Amid the craze engulfing bitcoin, the blockchain-based currency which has undergone a spectacular rise in value in recent months, new cryptocurrencies are springing up with a more tangible backing than bitcoin: crude oil.OilCoin, a project led by a team including former commissioner Bart Chilton of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (2007-2014), is launching as what its backers claim as the first legally-compliant digital currency based upon a physical asset.OilCoin will tokenize barrels of oil held in reserve with each token representing the value of one barrel, providing users of digital currency with “a meaningful safe haven from cryptocurrency volatility,” the venture said in a statement. OilCoin’s public token sale, or initial coin offering (ICO), is scheduled to begin in early 2018.
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