US investors including Digital Currency Group have taken part in a pre-sale of basecoin, a crypto-currency to be created by three Princeton University computer science graduates, Intangible Labs CEO and co-founder Nader Al-Naji said. The other investors in Intangible Labs' basecoin include Bain Capital Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and AngelList CEO Naval Ravikant, Al-Naji told Reuters.
Digital Currency Group confirmed its investment in basecoin. Bain Capital, Pantera, and Andreessen Horowitz were not immediately available to comment. The investors had bought a unit of Intangible Labs, which entitled them to basecoin - a token with a rules-based monetary policy built into its blockchain system - in the future, Al-Naji said in an interview with Reuters on Friday. He did not disclose an investment figure.
Blockchain, a digital ledger of transactions, underpins crypto-currency bitcoin and can be used to track, record, and transfer assets across all industries. Intangible Labs is one of many blockchain start-ups creating and distributing tokens to investors to raise funds for their projects. Start-ups typically hold a token pre-sale to institutional investors before opening the token offering to the public.
Al-Naji, who founded the company with Lawrence Diao and Josh Chen, said basecoin essentially worked the same way as the Federal Reserve. "We found a way to keep the price stable while keeping all the other great features of crypto-currencies such as decentralized, private, and international," he added. It originated from Al-Naji's blog, called Nader Theory, in June in which he broached the idea of a stable coin that can shrink and grow its supply on the blockchain.