Forbes  | Roger Aitken ,| Feb 25, 2017

Equibit Development Corporation (EDC), a Canadian-based startup behind the Equibit blockchain and applications that is building a decentralized securities platform, has sold over US$500,000 of equibits since launching its crypto coin offering at the start of February. And, according to Chris Horlacher, EDC’s CEO, “steady interest” from investors has been seen. Primarily investment participation has come from North America, followed by Europe and Asia.

Touted as the world's first ‘peer-to-peer’ (P2P) equity marketplace and a platform for issuers to manage their investor relations without the need of depositories and transfer agents, EDC has so far sold a total of 201,885 equibits (EQB’s) - a new digital currency - to investors.

It meant that as of today (February 25) some 20% of EQB’s were confirmed as having been sold in the initial offer, with the total raised standing at $519,510 - comprising $107,588 and 349.13 bitcoin (BTC).

'Peer-To-Peer' Equity Marketplace

Horlacher, who founded EDC along with a team of blockchain development experts, explained that he conceived the idea for Equibit back in 2010 whilst serving as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at a stock brokerage start-up in Toronto, Ontario, which now manages over $4 billion in assets. As such EDC was established with the grand aim to “revolutionize” the securities industry.

“The goal was to disintermediate securities depositories and transfer agents, thus removing several layers of counterparty risk from the industry and increasing the overall efficiency of securities registration, clearing and settlement,” explains Horlacher, who began his career as an auditor with a ‘Big 4’ firm in Canada.

He added: “This in turn would lead to a far better investing experience and make the lives brokers, exchanges and the asset management community much easier.”

On this score, Equibit handles the 'issuer-investors' and 'investor-investor' relationships and includes a blockchain asset register, a communications, and Anti-Money Laundering (AML)/Know Your Client (KYC) compliance system, which prevents securities from being transferred to unauthorized parties.

Crowdfunding EDC

EDC has offered to sell one million equibits out of a total of 22 million equibits potentially available.

One might ask how this will work out exactly. Well, when new blockchains are launched, Horlacher indicated that the companies developing them “will typically divide up the native token/asset into two portions.”

Horlacher, who is certified by the Canadian Securities Institute as a partner, director and CFO, elaborated: “One of these is ‘pre-sold’ to early adopters and people planning on using the system, or those who simply support the idea and want to see it come to fruition - via an “initial coin offering. The other part is reserved for ‘miners’, people who contribute processing power to the network and are compensated by the system for their efforts.”

The offering itself started with an initial batch of 100,000 equibits priced at $2 per coin. And, it is understood that the crowdsale will adhere to a "predetermined schedule", with the price for equibits increasing with each subsequent batch being released.

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Specifically, the million equibits - the native token on the blockchain system that they will be launching - have been divided into ten equal segments and will be sold at "increasing price points." These start at $2 each and go up 25% with each inventory segment.

The logic for this is in order that EDC can “gauge the demand for the token” Horlacher said, as well as to reach the venture’s various fundraising targets so as to budget for a range of initiatives going forward.

Genesis Block

All equibits sold in the coin offering will be created in the EDC platform’s genesis block, constituting the inception of the system’s operation. Essentially a ‘genesis block’ is the very first block in a blockchain.

This genesis block is nevertheless described as being 'special' in the sense that the development company can control when it gets created, as well as the size of the reward that comes along with it.

Speaking to Forbes from Toronto, Horlacher explained: “In the case of Equibit, EDC will mine the genesis block and receive the first million equibits, which are being offered up in this pre-sale. And, at that point the software will be released to the public for anyone to inspect the code and start mining as well in order to win a portion of the remaining 21m equibits that will be created over an extended timeframe - just like bitcoins.”

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