Key takeaways
- Blockchain development has been paid for in six documented ways: public token sales, venture equity and private token rounds, foundation endowments, a slice of block rewards, donations and grants, and a parent company's own budget.
- Most networks use more than one. Ethereum paired a 2014 public sale with a Swiss foundation; Solana combined venture rounds, a 2020 auction and a 2021 private token sale; Ergo used a small pre-launch token plus a treasury share of block rewards.
- How a network was funded does not by itself tell you who controls it today. Funding, token distribution and day-to-day control are separate questions, and later articles in this series take them one at a time.
- Many 2017 primary documents are no longer retrievable, so several headline numbers rest on later reporting. We label each claim and list what we could not confirm.
Why funding is its own question
A blockchain is software plus a community that runs it. Both cost money before the network has any revenue: engineers, security audits, legal work, cryptography research and years of maintenance. The funding model is how that bill gets paid. It is not the same thing as who received the tokens, and it is not the same thing as who can change the rules today. A network can be built with venture money and be run by thousands of independent operators, or it can be built by volunteers and still depend on a handful of maintainers. This article covers only the first question: where did the money come from?
We describe documented facts, label how well each one is sourced, and avoid ranking the models. Each has a real trade-off, and the facts below show those trade-offs without us declaring a winner. For plain-language definitions of terms such as ICO, crypto foundation and developer treasury, see the glossary. For what a node does, see our node explainer.
How to read the evidence labels
- Confirmed A primary source and at least one independent source agree.
- Issuer-stated Only the project, foundation or company says so. We did not find an independent check.
- Reported A credible outlet reports it, but we did not find or read a primary document.
- Disputed Credible sources conflict. We give both versions.
- Unknown We looked and found no source either way.
The labels describe sourcing, not quality. A claim labeled Issuer-stated may be entirely accurate; it simply has no independent check we could find. Dollar figures for sales paid in bitcoin or ether are conversions made at some point in time, not amounts the buyers paid.
| Model | How the money arrives | Documented examples in this article | Question it raises |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Public token sale | Buyers pay in bitcoin, ether or dollars for tokens before or at launch. | Ethereum, Tezos, Cosmos, Polkadot, Filecoin, Cardano, Algorand, Avalanche, Solana, Polygon | Who was allowed to buy, at what price, and under which country's securities rules? |
| 2. Venture equity and private token rounds | Investors buy company shares, or tokens at a discount, from the team's operating company. | Solana Labs, Mysten Labs (Sui), Aptos Labs, Polygon | How much of the supply sits with investors, and when does it unlock? |
| 3. Foundation endowment | A non-profit holds tokens or sale proceeds and pays for development and grants. | Ethereum Foundation, Stellar Development Foundation, Cardano's three entities, Web3 Foundation, Interchain Foundation, XRP Ledger Foundation | Whose budget is it, and what happens when the token price falls? |
| 4. Protocol-level funding | The protocol itself sends a share of every block reward to a development fund. | Zcash (2016 to present, in several forms), Ergo (first two years) | Who decides the split, and who is paid when it changes? |
| 5. Donations, grants and volunteers | Individuals, companies and non-profits donate or grant money to developers. | Bitcoin Core, Monero, Litecoin, Kaspa | Is the money steady enough to maintain critical software for years? |
| 6. Product- or company-funded chain | A company pays for the chain because it supports the company's product. | Circle (Arc), Stripe and Paradigm (Tempo), Coinbase (Base), Hyperliquid Labs | Does the chain serve the whole network or the sponsor's business? |
Sources: the project, regulator and press documents cited in each section below. This table summarizes; it does not rank.
Model 1: Public token sales
One widely used way to fund a new blockchain from 2014 to 2018 was to sell its token to the public before the network existed. Buyers paid in bitcoin or ether, and the team used the proceeds to build. Ethereum's 2014 sale, which ran 42 days and took payment in bitcoin, is the best-known early example. Sales then spread to Tezos, Cosmos, Polkadot and Filecoin in 2017, and moved to auctions and exchange-run launches (Solana, Algorand, Avalanche, Polygon) in 2019 and 2020.
| Project | Year and format | Amount raised, as documented | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | 2014. 42-day public sale paid in bitcoin, with two allocation pools each equal to 9.9% of the ether sold (early contributors and the foundation). | About 31,000 to 31,600 BTC, which later outlets convert to roughly $18M to $18.5M. We did not find a final BTC total in the project's own posts. | Reported |
| Tezos | July 2017 fundraiser paid in BTC and ETH. | 65,681 BTC and 361,122 ETH from 30,317 wallets per the Tezos Foundation. Reuters and later outlets convert this to about $232M. | Confirmed amounts; Reported dollar value |
| Cosmos | April 2017 fundraiser run by the Interchain Foundation. | Between about $16M and $17.3M depending on the source. We did not find the BTC and ETH totals in a primary document. | Disputed |
| Polkadot | October 2017. Described as private then public rounds (TechCrunch, Messari), as a public sale (CoinDesk) and as a private sale (The Block). | About $144M to $145M. Reports say 5 million of 10 million initial DOT were sold. No primary allocation document found. | Reported amounts; Disputed format |
| Filecoin | Aug to Sept 2017. SAFT run on CoinList as a Regulation D 506(c) offering for accredited investors. | Between about $205.8M and about $257.8M, depending on whether an advisor sale of roughly $52M is counted inside the total. | Disputed |
| Cardano | 2015 to 2017. ADA vouchers sold in Japan through Attain Corporation, redeemable after launch. | 108,844.5 BTC plus 3,063,299,989 yen per cardano.org. Dates and tranche counts differ between the project's own pages. | Issuer-stated |
| Polygon (Matic) | April 2019. Binance Launchpad lottery-format exchange offering paid in BNB. | About $5M for 19% of supply. | Confirmed |
| Algorand | June 2019. Dutch auction of 25 million Algos at $2.40 each. | Over $60M. Buyers could return tokens for a 90% refund after a one-year lock-up. | Confirmed |
| Solana | March 2020. CoinList Dutch auction, 8 million SOL at a $0.22 clearing price. | About $1.76M. Private rounds came before it (see Model 2). | Confirmed |
| Avalanche | July 2020. Public sale with a randomized queue; a $12M private sale reportedly came first. | About $42M for up to 72 million AVAX. | Confirmed |
Sources: Ethereum Foundation blog (July and Aug 2014); The Block (Dec 18, 2018); Cointelegraph Magazine (July 2024); Tezos Foundation fundraiser statistics; Reuters (Oct 18, 2017); TechCrunch (Oct 17, 2017); Messari profiles; Binance Research; CoinDesk; Filecoin blog (Sept 13, 2017); Crowdfund Insider; cardano.org/genesis; Algorand Foundation; Ava Labs on Medium; Solana Foundation; CoinList. USD values for crypto-denominated sales are conversions.
Three patterns stand out. First, the figures are often soft. Final totals for Ethereum, Polkadot and Cosmos come from later reporting, because the projects' own post-sale announcements were not retrievable by us. Second, who ran the sale varies: a foundation (Cosmos, Tezos, Algorand), a company (Filecoin, Avalanche) or an exchange (Polygon). Third, structure matters more than the label. The Solana auction raised about $1.76M, small next to the rest of the table; the team had already raised venture rounds (Model 2).
How regulators changed the model
Regulators changed the picture in 2017 and after. On July 25, 2017 the SEC's Report of Investigation on The DAO concluded that DAO tokens, sold in 2016 for roughly 12 million ETH, were securities, and that sellers of such tokens had to register or qualify for an exemption. In 2020 Telegram agreed to a final judgment in SEC v. Telegram that included disgorgement of about $1.224 billion (with credit for repayments to buyers) and an $18.5 million penalty. In July 2023, a federal judge in SEC v. Ripple ruled that institutional sales of XRP were investment contracts but that programmatic sales on exchanges were not; the SEC and Ripple dropped their appeals in August 2025 according to press reports. The SEC's 2019 staff framework for analyzing digital asset offerings has since been superseded by the March 2026 interpretive release, and the SEC proposed a new "Regulation Crypto Assets" in August 2026 (see our report). In the EU, MiCA's Article 4 requires most public offers of other crypto-assets to publish a notified white paper, with carve-outs for small offers. This is a summary of public documents, not legal advice. For the agencies involved, see our SEC profile and SEC vs. CFTC comparison.
Model 2: Venture equity and private token rounds
The second model skips the public and raises from professional investors, either by selling shares of the company that writes the software or by selling future tokens at a discount. The money arrives in negotiated rounds, and the investors usually receive tokens that unlock on a schedule.
| Company or network | Round | Amount and named lead | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solana Labs | 2019 Series A | $20M, led by Multicoin Capital, with several named investors (Solana Labs' own post). | Issuer-stated |
| Solana Labs | June 2021 private token sale, offshore investors only | $314,159,265, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain Capital. Stated uses include an incubation studio, a venture arm and a trading desk. | Confirmed |
| Mysten Labs (Sui) | December 2021 Series A | $36M, led by Andreessen Horowitz. | Reported |
| Mysten Labs (Sui) | September 2022 Series B | $300M at a valuation above $2B, led by FTX Ventures, with many named investors. | Confirmed |
| Aptos Labs | March 2022 round | $200M, led by Andreessen Horowitz. Aptos's own announcement was not read. | Reported |
| Aptos Labs | July 2022 round, called a Series A by CoinDesk | $150M, led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto. | Reported |
| Polygon | February 2022 private sale of MATIC | About $450M, led by Sequoia Capital India. First third vests from late November 2022 and the rest over three years. | Confirmed |
Sources: Solana Labs Medium post and Solana Foundation news (June 9, 2021); CoinDesk (Dec 6, 2021; Mar 15, 2022; July 25, 2022); Business Wire (Sept 8, 2022); Polygon blog (Feb 7, 2022); The Block; Cointelegraph. Several round descriptions rest on headline-level agreement across outlets.
What matters for readers is what investors received. Aptos's own tokenomics post, published October 17, 2022, lists the 1 billion APT initial supply as 51.02% community, 19.00% core contributors, 16.50% foundation and 13.48% investors, with a four-year lockup for contributors and investors (a project projection, so Issuer-stated). Sui's foundation pages say a community reserve managed by the Sui Foundation holds more than half of all SUI, but the category percentages appear only in charts, and we found no text stating how much went to investors, so the investor share is Unknown here. The Solana Foundation has not, in the pages we read, published a full allocation table. If you want to know who holds a venture-backed network's supply, ask for that table first.
Model 3: Foundation endowments
The third model puts a non-profit between the money and the work. A foundation receives sale proceeds or a block of tokens and pays for development, research and grants. The foundation is not the company that wrote the code; in many networks a separate company or several of them do the building.
| Network and foundation | Legal form, as stated | How it was endowed | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum Foundation | Swiss non-profit (Stiftung Ethereum), formed July 14, 2014. | Proceeds of the 2014 ether sale plus an endowment pool equal to 9.9% of ether sold. A June 2025 treasury policy sets an annual spending target of 15% of treasury, a 2.5-year operating buffer and a planned decline toward a 5% baseline. | Confirmed |
| Stellar Development Foundation | Delaware non-profit corporation formed in 2014 (archived mandate page). | Held part of the 100 billion lumens created at launch. In November 2019 it burned about 55 billion of them and reduced its giveaway programs. | Issuer-stated structure; Confirmed burn |
| Cardano (three entities) | Input Output (Wyoming company), Cardano Foundation (Switzerland) and EMURGO, with separate ownership and leadership. | At launch: 2,463,071,701 ADA to Input Output, 2,074,165,644 to EMURGO and 648,176,761 to the Cardano Foundation. | Issuer-stated |
| Polkadot (Web3 Foundation) | Swiss non-profit based in Zug. | Reported to have received about 3 million of 10 million initial DOT. Parity Technologies builds the software. No primary allocation document found. | Reported |
| Cosmos (Interchain Foundation) | Swiss foundation under Swiss supervision (ICF annual report 2023). | 2017 fundraiser. The ICF is reported to have held total assets of about $103M in mid-2020. | Confirmed form; Reported amounts |
| XRP Ledger | The XRP Ledger Foundation, a French-law 1901 non-profit association created in 2024 by four founding members including Ripple. Ripple, the company, received 80 billion of the 100 billion XRP at its 2012 founding and later placed 55 billion in escrow. | How the new foundation is funded: no source found. | Issuer-stated structure; Unknown funding |
Sources: Ethereum Foundation blog (Mar 2015; June 4, 2025); The Block (Dec 18, 2018; Nov 4, 2019); Stellar developer docs and SDF posts; cardano.org/genesis; Essential Cardano; CoinDesk and The Block on Polkadot; Interchain Foundation reports on Medium; XRPL.org docs and blog; Ripple's 2017 escrow announcement.
The structural risk of this model is visible in the record. A foundation's budget is usually denominated in the network's own token. CoinDesk reported in 2015 that the fall in bitcoin's price had left the Ethereum Foundation with a funding shortfall after its sale, with about $2.52 million in holdings plus a 490,000 Swiss-franc legal fund at that time. The Foundation's published June 2025 treasury policy is a response in the other direction: it commits to a spending ceiling and a cash buffer so that a falling price does not force sudden cuts. Stellar's 2019 burn shows another feature of the model: a foundation that holds a large share of supply can change that supply.
Model 4: Protocol-level funding
The fourth model writes the funding into the protocol. Each block's reward is split, and a defined share goes to a development fund. No sale is required, and no outside investor is involved, but someone has to decide who receives the fund.
| Network and period | Share of block reward | Recipients, as documented | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zcash, 2016 to November 2020 (Founders' Reward) | 20% | Electric Coin Company, the Zcash Foundation, and the founders and early investors. The split is not in the primary source we read; one outlet reports 9.85% founders, 2.2% foundation, 5.75% company and 2.2% employee compensation. | Issuer-stated stream; Reported split |
| Zcash, November 2020 to November 2024 (ZIP 1014) | 20% | About 7% Bootstrap Project (the parent of Electric Coin Company), about 5% Zcash Foundation and about 8% Major Grants. | Confirmed |
| Zcash, after the November 2024 halving (ZIP 1015) | 20% | 12% to a protocol lockbox and 8% to Zcash Community Grants run by the Financial Privacy Foundation, through a stated block height. Later proposals exist; we could not confirm their activation. | Issuer-stated |
| Ergo, first two years after 2019 launch | 7.5 ERG of each 75 ERG block, tapering to zero by about 2.5 years | Ergo Foundation treasury. About 4.33 million ERG in total, or 4.43% of supply, per the project. | Issuer-stated |
Sources: Electric Coin Company, Reaching Consensus; ZIP 1014 and ZIP 1015 on GitHub; Nasdaq (Nov 18, 2020); Ergo Platform blog (Nov 5, 2021; May 4, 2022). The ZIP text anticipated an October 2020 halving; Nasdaq dates the halving and the Canopy upgrade to November 18, 2020.
The Zcash record shows that a funding stream pays organizations, not outcomes. The Block reported on January 8, 2026 that the entire staff of Electric Coin Company resigned after a governance dispute with the Bootstrap board, and on March 9, 2026 that a new company founded by the former CEO announced a $25 million seed round from investors including Paradigm and a16z crypto (both Reported; we did not find the new company's own announcement). We do not take a side in that dispute. The point for this article is narrow: a block-reward stream makes the funding independent of any sale, and it moves the question to who governs the fund. One report said the Zcash Foundation was created in 2020 to take ownership of the company; the ZIP says the company's parent is the separate Bootstrap Project, so we follow the ZIP.
Model 5: Donations, grants and volunteers
The fifth model is the one most associated with Bitcoin: people and organizations give money to developers, and a few developers work for free. Bitcoin Core's funding has changed hands several times, and the documented chronology shows why this model is hard to summarize.
| Period | Funder | What is documented | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 to 2011 | Volunteers | None documented in the sources we reviewed. | Unknown |
| 2012 to 2014 | Bitcoin Foundation (US non-profit) | Funded mainly by grants from companies that depend on Bitcoin; BitMEX Research says it was the only significant funder of Bitcoin development in those years. | Reported |
| 2014 | Blockstream | Closed a $21M seed round led by Reid Hoffman, Khosla Ventures and Real Ventures, to work on core Bitcoin technology. BitMEX Research lists it among employers of Bitcoin developers. | Confirmed |
| 2014 onward | Chaincode Labs | Founded in 2014 by Alex Morcos and Suhas Daftuar; privately funded. | Confirmed |
| 2015 and 2016 | MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative | Took over paying three developers in 2015, then a $900,000 developer fund was reported in 2016. | Confirmed |
| 2019 | Square Crypto (Square, now Block) | A full-time team paid by Square to work on Bitcoin and crypto, announced March 20, 2019. | Reported |
| 2020 | Brink (London non-profit) | Founded by John Newbery and Mike Schmidt, both former Bitcoin company engineers. One outlet reports organizational funding from named individuals and fellowships funded by the Human Rights Foundation, Square Crypto and Gemini. | Reported |
| 2023 | OpenSats | A 501(c)(3) funded by donations; says it began funding Bitcoin Core contributors in 2023. | Issuer-stated |
| 2023 total | 13 named sponsors | A sector report estimated about $8.4M spent on Bitcoin developers in 2023; OpenSats and Spiral together supplied 62% of grant funding, and Chaincode Labs 46% of employment spending. | Reported |
Sources: Bitcoin Wiki and BitMEX Research (an interested party, since it funds a grant itself); Cointelegraph (Apr 23, 2015); Vice (Mar 29, 2016); Blockstream blog (Nov 17, 2014); chaincode.com; CryptoSlate (Mar 20, 2019); Bitcoin Magazine (Nov 24, 2020); opensats.org; NO BS Bitcoin summary of the "Funding Bitcoin" report (Oct 23, 2024).
The same model looks different elsewhere. Monero's Core Team General Fund held roughly $180,000 in monero and bitcoin as of December 2019, and the project's Community Crowdfunding System lets developers propose work that donors fund, with the Core Team acting as escrow; the project says none of the block reward goes to development (Issuer-stated). The Litecoin Foundation was founded in April 2017 with no money; The Block reported in October 2019 that it had received about $575,000 in donations since mid-2017, about 80% of it from one December 2017 donation by Litecoin's creator Charlie Lee (Reported). Kaspa's site says its Rust rewrite was backed by a 100 million KAS community grant; it does not say who granted it or where the coins came from, so the grantor is Unknown. One outlet reports that the company behind Kaspa's early research raised about $8 million before launch and that its backers received no special allocation (Reported, single source). Ravencoin's own site says its early core team was funded by Medici Ventures, a subsidiary of Overstock.com, and an interview with its lead developer says the same (Confirmed, though the second source is the same developer). That example matters for Article 2: a coin can have no premine and still have had a corporate backer.
Model 6: Product- or company-funded chains
The sixth model is the newest and the least like the others: a company that already has a business builds a blockchain because the chain makes the business better. The company pays for the work out of its own budget, sometimes adds outside money, and may or may not issue a token.
| Chain and sponsor | Documented funding and token facts | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Arc (Circle) | Circle stewards development and operation. In its Q1 2026 earnings call, Circle said it raised $222M in an ARC token presale at a $3 billion fully diluted value, led by a16z crypto. Circle said it keeps 25% of ARC tokens and that 60% is reserved for grants, airdrops and incentives. Mainnet launched September 16, 2026 with a permissioned validator set of named institutions and fees paid in USDC; Circle describes a possible move from proof of authority to proof of stake in 2027. | Confirmed presale amount and lead; Issuer-stated allocation split |
| Arc, later results | Cointelegraph reported on November 4, 2026 that Circle recognized $182M of revenue from the ARC presale in Q3. That differs from the $222M raised figure and the article does not reconcile them, so we treat them as two measures until Circle's filing is read. | Reported |
| Tempo (Stripe and Paradigm) | Incubated jointly by Stripe and Paradigm as a separate company. Fortune reported a $500M Series A at a $5B valuation led by Greenoaks and Thrive Capital, with neither Stripe nor Paradigm investing; neither company confirmed. No token at mainnet launch, and fees are paid in stablecoins. Revenue model: none documented. | Reported |
| Base (Coinbase) | An Ethereum Layer 2 incubated by Coinbase. Coinbase has said it is exploring a native token with no firm plans; Base pays gas in ETH. Coinbase's Q2 filings reportedly show Base sequencer revenue fell year over year. Coinbase's Base spending: none documented. | Reported |
| Hyperliquid | Hyperliquid's docs say Hyperliquid Labs covers its own costs and has accepted no outside money. At the November 29, 2024 genesis, 31% of the 1 billion HYPE supply went to an airdrop to users and the project says there were no allocations for private investors. Core contributors hold 23.8% under a one-year lock. | Confirmed no private-investor allocation |
Sources: Circle press releases (Oct 28, 2025; Sept 16, 2026) and Q1 2026 earnings call transcript; The Block; Cointelegraph (Nov 4, 2026); Fortune (Oct 17, 2025); Paradigm and tempo.xyz; The Block (Sept 15, 2025); The Defiant (July 31, 2026); Hyperliquid docs; The Block (Nov 28, 2024). Our related reporting: Circle Arc and the stablecoin-chain race.
Most networks mix models
The six categories are a way of reading the record, not a way of sorting networks into boxes. The documented history of almost every network that has lasted involves at least two of them.
| Network | Models documented | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | Public token sale (2014) and foundation endowment, with a treasury policy published in 2025. | Confirmed |
| Solana | Venture rounds (2019, 2021), a public auction (2020) and a foundation that took over IP and tokens from Solana Labs in April 2020 per the Foundation. | Confirmed rounds; Issuer-stated foundation transfer |
| Cardano | Voucher sale (2015 to 2017) and three separate entities. | Issuer-stated |
| Polkadot | Public sale (2017), a Swiss foundation, and later private sales that sources date differently. | Reported; Disputed dates of the later sales |
| XRP Ledger | Company allocation at creation, escrowed supply, and a new association-based foundation. | Issuer-stated |
| Zcash | Block-reward streams (2016 onward), a foundation, a grants program, and later venture investment into a spinout. | Confirmed streams; Reported spinout funding |
| Ergo | A small pre-launch token sold privately, a treasury share of early block rewards, and later community funding. | Issuer-stated |
| Bitcoin | Volunteer era, then foundation, university, venture-backed company, corporate and non-profit funders in turn. | Reported |
Sources: as cited in each model above.
What this does and does not tell you
Reading a funding history can answer some questions and not others. It can tell you who had a financial stake in the early work, how much money went into it, and whether those backers received tokens. It cannot tell you who runs validators today, how many independent operators exist, or whether the rules can change without the original funders. Those questions need on-chain and operational data, and later articles in this series take them up. For an example of how to look at what a network's work actually produces, see our Ethereum vs. Solana developer-activity comparison and our test of five utility tokens.
Where our sources run out
Several things we looked for are not in the record we could reach. The final bitcoin total of Ethereum's 2014 sale in the project's own posts; Polkadot's primary sale announcement, exact ether total and use of proceeds; the Interchain Foundation's post-sale announcement; use-of-proceeds statements for Cardano, Algorand and Avalanche; Sui's category percentages in text; any Coinbase statement of Base funding amounts or business model; and a Circle statement of Arc's revenue model. A reported 2026 budget cut at the Ethereum Foundation rests on a single secondary source with an inconsistent date, so we left it out. None of these gaps means the information does not exist; it means we did not find it. If you can point us to a primary source, see our corrections page.
Frequently asked
Which blockchain funding model is best?
There is no documented basis for ranking them. Each model trades something: public sales raise money quickly but invite securities scrutiny; venture rounds bring expertise and concentrated token holders; foundations can sustain long projects but depend on the token price; block-reward streams avoid sales but need a decision on who is paid; donations are the least concentrated and the least predictable. The facts above let a reader weigh those trade-offs.
Does selling tokens to fund development make a network centralized?
Not by itself. A sale determines who paid and who received tokens at the start. Control today depends on who runs validators or miners, who can change the software and how governance works. Those are separate questions, and we address them in later articles in this series.
Are token sales legal?
It depends on the country and the structure. In the United States the SEC concluded in 2017 that the tokens sold by The DAO were securities, and courts have since split sales into different categories case by case. In the EU, MiCA's Article 4 requires most public offers of other crypto-assets to have a notified white paper, with exemptions for small offers. This is general information, not legal advice.
What is the difference between a foundation and a company in crypto?
A foundation is usually a non-profit that holds assets for the network's benefit and funds grants and development; a company is a for-profit that may write software and sell products. Many networks have both, and the legal forms vary by country: Switzerland, Delaware, Singapore and France appear in the records we reviewed.
Further reading
- Ethereum Foundation blog: Launching the Ether Sale (July 22, 2014)
- Tezos Foundation: Fundraiser statistics
- SEC: Report of Investigation on The DAO (Release No. 34-81207)
- SEC: Telegram final judgment press release (2020-146)
- Ethereum Foundation blog: Treasury policy (June 4, 2025)
- Circle: Arc mainnet launch (Sept 16, 2026)
- Electric Coin Company: Reaching Consensus (Zcash funding)
- ChainBrief: What is a fair launch in crypto, really?
- ChainBrief: MiCA explained
More in this series: What is a fair launch? · Series overview · Glossary