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Suggested: Will A U.S. Company Ever Issue Its Own Cryptocurrency? (forbes.com)
Who will be the first American brand-named company to issue their own cryptocurrency?

Not too long ago, Eastman Kodak announced that it would dust itself off as a cryptocurrency issuer.

Paparazzi photo company, WENN Digital, is the brand licensee of Kodak and is the real issuer of these new coins. It's not exactly an Eastman Kodak product, but it's close enough.Chalk Kodak up as the "almost first" U.S. company to issue their own cryptocurrency.

Who would have ever guessed that?

Most cryptocurrency investors believe the adult entertainment industry will be the first to issue their own coin.

Gamer apps come in a close second."There are rumors of Pornhub and its 500 million users joining blockchain," says Elena Masolova, a Bay Area angel investor and advisor to TokenStars, another start-up with its own token that allows investors to sponsor certain athletes. "Their management is rumored to be considering this idea.

They certainly participate in a lot of blockchain conferences," she says, adding that gaming companies like WarGaming are the type of company likely to issue their own coin.


Pornhub did not respond to requests for comment. Smaller players already accept payment in crypto, but no big brands have launched their own coin. That's what everyone is waiting for. That's the next step forward.On March 14, Playboy said it would create its own cryptocurrency wallet, allowing for payment of Playboy's product line in crypto.

Cryptocurrency and the blockchain digital ledger system that it operates on "gives the millions of people who enjoy our content...more choices with regard to payment," says Reena Patel, COO of Playboy.

Patel said in a press release that they would accept the new Vice Industry Token (VIT), a utility token that gives users discounts on Playboy videos. VIT was launched this year. Their initial coin offering ended today. 

They raised capital in Ethereum coins, which came out to around $14.5 million.

The big daddy of them all would be Amazon. An AmazonCoin would be a game changer.

The company is venturing into financial services, so they are creating a mini-banking business. They are investing in blockchain for their Amazon Web Services division, so they have the infrastructure set up for crypto. When is it coming?

The best guess at this point is "never."
But if it did..."An Amazon cryptocurrency wouldn’t just change the face of the world’s largest online retailer. It would change the world," writes Sam Town, a freelance fintech journalist out of Bangkok. 

"The era of mass adoption would be upon us within minutes of Jeff Bezos announcing either a proprietary AmazonCoin or a partnership with an existing platform such as Stellar or Ripple. And it could happen any day," he says.

He may be a voice in the wilderness about Amazon, but his take on a big brand launching its own coin is a hope among crypto enthusiasts because it lends an air of supremacy about their idea in the first place.

All of a sudden, crypto becomes more mainstream. And when that happens, more investors buy into their cryptocurrencies -- not necessarily to buy goods and services by the issuer, but to trade in hopes to get rich quick.For sure, the first company to be successful at launching a big branded coin will have followers.

Companies that already known in the market do not need to raise funds into their own new coin through an initial coin offering. There will be other reasons for going crypto.


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Mr. Warbucks himself, Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. An AmazonCoin would change the world. Imagine paying for all goods purchased on Amazon.com with an AmazonCoin? Holders of the coin would get a discount on purchases, sort of like Prime.

No one has figured out the true value of these coins yet. And that has traditional business more interested in blockchain than in its offshoot: cryptocurrency.

(Photo by: Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX)

See: 

Amazon Could Be The Bill Belichick Of Blockchain --

The Motley Fool

Telegram's ICO Not For The Regular Crypto 'Riff-Raff' 

-- Forbes

Many Cryptocurrencies Will Double This Year -- Forbes

"This is about so much more than raising funds. Blockchains are consensus databases between companies and their customers and tokens are the incentive machines that fuel that," says Craig Bromberg, CMO at Kowala Technology, a blockchain tech company with its own coin pegged to the dollar. 

"Whether you're Ford or CVS or Amazon, you can't not afford to jump on this train," he says.

So far, it's been more talk than action. New coins are being issued by companies no one has ever heard of.

Despite Silicon Valley investors and startups being in the fore of cryptocurrency, none of the vanguards that have come out of Silicon Valley are hopping on the bandwagon.Former Y-Combinator startup Stripe used to accept Bitcoin.

Now they do not.Everyone loves blockchain, but not everyone loves crypto. It may be a great little poker chip, but established companies do not see it as a utility. They might never see it that way, thinks Mike Poutre, CEO of The Crypto Company, a Malibu-based IT solutions provider for the crypto assets market.

“My immediate thoughts are that Fortune 500’s and blue chips don't need to issue their own coins unless it warrants a completely unique case or solution to a legacy problem," says Poutre.SEC crackdowns on ICOs, coupled with the fact that established companies already have easy access to capital markets, means you'd have to be a renegade-type to consider issuing a coin.

 Think Elon Musk, for instance. He'd be the type to create a coin, just for creating a coin: Marscoin. Ten thousand Marscoins gets you on his SpaceX flight to the Red Planet for a below market rate.It's been a quiet few months for Bitcoin.

That's taken some of the shine off new cryptocurrencies this year.Word in crypto land was that well-known companies would be lining up to be the next Telegram, the Russian-developed messaging app now doing an ICO like Kodak -- for accredited investors only.

In 2017, all you had to do was put the word "blockchain" in your company name and your share price soared. Issue a coin, and someone in a basement apartment in Seoul would sink a few grand into it and trade it to other Asians on a cryptocurrency exchange.


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The KodakCoin will be the first cryptocurrency connected to a brand-named U.S. company. Eastman Kodak is not the issuer, however. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

But 2018 has been subdued. Bitcoin is nowhere near $20,000 like it was in mid-December. It's not even at $10,000.Ripple Net's coin (XRP) is no longer up three-times its ICO price. XRP is back to trading under a buck. There is less buzz on Bitcoin, and that's impacted cryptocurrency in general.

For those in the industry, there's a notion that a shake-out is taking place. It's all becoming more professional.

"Once there is more regulatory clarity in the marketplace, we could see some Fortune 500 companies pursuing more tokenized solutions.

Maybe Google explores tokenized ad offerings, or AWS pursues a variation of the distributed storage ideas we’ve seen from projects like Storj," Poutre says.  "The focus won't be on raising capital -- like traditional ICOs. It would be about taking advantage of the other benefits of tokenized solutions,” he says. 


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Discover more from Forbes here: 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2018/03/20/will-a-u-s-company-ever-issue-its-own-cryptocurren...
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    Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst The first U.S. Company to launch a crypto coin... Kodak? Porn Industry? Gaming companies? Amazon? Tesla? Once there is a better regulatory atmosphere in USA we will see the big companies offering coins and tokens.