Oct 6, 2017

Shares 1 A lot of people will recall the Stox ICO. Although not everyone invested in this initial coin offering, it got a lot of attention due to the endorsement of legendary boxer Floyd Mayweather. It turns out there is a lot more to this platform than a lot of people originally assumed. More specifically, the company has made an acquisition in a bid to become the first regulated ICO prediction project. It’s an ambitious goal, to say the least. Regulation and ICOs Remain an Odd Mix Even though a lot of countries and governments are looking for ways to regulate cryptocurrency ICOs, no real progress has been made in this regard, as the general trend has been attempting to ban ICOs altogether. China, South Korea, and a few other countries have taken such steps already, with others to follow in the coming weeks and months. It is certainly possible that positive change can only be made from within. That is exactly what the Stox team is attempting to achieve with their acquisition of CommoLogic. This latter company may ring a few bells for those involved with the iGaming industry, but otherwise, it is still a relatively unknown entity. However, the acquisition serves a clear purpose, as one would expect, even though it may not necessarily produce the outcome people had originally envisioned. To put this into perspective, the acquisition of CommoLogic turns Stox  into the first regulated ICO prediction platform. As part of this acquisition, the ICO team gets their hands on a total of three different gambling licenses, which is never a bad thing. One license is a software license in the UK, the second is an operating license in the UK, and the Class 4 B2B license applies to Malta. It is evident these three licenses were the main reason for this acquisition, even though CommoLogic may be beneficial to the acquiring company in multiple other ways moving forward. To some people, these licenses may not necessarily make much sense. For their part, the Stox team says they are fairly confident they will need said licenses “in the near future”. That is a bit of a vague statement, but it reflects the company’s desire to have those licenses in its back pocket before they become a lot harder to obtain. After all, these licenses can only exist in limited quantities at any given moment. The more licenses exist, the harder it is for new applicants to get their hands on them. Furthermore, acquiring CommoLogic means Stox no longer must focus on the licensing process itself. The company can now focus on its products rather than spending that time with regulators. It makes a lot of sense from the company’s perspective, to say the least. It will be interesting to see how this acquisition affects other players in the market, including Augur and Gnosis, neither of which has any official licenses at present. About The Author JP Buntinx is a FinTech and Bitcoin enthusiast living in Belgium. His passion for finance and technology made him one of the world's leading freelance Bitcoin writers, and he aims to achieve the same level of respect in the FinTech sector.