A robust financing theory of ICOs under demand uncertainty of products of token platforms

Purpose The market products produced by Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) platforms are often relatively new and have no previous transaction records and therefore are hard to estimate for its demand. The purpose is to study the impacts of the degree of ambiguity aversion of entrepreneurs to demand uncertainty on the ICO financing ratio, the optimal expected output, the optimal efforts and the token price. Design/methodology/approach In an optimal ICO design, we introduce demand uncertainty of the product and establish a robust optimization method to solve the ICO optimal design. We compare ICO financing and the general venture capital (VC) financing model. We analyze the impact of demand uncertainty on the optimal ICO financing ratio. Findings Findings include that the ICO financing ratio is positively related to the degree of ambiguity aversion, the token price is negatively related to the degree of ambiguity aversion and the “ambiguity premium” exists in the ICO market, the optimal effort levels are negatively related with the ICO financing ratio, but positively related with token price, and in the environment of high production cost, VC financing is not as good as ICO financing. Originality/value We develop a robust ICO financing model by assuming that the entrepreneur is ambiguity aversive to the demand uncertainty. Analyze the impact of the degree of ambiguity aversion on the ICO financing ratio in theory and find that the entrepreneur can raise funds with the higher ICO token ratio when she has a larger degree of ambiguity aversion to the demand uncertainty. Extend the impact analysis of the degree of ambiguity aversion on the expected token price and find a negative relationship between the expected token price and the degree of ambiguity aversion of the entrepreneur to the demand uncertainty.