ASIA Innovations Group (AIG), today announced the close of its GIFTO public token sale within one minute of opening, the fastest token sale ever in Asia.
The public token sale opened at 12 pm GMT (8 pm SG time) today, Thursday, December 14th, and the GIFTO tokens were quickly snapped up by buyers eager to get their hands on what is shaping up to be Asia’s hottest crypto token for the masses. Over 14,000 supporters applied to GIFTO’s whitelist. Its Telegram group was rated by industry observers as the fastest-growing initial coin offering (ICO) community in the world.
The interest in GIFTO was unprecedented, with its private token sale being over-subscribed more than four times. Its subsequent public token sale today closed at 12:01 GMT (8:01 pm SG time), bringing the total amount of sales to just over USD $30 million.
Mr. Andy Tian, co-founder, and CEO of AIG said: “We are excited by the overwhelming demand of our tokens. As Asia’s leading mobile entertainment company, we are committed to bringing the best products to our users and this token sale is just the first step to bring blockchain technology and its benefits to the masses in a fun and meaningful way.”
GIFTO, which stands for Gifting Protocol, is a universal protocol that is based on the Ethereum blockchain. GIFTO offers a self-governing and self-sustaining system for virtual gifts to be created, curated, bought, sent and exchanged across any global content platform such as YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, among others. The tokens from the sale can be used to buy these virtual gifts, which any content creator can customize and transact.
This concept of sending unique virtual gifts on a blockchain as a virtual asset from fans to content creators is set to be a game-changer in the global content market. With this technology, content creators will now be able to create their own unique editions of virtual gifts with its own price and value for their fans to buy and send to them, adding the crucial fun element to the gifting process.
These virtual gifts, stored as smart contract assets on the blockchain, will be universal and exist independently of any content platform. Fans will be able to send these virtual gifts to their favorite content creators on any platform, via just a Web link, without any plugin or additional technical integration.
GIFTO is the culmination of AIG’s flagship live streaming platform, Uplive’s, success. Mr. Tian envisions GIFTO to be an enabler for online content creators to monetize their content efficiently. This is inspired by the growing live streaming market that is currently valued by a Credit Suisse forecast to be worth USD $5 billion in China alone. Other markets such as Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong are also growing aggressively.
Mr. Tian, who was the former head of Zynga China and has extensive experience within the mobile entertainment industry, said: “We wanted to create a platform that will disrupt the traditional ways in which online content creators monetize their work, such as through advertising or sponsorship revenue. Through our GIFTO platform, 90% of broadcasters who currently see low monetary returns from these traditional methods will now have a new revenue stream through which their fans can directly contribute to them. The success of our token sale is a testament to the real-world demand for such a service, and we will be using the proceeds to develop and deploy the product to a worldwide audience.”
With the success of the Uplive mobile streaming platform, which boasts more than 20 million users who have generated over US$100 million in revenue in 2017 with 60,000 monthly broadcasters, the universal GIFTO protocol will allow even more content creators to monetize their content through their platform of choice.
The token offering marks AIG’s entry into the cryptocurrency space, making it the highest revenue consumer company in Asia to do so. The successful sale positions GIFTO to become the blockchain application with the most users from outside the crypto industry and is the first significant step in bringing blockchain technology to the mass market.
Chris Miess, Co-Founder, and Partner of token offering advisory and investment firm ICONIC Partners which advises AIG said: “The success of GIFTO’s token offering shows that there is a huge market outside of the crypto community that is still new to blockchain technology. The sale of GIFTO’s tokens, which can be used for in a real-world application such as virtual gifting, is a testament to the fact that blockchain technology has the ability to positively impact the lives of the general public.”
