Pre-mine

Is the process of bootstrapping a cryptoasset, a pre-mine is an allocation of the total supply of the asset to a set of early insider who fund the initial development of the token. This creates asymmetric-information in which early shareholders have a share of all future tokens and undue influence over price-formation of the asset once it goes live on a crypto-exchange.

Pre-mines are most often distributed to venture capital firms.

Pre-mines have been criticised as an obscured form of pump and dump scheme.

A pre-mine is a posited solution to the distribution problem.

References

1. Livni, Ephrat, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. 2021. ‘The Dramatic Crash of a Buzzy Cryptocurrency Raises Eyebrows’. The New York Times, 28 June 2021, sec. Business. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/28/business/dealbook/icp-cryptocurrency-crash.html.
2. Cornish, Chloe, and Richard Waters. 2018. ‘Silicon Valley Investors Line up to Back Telegram ICO’. Financial Times, January. https://www.ft.com/content/790d9506-0175-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5.
3. Andrés, Pablo de, David Arroyo, Ricardo Correia, and Alvaro Rezola. 2022. ‘Challenges of the Market for Initial Coin Offerings’. International Review of Financial Analysis 79: 101966. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irfa.2021.101966.
4. Burilov, Vlad. 2019. ‘Regulation of Crypto Tokens and Initial Coin Offerings in the EU: De Lege Lata and de Lege Ferenda’. European Journal of Comparative Law and Governance 6 (2): 146–86. https://doi.org/10.1163/22134514-00602003.
5. Kharif, Olga. 2018. ‘Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized’. Bloomberg.Com. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-09/half-of-icos-die-within-four-months-after-token-sales-finalized.