The Dramatic Crash of a Buzzy Cryptocurrency Raises Eyebrows
Just last month, the ICP crypto token, tied to a project backed by prestigious venture capitalists, was worth tens of billions of dollars. Then, its value collapsed.
In early 2020, Dominic Williams was feted at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as the next king of blockchain technology. Mr. Williams is the founder of the Dfinity Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit organization that started an ambitious project called the Internet Computer, backed by Andreessen Horowitz, one of the most prestigious venture capital firms in Silicon Valley.
The project, years in the works, generated a lot of buzz last month ahead of its initial coin offering, the crypto equivalent of a company going public and listing shares for investors to buy. In early trading after the market debut, the total market value of the Internet Computer token, or ICP, was worth tens of billions of dollars, making it one of the 10 most valuable cryptocurrencies at the time.
The ICP token is designed to help operate a decentralized layer of web infrastructure being built by Dfinity that believers say will liberate users from reliance on companies like Amazon and Google. The technically complex network would make it easier for people to build software and publish directly to the internet without going through the tech giants’ platforms.
