Dr Jemma Green is the Executive Chairman & Co-founder of Powerledger, the Australian energy-trading company whose POWR token sale closed on 6 October 2017 at a reported A$34,146,854. Three outlets called that raise Australia's first ICO in October 2017, and no primary source we could open settles the claim.
The October 2017 record tells that raise four ways. Wholesale Investor printed A$34,146,854 and "Australia's first Initial Coin Offering" on 10 October, and SmartCompany's 16 October headline said "one of Australia's first successful initial coin offerings". CoinDesk's 6 October headline dropped the A and read "$34 Million". The token counts split too, with 350 million POWR for sale in one account and a 190 million pre-sale in another.
Jemma Green at a Glance
Metric | Details |
Role | Executive Chairman & Co-founder, per Powerledger's team page |
Background as printed | A PhD in electricity market disruption and finance work "for banks like JP Morgan" |
2017 sale amount | A$34,146,854 (Wholesale Investor), AUD$34m (FinSMEs), "$34 Million" (CoinDesk) |
The "first" claim | "Australia's first" in three outlets, "one of" in SmartCompany, silent in Powerledger's whitepaper |
POWR, 12 September 2026 close | $0.05766, up 7.45%, cap $32.77M on 568.4M circulating (CoinGecko) |
On Phemex | No Listed pair. The POWRUSDT perpetual carries Delisted status |
Who Is Jemma Green at Powerledger?
Jemma Green chairs the company she co-founded, and the title Powerledger prints for her is Executive Chairman & Co-founder. The company's 2017 whitepaper lists her more plainly as Chair, in a version whose cover says it was updated in 2018 and 2019. It puts external relations and risk management under that role.
The founding credit in the 2017 press runs to two names, with FinSMEs listing managing director David Martin and Chair Dr Jemma Green on 13 October 2017.
Powerledger builds software that lets households and businesses trade surplus solar power with each other, and the POWR token is the key to that platform. The whitepaper calls POWR an access permission token for what it names Application Hosts and their customers, who convert it into a second token called Sparkz for local trades. In Australia one Sparkz is priced at one cent AUD, per the same document. The electricity itself doesn't move onto a blockchain. What goes on chain is the permission to trade it and the record of each trade, an early case of turning a real-world service into a token that traders will recognise from later tokenized-asset products.
How Dr Jemma Green Came to Energy Markets
Powerledger's team page traces the company to her PhD in electricity market disruption, which it calls "the seed of the idea for Powerledger". The same page places her earlier career "working in finance for banks like JP Morgan", where it says she championed sustainability and corporate social responsibility.
The whitepaper goes further, in Powerledger's own words from the version updated through 2019. It says she spent 11 years in investment banking in London and completed a Masters degree and two postgraduate diplomas from Cambridge University during that time. It names her a research fellow at the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute, where her doctoral research studied what it calls Citizen Utilities. It also describes her as an independent councillor of the City of Perth and the chair of Climate-KIC Australia. We couldn't find a newer Powerledger page that updates those roles, so you should read them as the whitepaper's snapshot and nothing more.
Two awards followed in 2018, according to the team page. It lists Sir Richard Branson's Extreme Tech Challenge award first and the EY Fintech Entrepreneur of the Year award after it, and it credits her as co-author of a book with Chris Voss called Empathy and Understanding in Business.
The Powerledger ICO in the 2017 Record
The Powerledger token sale ran in two stages in 2017, and the outlets agree on its rough shape. Wholesale Investor reported a pre-sale at the start of September that raised A$17 million in 72 hours, followed by a main sale that closed at 3pm Australian Western Standard Time on Friday 6 October with over 15,000 buyers. If you're new to how an initial coin offering works, buyers paid in crypto or cash and got POWR tokens back.
The amount is where the accounts part. Wholesale Investor published the most exact figure on 10 October 2017, A$34,146,854, with the currency marked. FinSMEs wrote "AUD$34m" three days later. CoinDesk's 6 October story put "$34 Million" in the headline and kept the bare dollar sign in its body. SmartCompany is an Australian outlet, and its 16 October story also printed a bare "$34 million" without naming the currency.
FinSMEs' own breakdown is the oddest line in the record. It puts roughly $17m of the raise "in US dollars" and about A$17.1m across bitcoin, ether and litecoin combined. Those two halves only reach the A$34m total if the first one is also Australian dollars, so the single place any source prints US dollars fails its own arithmetic. SmartCompany reported Green's own split a different way, at roughly $5 million in cash and $29 million across the three crypto networks.
The token counts disagree as well. Wholesale Investor and FinSMEs both say 350 million of the 1 billion POWR generated before the event were made available for sale. SmartCompany wrote that the September pre-sale sold out once its 190 million tokens were taken, and that 15,000 buyers bought 350 million POWR by the close. A Norton Rose Fulbright note dated 6 September 2017 counted more than 90 million tokens sold by 30 August, which it said was more than 90 percent of the amount first offered. Those two pre-sale accounts can't both be right, and no Powerledger document we opened prints the number.
Was Powerledger Really Australia's First ICO?
Three October 2017 sources use the word first with no qualifier. Wholesale Investor wrote "Australia's first Initial Coin Offering" on 10 October and FinSMEs used the same words on 13 October. TechCrunch's Ned Desmond called it "Australia's first ICO" on 9 October, in a post promoting Green as a speaker at the outlet's Sydney event.
SmartCompany chose a narrower headline on 16 October, "one of Australia's first successful initial coin offerings", and its body described the deal as one of the largest successful raises by an Australian startup through that route. CoinDesk's report made no first claim at all.
We went looking for Powerledger's own word on it and came back empty. The whitepaper the company links from its site doesn't say a word about the sale, and its FAQ covers where to buy POWR with no mention of the raise. The company's 2017 sale subdomain no longer resolves in DNS, and a 2018 Powerledger media post about the Extreme Tech Challenge returns 404.
No primary source we could open settles "first", so "one of Australia's first" is the version the record supports and the bare "first" is October 2017 press copy.
The POWR Token on the Saturday 12 September Close
The POWR token closed the Saturday 12 September 2026 session at $0.05766 on CoinGecko's dated history, up 7.45% from $0.05366 on 11 September. CoinGecko's dated market value of $32.77 million implies 568.4 million tokens in circulation at that close, and rebuilding a cap from supply and price takes one multiplication to check. Volume came to $4.03 million on the day, about 0.12 times the cap.
Supply is capped at the top. Powerledger's August 2023 lightpaper says POWR is limited to 1 billion by the parameters of its ERC-20 contract. On that full count the same close values the token at $57.66 million, and the 431.6 million tokens outside CoinGecko's circulating figure are the supply a holder has to price in.
The lightpaper also sets out a separate Powerledger blockchain on a proof-of-stake design, launching with 963 million native tokens and programmed inflation of 1.25% a year that falls by 15% each year. It says there will be no public offering of those native tokens and that the chain works alongside POWR on Ethereum.
How Traders Can Follow Powerledger on Phemex
Phemex doesn't carry a live POWR market, because the POWRUSDT perpetual that listed at 10:00 UTC on 9 January 2024 carries Delisted status and printed its last daily bar on 3 August 2026. Every trade link on this page points to the general futures board for that reason.
The macro calendar carries more weight than the token for a reader arriving on 14 September. The Federal Open Market Committee meets on 15 and 16 September 2026 with a fresh Summary of Economic Projections. Its 29 July statement held the target range at 3-1/2 to 3-3/4 percent, and all three dissenters preferred to raise it by a quarter point. Sizing any position ahead of that meeting with a stop and a written plan matters more than which narrative you pick.
The lesson from Green's raise carries to any listing you size. A headline figure without its currency and a superlative without its list are both press copy until a primary document prints them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Jemma Green?
She's the Executive Chairman & Co-founder of Powerledger, the title its own team page prints. In October 2017 she told SmartCompany the company wanted "to focus on the democratisation of power and really using our resources efficiently to demonstrate leadership in that area."
How much did the Powerledger ICO raise?
A$34,146,854 in the most exact account, from Wholesale Investor on 10 October 2017. CoinDesk broke the crypto side down as about 27,820 ETH plus 1,050 BTC and 6,120 LTC.
What did Powerledger say it would spend the money on?
Green told SmartCompany the funds would grow a team of 12 to around 20 staff and pay for trials, including one at the Mahindra Tech technology park in Pune, India.
Can you trade POWR on Phemex?
You can't trade it on a live Phemex market, because the only POWR contract carries Delisted status. That POWRUSDT perpetual printed 938 daily bars between 9 January 2024 and 3 August 2026, and the Phemex spot board has no POWR pair.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Cryptocurrency trading involves substantial risk. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.
