AntShares is holding its second ICO in early August.

The Antshares blockchain will be used to register digital assets. Asset owners can digitize many different types of assets, which then can be traded on the AntShares blockchain.

The team’s approach to asset registration involves tokenizing proofs of ownership over that asset, not trying to represent the asset itself through a token. In other words, a token on the Antshares blockchain represent a standard legal proof-of-ownership accepted in modern society rather than trying to substitute for it. They plan to list private company equities immediately on launching Antshares, with more companies to follow.

The crowdsale itself will involve buying Antshares (ANS). ANS will be one method of acquiring Antcoins (ANC), which are used to actually register assets. Both Antshares and Antcoins will be tradeable and Antshare holders will be able to acquire Antcoins through block creation.[1] More on the consensus protocol below.

This ICO has a unique refund feature. The BTC raised will go into a 2/3 multisig escrow account, and the development team won’t touch it until the Antshares chain is launched. At any point up until the launch of the final blockchain, participants can request to withdrawal their BTC.

Antshares held its first ICO back in October 2015. The ICO lasted for 10 days and raised 2,100 BTC. Since then, they have grown from a team of 4 to a team of 12, and they still have funds left from that sale. The development team will also run a separate company call Onchain that will serve as a marketing and consulting entity for the Antshares chain. Anyone can use Antshares without Onchain, but they can provide support to entities who want assistance.

The code underlying Antshares was written from scratch and is the only blockchain based in China that started as open-source. The code is posted on GitHub, with the first commit posted May 2015.

Crowdsale Details

How are funds collected?

Antshares will collect funds on its page www.antshares.com. Logging in will generate a private key which will be associated with the user and their distribution of Antshares. Funds will enter an escrow account until the Antshares mainnet launches, estimated for October 2016. The private key can be used to access the purchased Antshares at this time and begin trading them in October or November 2016.

Coin Distribution

A total of 100 million ANS will ever be created. 17.5M were distributed in the first ICO. 22.5 M will be involved in this ICO. 10M were distributed for early contributors, including the development team. 50M will be held in reserve for bounties and other strategic investments, to be distributed after one year at a maximum rate of 15M per year. They are not being held for the development team.

Escrow Used

Funds will be held in a multi-signature escrow managed by HAOBTC.com and DACA.

Rate

Funds will be distributed proportionally based on the total funds left once Antshares launched. This means the effective rate will not be determined until after the refund period is over. There are bonuses for early participants. Contributions in the first five days will enjoy a 1.2 multiplier. Each day thereafter, the multiplier will decrease by .005, with no multiplier on the final (the 45th) day.

Project Valuation

Based on the 2100 BTC raised in October and the average October price ($265), the project is estimated at roughly $3.1 million. Based on average June price, this is $7.6 million. The second ICO is likely to change this valuation.

Currencies used BTC

How do the coins or tokens work?How are they used?

Antshares are used to accumulate another token, ANC, which is used to register assets. ANS holders can also vote for nodes to confirm transactions.

What is the market for these coins?

Tokens on the Antshares blockchain will represent ownership over assets.
Moreover, the blockchain is set up to support asset ownership transfer, which is more legally complicated than money transfer. The blockchain transaction is two-way: both sender and receiver sign electronic agreements signifying the transfer. This helps make the Antshares blockchain be compliant with existing regulations and not serve as an independent verification of ownership, but rather a seamless way to digitize and trade existing verifications of ownership.

For company equity registration, the Antshares blockchain will keep the information transparent, unchangeable and cheaper relative to existing methods.

The first asset to be registered on Antshares will be shares in Onchain, but they expect other companies to follow and other types of assets to be registered.

How are they produced?

There will only ever be 100M ANS tokens. At launch, 50M will be distributed (40M between two ICOs and 10M for early contributors). ANC will be distributed during block confirmation. ANC are ‘burned’ when assets are registered and return to a pool. Only 100M ANC will be produced.
The consensus model is a Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance, which is similar to Delegated Proof-of-Stake Model. In Antshares, ANS holders will vote on trusted nodes who will confirm transactions.

Who is the team behind Antshares?

The team behind Antshares is very well known in the Chinese community. CEO Hongfei Da spoke at Bejing Blockchain Summit in 2016 and is a prominent spokesperson for the cryptocurrency community. Other members have been involved in various cryptocurrency projects.

Learn More

Antshares Website https://www.antshares.com/ICO/Index
Antshares Whitepaper (currently in Chinese) https://www.antshares.com/Home/Index/#page3
Bitcointalk announcement and discussion

News About AntShares

1）超级账本中国首次公开见面会，探讨区块链行业标准制定 http://www.8btc.com/hyperledger-onchain-ibm
2）Onchain与微软合作探索区块链应用，小蚁二期众筹将于七月开启 http://www.8btc.com/onchain-microsoft
3）Onchain小蚁加盟“超级账本”，参与制定区块链国际标准 http://www.8btc.com/onchain-hyperledger
4）Onchain发布小蚁共识算法白皮书 http://www.8btc.com/onchain-paper-antshares
5）10天2100个比特币，小蚁股众筹你“抢”到了吗？http://www.8btc.com/antshares-2100btc
6）小蚁众筹目标公布，2100BTC致敬中本聪？http://www.8btc.com/antshares-2100

[1] The model is similar to Factom’s approach of having Factoids and Entry Credits. Antshares function similar to the former, Antcoins similar to the latter. The two differences are that Antshares aren’t used to buy Antcoins directly but instead earn them during the block creation process. The second key difference is that Antcoins will be tradeable.

Bounty System

We’re going to introduce the Bounty system during AntShares ICO. Anyone earns Antshares will receive them after the ICO termination.
(Last edit June 27, 2016)
Please take a minute to read through the rest of the introduction post about the bounties:

1, Translations: 50 antshare/500 words
The translation bounty applies to any antshareblog. Please stick to the languages you are familiar with and will help the community to know antshare project well.

2, Published Blog/Article: 300 antshare* 100
The original articles or blogs post discussing the AntShares or Onchain onto an existing blog or news site are welcomed. The article must be at least 500 words long. We will awards up to 100 articles. Any interested freelancers or correspondent can contact us through contact@antshares.com with questions you’re interested. Each writer can submit multiple articles.

3, YouTube Videos about AntShares: 300 antshare* 5
The Video can be the combination of AntShares, OnChain and Smart contract, at least 30 seconds long. It can be in the form of an animation, a real life video or whatever you feel it conveys the positive message about Antshares. The first 5 videos that are of acceptable quality will get 300 antshares.

4, bitcointalk.org Signatures: 5 antshare/signature
Each signature on our bitcointalk.org win 5 antshares. Multiple signatures are acceptable. The deadline will be announced via our official site.

5, Retweets/ Original tweets: 1 antshare
Each retweet or original tweets with positive Antshare or Onchain content will win 1 antshare. The content has to be maintained at least two weeks.

6, Facebook: 1 antshare/publish
Each Facebook content published related to Antshare or Onchain on your personal page win 1 antshare. Multiple publishing in various days are acceptable. The deadline will be announced via our official site.

All bounties mentioned here start from now on and last till the task finished. AntShares ICO starts from July 7th, and the whole process lasts 45 days, so do not hesitate to get involved.
For any issues with bounties you can either PM us on twitter or email us at: contact[at]onchain.com

The content is cited from the interview with Smith+Crown http://www.smithandcrown.com/event/antshares-ico/, AntShares is responsible for the authenticity.