Initial Coin Offering

Initial Coin Offering

An Initial Coin Offering (‘ICO’) is a form of fundraising that harnesses the power of cryptographic assets and blockchain-based trading. Similar to a crowdfunding campaign, an ICO allocates (issues or promises to issue) digital token(s) instead of shares to the parties that provided contributions for the development of the digital token. These ICO tokens typically do not represent an ownership interest in the entity, but they often provide access to a platform (if and when developed) and can often be traded on a crypto exchange. The population of ICO tokens in an ICO is generally set at a fixed amount.

It should be noted that ICOs might be subject to local securities law, and significant regulatory considerations might apply.

Each ICO is bespoke and will have unique terms and conditions. It is critical for issuers to review the whitepaper (A whitepaper is a concept paper authored by the developers of a platform, to set out an idea and overall value proposition to prospective investors. The whitepaper commonly outlines the development roadmap and key milestones that the development team expects to meet) or underlying documents accompanying the ICO token issuance, and to understand what exactly is being offered to investors/subscribers. In situations where rights and obligations arising from a whitepaper or their legal enforceability are unclear, legal advice might be needed, to determine the relevant terms.

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IFRS 15 Customers unexercised rights and breakage

IFRS 15 Customers unexercised rights and breakage

INTRO An entity may receive a non-refundable prepayment from a customer that gives the customer the right to receive goods or services in the future. Common examples include gift cards, vouchers and non-refundable tickets. Typically, some customers do not exercise their right – this is referred to as ‘breakage’.

An entity recognises a prepayment received from a customer as a contract liability and recognises revenue when the promised goods or services are transferred in the future. However, a portion of the contract liability recognised may relate to contractual rights that the entity does not expect to be exercised – i.e. a breakage amount. [IFRS 15.B44–B45]

The timing of revenue recognition related to breakage depends on whether the entity expects to be entitled to a breakage amount – i.e. if it is highly probable that recognising breakage will not result in a significant reversal of the cumulative revenue recognised. [IFRS 15.B46]

Customers unexercised rights

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Consideration payable to a customer – Great 2 read

Consideration payable to a customer, this is a payable to the customer not a receivable from the customer (just because otherwise I get confused) – When determining the transaction price, an entity should consider the effects of all of the following: (1) variable consideration; (2) a significant financing component (i.e., the time value of money); (3) non-cash consideration; and
(4) consideration payable to a customer.

IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers (contents page is here) introduced a single and comprehensive framework which sets out how much revenue is to be recognised, and when. The core principle is that a vendor should recognise revenue to depict the transfer of promised goods or services to customers in an … Read more