Beats Headphones Inventor to Hold ‘Monster’ $300 Million ICO
Monster Products, the inventor of the Beats headphones line has informed the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it intends to hold an initial coin offering (ICO), public documents show.
According to an SEC filing dated May 25, Monster hopes to raise as much as $300 million by selling Monster Money Tokens (MMNY). The company, which has struggled financially in recent years, intends to use the proceeds to create an Ethereum-based e-commerce platform called the Monster Money Network.
The network will be developed in three stages. In the first, the platform will be a basic payments system, while the second will see the company create an off-chain platform “where micro-transactions can be completed without or with very limited transaction costs” relative to standard on-chain payments. Finally, Monster hopes to integrate the fully-functional blockchain network into the company’s core operations, including supply chain management, payroll services, marketing, and accounting.
The plan is ambitious, but Monster — which was founded in 1978 — believes it could help the electronics manufacturer revive its ailing balance sheet and become competitive with the world’s largest e-commerce giants.
“We consider Amazon, Ebay and Alibaba as examples of our main competitors with respect to the new Monster Money Network and our existing e-commerce platform,” Monster said in its filing.
The year-long ICO — which Monster has acknowledged may constitute a securities offering under US law — will see the company distribute up to 300 million of the 500 million MMNY tokens at a fixed price of $1.00 per token. The remaining tokens will be deposited into a company-controlled wallet and used at its discretion.
If successful, the ICO will be considerably larger than any token sale completed prior to 2018, though several firms — namely Telegram and EOS — have crossed the billion-dollar threshold this year.
Notably, Monster is also issuing 75 million shares of common stock so that, if the firm’s plans for the e-commerce platform fall through, it can allow investors to redeem tokens for shares of stock at a four-to-one ratio rather than return their funds.
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