Every mainstream company patents its innovations to build a defensive moat and protect its investments and business. Moreover, these patent portfolios often serve as a negotiating tool when dealing with competitors.
But Bitcoin and the Crypto ecosystem behaved differently!
Patents were not frequently sought and there is no patent alliance to coordinate access to critical technologies for this ecosystem. It was strangely utopian and dystopian at the same time.
Most of the monetization happened through ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) and token sales while the underlying technologies were made available freely under a liberal open-source licensing framework.
This worked brilliantly for projects that could be monetized via an ICO but starved other projects that have no clear path to an ICO. Many in the ecosystem even argued against an ICO with a pre-mine compensating the developers and investors, but such arguments were largely ignored by most crypto projects.
We felt innovation is more important irrespective of the way it is monetized as limiting available monetization options due to ideological reasons could stifle innovation after a point. After all, we all have to make payroll and pay our bills at the end of the day.
We couldn’t envision how Smart Vaults and Hybrid Custody could be monetized through an ICO without significant investments in broader infrastructure and services, given that they are primarily designed to secure other tokens. While we might find a way to monetize through an ICO in the future, not filing patent applications now felt too risky. There were doubts about the legality of ICOs too as the industry matures!
Without a clear monetization strategy, we may struggle to raise capital, hindering further development. This setback would not only jeopardize our endeavor but also deprive the entire crypto ecosystem of the benefits this technology could offer.
After careful deliberation, we decided to file patent applications for Smart Vaults and Hybrid Custody in all the important markets around the world!
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