Alex Masmej, founder of a company offering loans against non-fungible tokens, has just raised $20,000 after selling his personal tokens on the Ethereum network.
In a Tweet to his 3,000+ followers on April 12, Masmej announced that the initial offering of his personal token $ALEX had sold for $20,000 among 29 participants. The crypto entrepreneur promoted the sale in a blog post calling it the “Initial $ALEX Offering”, but originally announced the offer at the Ethereum Community Conference in March.
New way to fund crypto ventures
According to the crypto entrepreneur, $ALEX is like “a blend between a small Income Sharing Agreement and a human IPO.” Anyone holding his personal token is entitled to 15% of Masmej’s income for the next three years, capped at $100,000, distributed quarterly in Dai (DAI) or an equivalent stablecoin.
Masmej plans to use the funding to move back to San Francisco and begin to find co-founders for his new “mainstream-focused crypto startup”.
“With this $20,000 raise, I can move back to SF with a small safety net to maximize my potential. Also, this crisis could lower my living costs cheaper.”
Investing in the individual, not the company
Human IPOs like the one Masmej offered are largely new territory in the crypto world, but the principle is the same as an initial coin offering by a firm. Rather than putting money in the company, which Masmej has not founded yet, investors are placing their hopes and wallets in the individual.
1,000,000 $ALEX were sold in this token offering, only 10% of the total supply of ten million coins. According to Masmej, there are over a hundred holders of his personal token, “many of which have become trusted advisors.” The entrepreneur also promised investors voting in major life decisions, participation in his seed funding round, and exclusive sessions.
Personal tokens becoming more common?
Masmej partnered with Roll, a firm “pioneering the social money movement” that creates personal tokens, to unveil his $ALEX token. However, there have been a few platforms to support the creation of personal tokens like StakeOnMe and HumanIPO.
Though these tokens are far from mainstream yet, there have been other instances of public figures tying themselves to digital assets. In September 2019, Spencer Dinwiddie of the Brooklyn Nets sold tokens tied to his $34 million NBA contract extension.
