Bittrex Suddenly Cancels its First IEO

Cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex International cancelled the initial exchange offering (IEO) of the RAID token after gaming analytics company OP.GG terminated its strategic partnership with the South Korean startup RAID.

According to Bittrex, this partnership was a "vital part of the RAID project," which aims to reward gamers for sharing data.

"When Bittrex International became aware of this significant event, we did not feel that it was in the best interest of our customers to move forward with the IEO," the exchange said.

Meanwhile, OP.GG, which claims that it has 45 million monthly active users, announced that it "has stopped all potential business discussions related to RAID project and there will be no economic and technical cooperation with RAID coin."

The company did not provide any further explanation. RAID was not available for immediate comment.

The IEO was scheduled to happen on March 15th at 10 am KST.

The key difference between IEO and ICO (initial coin offering) is that both the project developer and the investors facilitate their transactions through a third party - an exchange. It acts as a guarantor and conducts a project due diligence check on the project team. Also, in this case, developers are no longer required to perform KYC (know your customer) verification.