Flying ICO
🚀 Flying ICO
The original Flying Tulip ICO raised $200M with a promise to either redeem an investor's original deposit, or deliver a token worth more. The yield from investing the $200M goes to fund startup operations, and to accrue asset value over redemption value. It is a type of convertible bond. TradFi investors bought $140B of new convertible bonds in 2025.
The Stak implementation of a Flying ICO allows for expiration of redemption options, in order to more rapidly build a pool of "vested" assets that can be deployed for high returns, and make the model work with smaller starting pools.
Who It Is For
Protocols that are launching with liquidity mining. Like liquidity mining, a Flying ICO pays early depositors with startup value as well as yield. However, it does not leak any startup value to temporary depositors who redeem. The value is always liquid, with expected value of protocol rewards appearing as token value
Digital Asset Treasuries, vault curators, and other money managers that want to increase returns with longer duration and less liquid investments.
Startups. The Flying ICO allows them to incrementally build value and investment. The token can launch with cash value, plus valuations as low as zero. Then the token can only go up. It gets a liquidity premium. Management can get warrants that deliver unlocked tokens as the price rises, matching best practices for compensation in funds and public companies.
What Buyers Get
Depositors buy a vault token that is also a startup token/share. They can sell or transfer the token. They lose redeemability if they sell or hold through vesting dates
Value Added
Adds a liquidity premium. The vault token can have enough cash value to trade in AMM pools, and be used as collateral.
Early depositors can get operational value at a 0 starting valuation
Responsive and efficient capital allocation, with real time redemptions if value is declining, and additional vesting if value and price are increasing.
How It Works
Investors initially get tokens that are redeemable at the deposit value. The vault holds liquid assets to pay for potential redemptions. If they transfer the tokens (and make a profit on the sale), then they lose the redemption option. The underlying assets become “vested” to the vault. They can be used for higher return strategies that are riskier and less liquid.
We can make these deals from three pools of value:
A low risk, liquid pool to hold the redeemable assets
A high return strategy to hold the vested assets. This can be higher risk, and less liquid
Startup and protocol operations. We use the vault token as a startup token, and we add the startup value to the value of the vault token.
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