Significant investor activity was seen out of the initial phase of a token sale for Overstock.com subsidiary tZero.

According to reports, the first leg of the tZero sale wherein the company is selling Simple Agreements for Future Equity (SAFEs) that will be redeemed for tokens by accredited investors later on, began yesterday.

However, it began later than expected because of some unannounced reason.

Hiccups aside, CEO Patrick Byrne reported the sale attracted a huge crowd of an estimated 2,000 accredited investors.

With the development, he said the company may shift to shorten the initial two-month timeframe for the token sale.

“We had, yesterday, 2,000 accredited investors come and apply and get the process going,” Byrne said.

He added that he even had to take several phone calls from investors himself.

Some of the offers, he reported, went as high as $5 million or more for single token allocations.

TZERO is an alternative trading system (ATS) or dark pool that’s disclosed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The trading system was born out of the Medici blockchain effort within online retail giant Overstock.

Overstock is an initiative that dates back to 2014.

It aims to generate wholly new kind of trading environment based on a blockchain.

Pre-Sale Strategy

The company announced yesterday that the pre-sale and the subsequent sale would be for accredited investors – allocating a month for each sale – while reserving the right to shorten either if necessary.

The pre-sale to strategic purchasers will be restricted to $100 million.

The remaining $150 million will be open to all accredited investors.

“I feel an ethical obligation toward re-orienting my life so it’s about getting this done.

“We think we’ve got five years and 5 billion people we can change the world for,” Byrne said.

“We woke up this morning, and people have reached for over $100 million,” Byrne added.

“Which may mean we get to compress this.”

Due to the legal restrictions under SEC regulations for open offerings, Byrne did not discuss specific bonuses to investors in the sale.

He said the largest “bonus coupons” will expand to the first $10 million sold, with an attractive bonus to the next $90 million.

All investors in the offering will receive bonuses of some kind, at three different tiers.

Investors should also expect a specified onboarding through the offering’s issuance portal, SAFTLaunch.com, said Byrne.

“Our ability to maintain the Reg D protection is keeping this a very formal process,” he said.