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alex konanykhin is a courageous soul.
he started out a cryptocurrency undertaking on the start of a battle in ukraine, decades-high inflation in the u.s. and europe, fed monetary tightening, and the ability for meals shortages using up commodity costs. he appears to have predicted the meltdown of the conventional coins as his february 23 press launch touts unicoin as the “method to the excessive volatility of cryptocoins.” his idea stems from a notion popularized by using warren buffet, a well-known bitcoin btc +2.five% bear, who said that cryptocurrency has no fee because it isn’t backed with the aid of some thing.
cryptocurrencies are not sponsored with the aid of the best faith and credit of a country, let alone the start-up founders or their mission capitalist traders. it isn’t sponsored by way of tough property both. it’s no longer like dogecoin doge +1.9% is subsidized by means of shiba inu shib +five.2% canine breeders or anything – much less puppies, better doge. it’s actually a funny story coin really worth tens of billions of greenbacks.
so if you can create a shaggy dog story coin worth tens of billion maybe you could create a coin sponsored by using rising boom groups inside the sales stage. “our idea is to create a crypto 2.zero,” says konanykhin. “something that may be understood via the market. bitcoin is created by an anonymous character for different people seeking anonymity. it doesn’t pay hobby. what in case your coin became sponsored via venture capital investments in scaleups? that’s what we are doing.”
of direction, scaleups – as they are acknowledged and now not to be careworn with the pre-revenue startup global–can grow to be nugatory.
unicoin’s portfolio is available on its internet site. the coin itself is considered a securities token by way of the securities and exchange fee.
“i think right now that project capital and speculative cash feels find it irresistible simply were given lots harder to find,” says john sarson, founder of sarson price range, a crypto foreign money investment corporation based totally in indiana. “i wouldn’t suppose that now is a fantastic time to launch a brand new venture because buyers are consolidating into the largest and most secure initiatives proper now. however the dirt settles pretty fast in crypto,” he says. “i think the animal spirits will go back and it have to handiest take a year or so for danger urge for food to come back.”
that is konanykhin’s first foray into cryptocurrency. unicoin purports to be the cryptocurrency that konanykhin and a team of investors will use to put money into startups that present themselves on a show he created – the one-yr-vintage unicorn hunters.
unicorn hunters is sort of a shark tank, however open to thousands and thousands of investors. its hosts include steve wozniak, one of the founders of apple.
at the display, enterprise founders have 20 mins in a roundtable known as the circle of cash to pitch their agency and answer the related questions. those are not crypto businesses. one of the unicoin funds investments is in a healthcare agency referred to as mymee in ny.
this display is the middle of the unicoin universe, for certain.
display contributors are put in front of wozniak, and others which includes rosie rios, a former treasurer of america underneath president obama; moe vela, another obama white residence staffer and ex-vice chairman biden senior marketing consultant; and lance bass, a 90s popstar again within the days when he sang with nsync.
unicoin will make investments unicoins in some of the organizations that seem on unicorn hunters. but investors do no longer personal any positions in the ones corporations. handiest unicoin itself does. the value of unicoin rises, in principle, with the price of the corporations the fund has chosen to invest in.
the show does now not seem on any primary network tv station, but has its very own youtube channel with a hundred twenty five,000 subscribers. some episodes best have some hundred perspectives, at the same time as others garnered thousands and thousands of perspectives. the show can be accessed via youtube and other stay streaming channels, as well as on unicornhunters.com.
wozniak instructed fortune mag in march that unicoin “virtually starting up the sector of startup funding to the loads.” it’s truly simplest open to the masses, as in retail traders, outside of the u.s.
wozniak contrasted unicoin with other cryptocurrencies, telling fortune’s jonathan vanian that it isn’t “just primarily based on phrases and talks” however is as an alternative “actually based totally at the outcome of investments.”
konanykhin’s crypto relies upon in component on the achievement of this show and wozniak, of path, is a headliner. “i approached wozniak because i wanted on the show the co-founder of one of the most revolutionary businesses within the global which later have become the simplest enterprise that had reached $three trillion valuation and he agreed,” he says. “like he has stated at the display, a display like unicorn hunters might have been perfect for apple when he and steve jobs have been seeking out ways to finance their business enterprise.”
i likened the unicoin idea to venture capital, crypto-fashion, however konanykhin said that traders had been holders of the coin and did now not have any stakes within the businesses. the companies the unicoin fund invests in are what brings the coin fee, and will pay dividends.
unicoin right now could be invested in 5 startups (like mymee) that seemed on unicorn hunters, and also 5 million shares of the show itself.
to this point unicorn hunters raised $55 million, and used these finances to launch the display and unicoin.
konanykhin, a russian immigrant who defected during the blowup of the soviet union and has been residing in the u.s. ever due to the fact that, runs a six-year-antique software services organization referred to as obvious business with a associate named silvina moschini. obvious commercial enterprise serves as the unicoin fund manager. it calls itself a preserving organisation.
argentinian entrepreneur moschini is nice recognized down for creating a agency called sheworks, a platform concentrated on ladies searching out remote work.
“we raised money from three,000 traders from around 45 distinct nations for transparent enterprise in 2018 just by means of growing movies explaining what we do and we grew site visitors thru social media,” says konanykhin. “we raised money that way. once we noticed that, we decided – ok, now we understand how to do it thru social media platforms – permit’s produce a tv show, and we hired a manufacturing enterprise to film it in beverly hills at cbs tv city.” konanykhin is the govt manufacturer of unicorn hunter.
they claim to have sold $25 million unicoins and are spending a variety of that capital on advertising and marketing. they have classified ads in the big apple town airports, miami global, san francisco, la and denver airports.
“the enterprise model of our unicorn hunters display includes taking five-10% of the enterprise to offer it visibility at the display and they assume it is well worth it because they can be watched by thousands and thousands of humans around the world,” konanykhin says, even though most shows will now not have that sized target market. “that offers us a threat to create this crypto coin, with backing with the aid of assets we invest in, that are stakes in these businesses owned by the unicoin fund managed by means of obvious enterprise. you could see the founders make their presentations, you could see what the panelists say approximately those businesses, you may visit their websites and do your very own due diligence. we’re flooded with packages from scale-up companies. i assume the portfolio fee to grow by means of making an investment in extra of those businesses in the subsequent year.”
stakeholders aren’t just a few institutional traders like in conventional vc funds, but are coin holders. like many personal finances, this one has a lock-up period of six months.
“we’re certainly trying to seize a big percentage of the call for for cryptocurrrency investing by way of providing the first fairness-subsidized, dividend-paying cryptocurrency,” he says.
unicoin is trying to raise $50 million from global investors in this ongoing first round, expected to close by means of september. then they hope to up the ante in a second round and raise $one hundred million and then double it to $two hundred million in a third spherical by 2023. unicoin is presently well worth round 10 cents. it is not traded on any exchanges.
