Blockstack announces another token sale - this time open to all investors

Decentralised infrastructure builder Blockstack is doing another token sale, this time open to all investors, not just accredited ones with a high net worth.

A statement said that by developing a legal and financial framework to enable anyone to invest, Blockstack aims to democratise token sales. It has been a painful reality to many blockchain firms that they have had to shut out the community who originally supported their projects, in order to meet SEC securities exemptions. This typically means only allowing accredited investors with a large amount of disposable finance.

Blockstack's previous token sale which resulted in $50 million in tokens sold to over 800 accredited investors, was structured such that participants invest in a Delaware Fund with milestone-based triggers that allow capital to be gradually released from the fund to Blockstack Token LLC over time (20% initially, 40% upon milestone 1, and 40% upon milestone 2).

The last sale also saw some 8,000 token voucher registrations for non-accredited investors.

Blockstack was not immediately available to throw more light on the next token sale.

In a statement Ryan Shea, Co-Founder of Blockstack, said: "We want to create an alternative to the internet that is fully decentralised, secure and prioritises data protection. In short, we want to bring power back to the people and away from big tech companies. In line with this goal, we decided to create an investment model with Republic that is open to anyone – not just professional investors."

The accredited investors who took part in the December sale included Union Square Ventures, Foundation Capital, Lux Capital, Winklevoss Capital, Blockchain Capital, Digital Currency Group, Kevin Rose, Michael Arrington, and Qasar Younis (the former COO of Y Combinator).

Every sale participant received the same price of $0.12 per token and every voucher recipient will be offered the same price. There were no discounts and nobody received free tokens for being an advisor or service provider.

The token sale was designed to distribute tokens to those who would actually use and hold the tokens - not flippers and short term speculators. For this reason, tokens have been set up to be locked and continuously released to purchasers over a period of two years.

In addition, the sale was designed so that no single party would have a disproportionally large number of tokens when the network launches. Thus, the largest investors were limited to a maximum of $3M (or $6M upon opting in to double the lockup period), stated a blog post.