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Andy Bromberg
#260: Andy Bromberg on How the Crypto Economy is Withstanding the Coronavirus Crisis
- CoinList's core business remains token sales for major projects like Filecoin, Solana, and upcoming Celo, with seamless token distribution to buyers via the platform. - CoinList Trade Exchange launching to allow secondary trading of tokens, beginning with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Algorand, and USD, with more assets and advanced interfaces rolling out over coming months. - Crypto companies are structurally pandemic-resistant due to distributed teams, remote work culture, and decentralization ethos, positioning them well during global instability. - City-by-city differences in pandemic response: San Francisco reacted faster and more aggressively than New York; Phoenix's spread-out geography meant less immediate disruption despite shelter-in-place orders. - Venture-backed startups have 6–24 months of cash runway by design, providing significant resilience compared to traditional businesses like restaurants operating on less than 30 days of reserves. - Key investor guidance: founders must prioritize survival over growth, control burn rate, and prepare for multiple downside scenarios while remaining flexible to seize opportunities.
CoinList's Andy Bromberg: The Future of Crypto Fundraising
- Andy Bromberg's work at Stanford Bitcoin Club (2012–2014) advocating for Bitcoin adoption among VCs, building infrastructure like TryBTC, and conducting academic research on Bitcoin economics. - CoinList's role as a compliance platform for token sales, having vetted over 2,500 projects but publicly launched only five (Filecoin, Blockstack, Props, Origin, Trust Token). - Framework for evaluating token projects: team, product, market, deal terms, legal structure, and token economics—with the last two being crypto-specific additions. - Airdrops as a distribution mechanism separate from fundraising, using Reg S (international) and Reg CF (US crowdfunding) to legally overcome securities law barriers. - Security tokens remain early-stage, with most projects either distressed assets or priced at unrealistic premiums; better infrastructure and liquidity needed to mature the category. - Regulatory enforcement pattern: SEC moving from obvious scams to gray-zone actors, signaling stricter compliance expectations across the industry.