We recently hosted the first ICO 2.0 Summit at MetaDAO. The goal was to create a positive association with the term ICO's • Talk about why you need your community on your cap table • Help answer some questions and concerns • Highlight what's happened so far and what's next • Listen to some of our speakers share their insights on the new age of tokens & building in crypto and the best ways to do this was by bringing together some of the best people in the same room and to destigmatize the word And we did just that. At the ICO 2.O Summit we had @metaproph3t in his opening keynote talking about the capital formation layer of the internet, @0xMert_ shared some of his insights as a founder within the @solana ecosystem, @yashhsm highlights his thesis on Attention capital markets and @edgarpavlovsky + @barrett_io talked about their view on the future of tokens ( $DARK and $MTN ) The fear of ICO's or the fear of launching tokens as a founder is real and for the longest time was probably justified • The pressure of managing a token and the price expectations especially from your holders that probably bought these tokens at inflated values • Raising at the peak of the bull run, at absurd valuations and then having to TGE at even higher prices only to get your investors an exit or better unlock prices • Constantly being under the scanner from the authorities and fear regulatory enforcement To any founder this is not exactly and appealing prospect and the upside probably doesn't compensate enough for the risk For regular investors: • Everything from ICO's, to NFT raises and presales provided you with absolutely zero say in the future of the project you were investing in • Founders that used NFTs to raise capital called you customers and rugged you • ICO raises fled with your money and bought mansions • Pre-salers sold you nothing in exchange for your hard earned money • Cue in memecoins and other forms of speculatory tokens that generate fees on trading to fund operations. Once again with zero claims on treasury or a say in the future of the project This is a disaster in fundraising, exhausts founders that want to build in good faith for the long term, burns regular investors that are now scared of funding experimental projects or potentially be early on innovative projects cause you assume everyone is a scammer And even if you do manage to somehow convince yourself that it isn't a scam you bake in the risk of a 100% loss in your investments and write smaller and smaller cheques each time The @MetaDAOProject launchpad fixes this equation and brings the power back into the hands of the token holder by relying on market wisdom As a founder, this means you now have access to even more capital. This is essentially my thesis on why the first raise on the MetaDAO launchpad (@mtndao) did so well. Rug-proof raise simply means investors are capable of taking on more risk and deploying relative size This is the future of token raises and ICO's. If you are a founder pre-raise shoot me a DM and I'd be happy to answer any of your questions. Also stay tuned, we have a lot more coming up soon!