The Highlights of Our Security Token Industry Launch Event

On October 4 & 5, 2018, the Security Token Academy hosted a content-rich, fun-filled event in New York City! The top security token industry leaders, experts and enthusiasts came together to celebrate the launch of the security token industry.

On Thursday evening, our event got under way aboard the Spirit of New York yacht where we met, mingled and viewed the city’s lit-up landmarks. All day Friday, our conference guests gathered at the Conrad New York Hotel where we explored the core foundations of the security token industry via 14 presentations and panel discussions delivered by 42 industry leaders.

The best and the brightest spoke at our event. We heard from industry leaders and experts, including executives from STA Corporate Member companies including Securrency, AnyPay, Harbor, Clifford Chance, KoreConX, Prime Trust, SeedInvest, StartEngine, TokenSoft, tokeny, tZero, Verify Investor, LLC, Vertalo & Weild & Co.

Below we quote them to give you a quick read on what they had to say about enabling a faster financial services ecosystem.

Quotes on Enabling a Faster Financial Services Ecosystem

Aubrey Chernick, founder and CEO of Security Token Academy

“Enabling a faster financial services ecosystem…that’s where we think the industry is headed. The compression and reduction of trading and settlement time from t+2 to t+0 is one of the aspirations and realities of this industry.”

David Weild, CEO of Weild & Company and former vice chairman of Nasdaq

“We have to have a legislative agenda to make sure we get this right. Two key principles the SEC has followed for many decades: embrace new technologies that cut costs and provide new investment opportunities while requiring that retail investors have access to material information of key risks.”

Dan Doney, CEO, Securrency, Inc.

“When you have a token — a share — where you know everyone that’s held it at any point in its life, then fraud detection becomes a very easy thing to do. Anonymity and lack of compliance created a safe haven for traffickers, evaders, launderers and swindlers. This prevents institutional value from entering the space in mass.”

Quotes on the International Scope of This Industry

Alex Mole, investor relations manager, Neufund

“I think a lot of jurisdictions outside the United States see security tokens as a way to catch up with the United States. Neufund is a primary offering marketplace for tokenized securities. We structure legally binding, regulated equity tokens. Our community is comprised of those in the crypto community and those from the traditional finance community. Our platform enables issuers to raise capital for their company and investors to invest in those offerings.”

Cliff Pace, Malta Stock Exchange, Fintech Accelerator Programme

“Malta is the first country to legislate and have regulatory structures. If you don’t have a regulatory structure that these new services are going to be operating under, then you’re going to have confusion. At the end of the day, you need to have investor confidence for them to take that bold first step into this area.”

Quotes on Custody and Transfer Agents

Oscar Jofre, co-founder, president/CEO, KoreConX

“Investor protection must be our number one priority today for tokenization to occur. All our business is in private companies. Not only are we a transfer agent, we also have a cap-table-management, investor-relations tool to allow communication with shareholders, online e-voting, and the investor has a management dashboard. We also have a security token protocol with intelligence built in for different jurisdictions and obligations.

Quotes on Regulations

Troy Parades, founder, Parades Strategies, LLC, and former SEC commissioner

“The stakes are high because if it’s a security, you’ve triggered the entirety of the securities laws,… and on top of that, if you’re facilitating the offer, then you might also be triggering the entirety of broker-dealer laws.”

Ryan Feit, co-founder & CEO, SeedInvest

“Are the rules today viable? Yes. Do I simultaneously think that we should have that dialogue with the regulators to improve those laws? Absolutely.”

Quotes on Real Estate Assets

Brad Greiwe, co-founder and managing partner, Fifth Wall

“Real estate, from a security token and blockchain perspective, is on every VC’s board. It’s too big of an opportunity to pass up. Any success that’s going to occur in real estate tokenization is going to be in collaboration with the incumbents. You’re not going to Uber your way through the real estate industry.”

Quotes on Technology Foundations

Mason Borda, co-founder, TokenSoft

“Everything we’re building on is enterprise grade and can handle high throughput. Stellar (platform that connects banks, payment systems and people) was one blockchain we started supporting this year, and we have projects on Corda (the open source blockchain for business) as well. One of the largest sales we did brought in about 28,000 people.”

Michael Oved, co-founder, AirSwap

“I think there’s the potential for a specialized blockchain for security tokens.”

Quotes on Investors

Rob Nance, managing partner and CEO, CityBlock Capital

“To borrow a line from Morgan Creek Capital, we’re trying to help people get off zero and to get exposure. Right now, we believe the place to invest is infrastructure. We believe security tokens will drive the adoption of cryptocurrency for mainstream investors.”

Daniel Coheur, chief strategy officer, Tokeny

“You have to educate investors. You have to work with regulators.”

Quotes on Primary Issuance/ Secondary Trading

Howard Marks, co-founder & CEO, StartEngine

“Entrepreneurs want access to capital; access to investors who are willing to invest. The plumbing is exciting to everyone here, great. But an investor just wants money in their bank account.”

Quotes on Tokenization Platforms

Chris Housser, co-founder, Polymath

“Right now, we’re waiting for that first batch of issuers to go through our platform and raise money. This will help bring security token movement to full fruition. People should know Polymath is not just usable in Canada and the United States. It’s usable everywhere.”

These quotes are just a sampling drawn from the full discussions at our event. The videos from our event will be posted on our website, and you can find them as they become available on our Security Token Academy website.

It was a mega event where those in the know taught what you need to know about the security token industry.