Are Initial Coin Offerings Here to Stay?

Marian Minor Cook Athenaeum talk with David Yermack.

David Yermack is the Albert Fingerhut Professor of Finance and Business Transformation and Chairman of the Finance Department at New York University’s Stern School of Business, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1994. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at the NYU School of Law, Director of the NYU Pollack Center for Law and Business, and a Research Associate of the NBER Law and Economics program.

This lecture will describe the growth of initial coin offerings (ICOs), a new channel of entrepreneurial finance that has grown rapidly to become a competitor of venture capital as a source of startup finance. We will explore the origins of ICOs, look at original research into their success factors, and examine the evolving regulatory problems that ICOs have created.