E-Coin, a Bitcoin debit card solution has been running a Crowdinvesting campaign on Bitcoin-friendly BnkToTheFuture.com (formerly banktothefuture.com) With eleven days to go, they are closing in on their minimum goal. At press time, they have raised $131,947 of their $154,041 minimum. It seem unlikely, however, that they will reach their total goal of $385,102 with so little time remaining.
E-Coin is offering shares worth 10% of the company to investors on BnkToTheFuture. For those who don’t want to invest, users can choose to simply back the project in a traditional crowdfunding model, but E-Coin has decided against offering rewards for non-investing backers.
BnkToTheFuture was founded by Simon Dixon and acts as a hybrid Crowdfunding and CrowdInvesting platform. Users that verify themselves as qualified investors are able to invest in companies using Bitcoin, StartCOIN or Credit Cards.
Users can self-verify by taking a quick and frankly, rather easy quiz. I am not a lawyer and any investor should check with one before investing, but I believe this is now legal in the United States because of the JOBS act passed in March of this year. We have reached out to BnkToTheFuture to ask if this is their belief and will update this space when possible. According to a Chance Barnett article in Forbes on the subject, companies in the US can now seek equity-investment from non-accredited investors up to either $50,000,000 or $20,000,000, depending on the conditions. Investors do have to agree not to invest more than 10% of their investable income but it isn’t clear how the SEC plans to enforce that.
The minimum amount required to invest in E-Coin is £250 ($382) For Non-voting “B Shares” or £5,000 ($7,074) for voting enabled “A-Shares”. We will keep track of E-coin’s investment campaign as well as other interesting bitcoin focused projects on BnkToTheFuture.