Reports of dubious initial coin offerings targeted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are a dime a dozen, but a New York City-based company seeking to raise money in a token sale is making headlines for the right reason: It’s the first company to gain SEC approval for an ICO.

Blockstack PBC, a startup that has built a blockchain-based network for decentralized apps, obtained approval from the SEC on Wednesday for its proposed $28 million ICO, according to The Wall Street Journal. Approval was granted under Regulation A+, a regulation established under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act that allows for companies to raise up to $50 million in an alternative way to an initial public offering.

The unique feature of the approval is that it allows the general public to invest. Other companies in the past, without having specifically gained approval from the SEC, have undertaken ICOs under Regulation D, a regulation that allows private offerings such as ICOs but limited to accredited investors.

Approval from the SEC did not come cheap for Blockstack. Founder Muneeb Ali told the Journal that they spent $2 million to get approval for their ICO.

Blockstack comes into its new ICO having already gone down the ICO path before, raising $47 million from accredited investors in a 2017 ICO under Regulation D, according to CoinDesk. The company has also previously raised about $5 million venture capital funding.

The company itself appears to be promising, though its pitch isn’t different from dozens of other blockchain-based companies offering a Dapps platform to raise money. Blockstack said it now hosts more than 165 applications on its decentralized network, a healthy number.

The ICO will offer Stacks tokens that can be used to register digital assets such as domain names, write and enact smart contracts and process transaction fees on its network. The new Blockstack ICO starts Thursday at 11 a.m. EDT.

Image: Blockstack