STO Market Plans and Predictions for the Year 2019

The year 2018 has left the market with a number of challenges. The ICO and blockchain industry has gone down a rocky road — that’s a fact one can’t argue with. We’ve witnessed a downfall of Initial Coin Offerings and the slow but steady growth of Security Token Offerings.

So what does 2019 has in store for us?

Since the beginning of the year the industry insiders and key influencers keep giving their thoughts on the current market and sharing their expectations over the next year and beyond. We’ve compiled some of them for you.

► Justin Sun, TRON CEO and Founder: “The 2018 shakeout had to happen.”

“For the industry to mature and gain legitimacy, the 2018 shakeout had to happen. As you’ve seen with the rise of the internet, e-commerce and just about every other big-thought thing that’s happened in the last 50 years, the gold rush days come to an end, rules get created and people settle down to do real business.” (Read more on Forbes)

► Tatiana Koffman, Speaker, Founder, Venture Capitalist, Tokenized securities evangelist: “STOs are expected to continue on an upwards trend.”

“Issuers and investors continue to remain curious about the benefits of tokenization such as increased liquidity, fractional ownership, decreased issuance costs, innovative structures and greater pricing efficiency. The vast majority of STOs are happening in the Real Estate, Finance, Tech and Energy sectors. Due to the nature of complex regulatory environments, US is in the lead for total STOs in the market, with Switzerland taking the second spot. Additional activity is noticeable in European countries, while Asian markets, although leaders in ICOs, are yet to catch up to STO activity. As we head into the new year, market adoption remains the greatest challenge to successful Security Token issuances. Highly dependent on traditional sources of capital such as family offices and asset managers, issuers continue to brace the uphill battle of educating investors on potential benefits of securities on the blockchain. Slow but steady, STOs are expected to continue on an upwards trend through 2019.” (Read more on Hackernoon)

► Brock Pierce, Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation,co-founder of EOS Alliance: “We are watching the birth of a quadrillion-dollar market.”

“A quadrillion dollar market is unfolding, driven by the emergence of security tokens. As currencies are tokenized, as bonds are tokenized, as equities are tokenized, as currencies and real estate and energy are tokenized — We are watching the birth of a quadrillion-dollar market. Also, Qualified Opportunity Zones (QOZs) are going to deliver over $100B of capital into places where economic stimulus is needed in the U.S.” (Read more on Forbes)

► José Maria Macedo, Head of Advisory at AmaZix: “The fundamentals are looking positive.”

“Despite the price in cryptocurrency dipping over the past year, the fundamentals are looking positive. Even in the bear market, crypto job prospects have increased fourfold since 2017. Usability has become increasingly more widespread — from Government adoption to healthcare benefits — and countries such as Dubai, Estonia, Japan, Israel, and Switzerland are among those that are already seeing the benefits of crypto and blockchain technology.” (Read more)

► Jason Hsu, Crypto Congressman, Taiwan Parliament: “Crypto investors will turn to security token offerings.”

“As ICO’s wind down, crypto investors will turn to security token offerings (STO), which have intrinsic value with actual asset backing. In terms of regulating STOs, I propose to approve investment contracts as securities and seek for exemption of duty of registration and disclosure of regular public offerings from securities laws. However, the regulations regulating securities fraud will still apply.” (Read more on Forbes)

► Bruce Fenton, Founder and Managing Director of Atlantic Financial, Board member of the Bitcoin Foundation and co-founder of the Bitcoin Association: “The main trend will be securities tokens.”

“I think that the main trend will be securities tokens. The combination of the power of a distributed ledger with more standardized securities will open lots of doors in capital creation.” (Read more on Forbes)