Why Singapore Ranks As The Third Most Favourable Country In The World For ICOs

Eleven of the 100 largest ICOs in the world, ranked by funds raised, are held by firms in Singapore.

When blockchain startup TenX raised close to US$80m from its initial coin offering, in 2017, it was a seven-minute event that took months of careful preparation and banked on Singapore’s status as one of the most attractive hubs for such fundraising. Eleven of the 100 largest ICOs by funds raised are held by firms in Singapore, ranking third in the world just behind the U.S. and Switzerland, which had 30 and 15, respectively, according to a July report from the Crypto Finance Conference.

Notably, Singapore pulled ahead of other Asian countries in the ranking, with China attracting only four of the top 100 ICOs, and Hong Kong and Japan having two each. Since then, Singapore has further solidified its position for ICOs, wherein startups drum up capital typically by selling cryptocurrency tokens in exchange for a widely-used virtual currency like Bitcoin or Ether, or cash. The tokens basically represent a right to receive some sort of benefit, or represent asset ownership or security interest over assets or property.

Some of the largest ICO campaigns in Singapore are Fusion Foundation, a startup building an “inclusive crypto financial platform” which US$110m; Quoine, a cryptocurrency exchange platform which raised US$105m in November 2017; and TenX, a cryptocurrency payments startup which raised US$80m in June 2017.

Meanwhile, some of the latest ICOs that took place in Singapore include Electrify, a retail electricity marketplace business that raised US$30m in March; PolicyPal, an insurtech company and the first startup to graduate from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) fintech regulatory sandbox in August 2017 which raised US$20m,and Bluzelle, a blockchain solutions provider and a partner of KPMG Digital Village which raised US$19.5m in February in a lightning speed 24-hour campaign.

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