchanges but it's still under the radar.

Nearly every exchange is talking about ways to replicate Launchpad’s success; and some have already launched their own versions:

- Bittrex IEO
- KuCoin Spotlight
- Huobi Prime
- BitMex

Others will follow.

What's important to realize is that these platforms' primary purpose isn't really fundraising. It’s about bootstrapping interest in the project. Binance only sells 6% of tokens in circulation and max raise has been a little over $7 million.

Who heard of Celer before they announced their launch on Binance? Binance has access to the most retail customers and in turn the most real liquidity.

For projects, Launchpad is a no-brainer. Every project with little traction wants to be there. They give up less than 10% of their tokens to get:

- free marketing
- raise additional capital
- get listed on the largest retail-driven exchange
- get liquidity

Competing against Binance from the perspective of other exchanges will be really tough. Replicating Launchpad is nearly impossible because other exchanges can't create as much hype and they don't have access to nearly as many customers.

What they will probably start doing (if I were to guess) is start allowing customers that Binance blocks (USA, Canada, China etc.) Bittrex already hinted at doing this. And Huobi did as well. Because they can't compete in other ways
theblockcrypto.com/tiny/bittrex-i…

My full thoughts here in a paywalled article: theblockcrypto.com/2019/03/20/ske…

FIX: It's of course BitMax and not BitMEX as I said above.