EXAMINATION OF INITIAL COIN OFFERINGS (ICOs) AS A NOVEL SOURCE FOR EARLY STAGE FINANCING

The blockchain technology is one of the most revolutionary innovations of the last decade, which potentially has the capability to completely transform many aspects of our lives. The aim of this work, aside from initially explaining the origin, functioning and potential future avenues of the blockchain technology, is to concentrate on a specific innovation arising from that technology: the Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), which are a new and alternative way for entrepreneurs to attract early stage financing, through the issuance of corporate tokens written on the blockchain, in exchange for rights/duties attached to that tokens. In particular, in the first two chapters will be provided a general overview of the ICO phenomenon, analysing how it evolved over time, the structure and process of an ICO, the main differences and similarities with alternative sources of funding and, finally, the main regulatory approaches applied worldwide. Chapter three and four will concentrate on the review of different empirical analysis on ICOs carried out by the literature, in order to highlight the most important variables influencing both the success of a fundraising campaign and the returns in the aftermath of the ICO. Finally, Chapter five will analyse different ICOs carried out over different timeframes, with the aim of understanding how they evolved over time and to find evidence, on real ICOs cases, of the main findings reported in the previous chapters.