Bitcoin.com wants to raise $50 million through an exchange token sale

Bitcoin.com is seeking to raise $50 million through an initial exchange offering, according to materials obtained by The Block.

According to materials, Bitcoin.com seeks to raise those finds via a private sale of the BCE token. The website has been available since last year, according to posts on social media, though the fundraising target of $50 million is previously unreported. 

Holders of the token, according to the official website, will receive "priority IEO [initial exchange offering] access," larger referral bonuses and lower trading fees. Holders are also offered rewards via airdrop in the form of "other tokens for free based on the amount of BCE you hold."

The BCE token is built on the Simple Ledger Protocol, or SLP, which itself is tied to the bitcoin cash blockchain. That Bitcoin.com’s token would be built via this system is perhaps unsurprising, given that cryptocurrency’s strong support from Bitcoin.com chairman Roger Ver.

According to the BCE white paper, the token will not be available in the following countries: the Bahamas, Botswana, Cambodia, North Korea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Iran, Japan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Panama, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Yemen, and the United States.

The token will have a maximum supply of 2 billion units, and the sale itself will feature 1 billion of that amount, according to materials.

The materials indicate that Bitcoin.com plans to list more tokens issued via the SLP in the near future, though there is no indication as of yet what those projects might be.

What’s more, some of the details of the token appear have yet to decided, including the process by which token buybacks and burns will be conducted.

“The specific details of the token buy-back and burn procedures have not yet been determined and the details of any buy-back or burn will only be released to the public after it has taken place,” the BCE white paper states.

Bitcoin.com’s exchange was launched in early September of last year. According to CoinGecko, the exchange features 27 coins and 75 total trading pairs. CoinGecko reports a normalized volume of $10.6 million in a 24-hour period and a self-reported volume figure of roughly $496 million for the same time period.

The development is the latest example of an industry exchange seeking to raise funds by way of its own token. Last month, Dubai-based BTSE announced that it will try to raise $50 million through a token built on Blockstream’s Liquid network, as The Block previously reported.