Even though iFinex, the parent company of Bitfinex, has not published an official white paper for its exchange token offering, one of its shareholders has already kicked off pre-orders for the token sale.
On May 4, Renrenbit, a crypto-lending application founded by Bitfinex shareholder Dong Zhao, started taking in pre-orders from users who want to participate in the public phase of the exchange’s upcoming $1 billion token sale.
Zhao said Bitfinex is aiming to list the exchange token, dubbed LEO, for trading in about a week after the token offering completes, and that Bitfinex and iFinex will not hold any LEO tokens.
According to Renrenbit’s official Telegram channel, retail investors who have completed know-your-customer verification on the application are already committing each up to $1,000 worth of tether (USDT), the crypto stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar operated by Bitfinex’s affiliated company Tether.
Users with more than $1 million worth of USDT on Renrenbit, however, are considered accredited investors and will not have limitations on the maximum commitment for pre-orders.
Notably, it was Zhao who suggested Bitfinex to conduct an exchange token offering as a way to solve the issue of $850 million being frozen after a lawsuit from the New York Attorney General’s Office. The move also comes just a day after Zhao disclosed via his Weibo account a summarized draft white paper for Bitifnex’s offering of its LEO token, which is aimed to raise $1 billion via a private sale closing on May 10, after which a public sale will take place if it’s not yet fulfilled.
However, it’s not yet known at the moment when the public sale, if it happens, is scheduled to complete. Zhao declined to share how many pre-orders its platform has gathered since the effort began or how many tokens in total his platform will offer on behalf of its users.
Bitfinex image via Shutterstock