Harbor Names Compliance Leader Joshua Stein as President and General Counsel
Stein will help Harbor bring regulatory compliance to ICOs and security tokens on the blockchain
SAN FRANCISCO — Feb. 27, 2018 — Harbor, the crypto-securities compliance company, today announced that Josh Stein will join as president and general counsel. A legal and compliance veteran, Stein will help Harbor bring compliance to initial coin offerings (ICOs) and secondary trading of private securities on blockchains. Stein was previously general counsel and chief compliance officer at Zenefits, served as general counsel at OptumRx (a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group), was an Assistant U.S. Attorney, a federal judicial clerk and an Intelligence Officer for the U.S. Army.
Stein and David Sacks, Harbor’s chairman and co-founder of Craft Ventures, co-authored a post today entitled: Introducing the Private ICO (PICO): How to Bring Token Fundraising into Compliance, which outlines a proposal for a new class of private ICOs that comply with the existing rules and regulations governing securities.
“Josh’s experience managing complex legal and regulatory compliance challenges makes him an ideal leader for Harbor,” said Sacks. “Josh was the M.V.P. of the Zenefits turnaround when we previously worked together. His efforts were one of the key reasons that regulators praised us for ‘righting the ship’. I’m excited that I get to work with him again.”
“I am excited to join Harbor and deliver a compliant path forward for private ICOs and security tokens,” said Stein. “Harbor can play a critical role helping the industry get into compliance, before a combination of severe enforcement, private litigation, and new regulations strangle ICOs and token sales altogether. We believe that with the proper implementation of permissioned tokens, this new financial system we are building can continue to flourish.”
Harbor is building a decentralized compliance protocol to address the regulatory compliance challenges of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and trading securities on blockchains. Over $8 billion has been raised through ICOs since Jan. 2017 (1), yet nearly all were issued without regard to complying with U.S. securities laws. Coincidentally, the same day that Harbor launched, U.S. Securities Exchange Commission warned that most ICOs are securities and will be regulated as such. Harbor helps protect issuers and investors by enforcing securities, tax and other regulatory requirements when issuing and trading crypto-securities.
The Regulated Token (R-Token) standard, one of Harbor’s first initiatives, is an open source compliance framework for embedding regulatory compliance at the token level, only permitting transactions to occur if they meet applicable rules. Issuers, broker dealers, underwriters, and/or regulatory bodies can implement the R-Token standard to meet jurisdictional securities regulations, KYC/AML requirements, tax considerations, and more. The R-Token standard is a system of ERC-20 smart contracts built on the Ethereum blockchain and compatible with the ERC-20 ecosystem.
About Harbor
Harbor’s mission is to power the future of crypto-securities by building a decentralized compliance protocol that standardizes the way securities are issued and traded on blockchains. The Regulated Token (R-Token) standard is an open source compliance framework for embedding regulatory compliance at the token level, only permitting transactions to occur if they meet applicable rules. Harbor was founded in 2017 by Bob Remeika, Arisa Amano, and David Sacks, with funding from Vy Capital, Craft Ventures, Fifth Wall, and Valor Equity Partners. www.harbor.com
1- Source: CoinDesk, All-Time Cumulative ICO Funding
Contact: press@harbor.com
