Digitized

Dave Hendricks is the CEO of Vertalo, a blockchain-agnostic cap table solutions company for security tokens. Vertalo aims to build "the operating system for digital assets". In this conversation, Dave and Derek talk about Vertalo's origin story, how Vertalo connects all major players of the security token ecosystem together, and Vertalo's recently-announced tokenized real estate partnership with custody giant Prime Trust.

Stephen McKeon is a Partner at Collaborative Fund, a SF/NY venture fund investing in blockchain-based financial infrastructure with an eye towards the future of our financial markets. Stephen is also a finance professor at the University of Oregon and one of the sharpest thinkers in the security token space. Previously, Stephen joined Derek on Security Token Stories Episode #2 to chat about his “Security Token Thesis” paper and how security tokens will dominate previous methods of reporting and trading ownership through a number of killer features that security tokens and distributed ledgers enable. 

In this conversation, Stephen and Derek build on that episode by taking a look back at the security token industry in 2019, trends that Collaborative Fund is seeing in the decentralized finance and DAO spaces, and how all these new areas of interest may intersect with security tokens and traditional finance in 2020 and beyond. 

Saum Noursalehi is the CEO of tZERO, an end to end security token lifecycle and trading platform. tZERO’s goal is to make capital markets more efficient, reliable, and accessible through digitization and blockchain-based technology. The tZERO team has created a number of tailored products that aim to improve traditional markets— including the tZERO ATS and trading platform, the tZERO Crypto App, and the Boston Security Token Exchange — a joint venture with BOX Digital that aims to be the first regulated Security Token Exchange in the United States. tZERO is a Security Token Academy Gold Corporate Member. 

In this conversation, Saum and Derek discuss the problems that currently exist within the capital markets, how the tZERO stack of technology aims to solve these issues, and the security token trends Saum continues to see as his team builds out the tZERO platform. In addition, Saum shares details on its partnership with BOX Digital to create the first Security Token National Stock Exchange, its recent SEC-published rulebook, and how the platform aims to link up with the rest of the security token ecosystem. 

Jimmy Bingham is the SVP of Business Development at Prime Trust—a technology-driven trust company that provides financial infrastructure solutions for the leading global exchanges, OTC desks, platforms, broker-dealers, stablecoins, and more. Prime Trust's stack of APIs and technology solutions help power some of the largest names in the digital asset space — including Binance, Huobi, Bittrex, OKCoin, and many more. In Q1 of 2020, Prime Trust will launch its new TREATs platform for tokenized real estate asset trusts. This new security token platform aims to eliminate some of the largest inefficiencies associated with capital raising and investing for REITs and the real estate investment trust industry.

Jehan Tremback is the CEO and Co-Founder of Althea, a team building a decentralized internet network that allows routers to pay each other for internet bandwidth, peer-to-peer (P2P). Althea encourages and empowers any individual to become their own internet service provider, and earn money by providing internet service to their neighbors and local businesses. In this interview with STA’s Derek Edward Schloss, Tremback walks through his history in the San Francisco hacker space, the opportunity and benefits of mesh networks, the problem with the top-down internet service provider (ISP) model today, how the Althea system and blockchain will work, why the team incorporated MakerDao’s ‘Dai’ stable token, and why the team decided to use blockchain crowdfunding firm Republic to undergo a compliant security-wrapped token airdrop (Reg CF) to bootstrap new communities on the Althea blockchain.  

Thomas Borrel (Chief Product Officer) and Adam Dossa (Head of Blockchain) are building security token software at Polymath, a tokenization platform that aims to make the creation, issuance, and management of security tokens simple.

In this interview with STA’s Derek Edward Schloss, Borrel and Dossa walk through the limitations of public blockchains like Ethereum for the security token industry, and why Polymath decided to work on their newest initiative—the Polymesh Blockchain. The Polymesh Blockchain is a new blockchain optimized for security tokens, that aims to bring regulatory compliance and institutional confidence to blockchain-based securities. The interview also covers the library of compliance standards Polymath has helped create with ERC1400, and what Borrel and Dossa envision for the future of security tokens—including its intersection with DeFi and “Open Finance.”

Douglas Pepe is an instructor at GW Law teaching "Blockchain Law and Policy," an attorney and Partner at Joseph Hage Aaronson law firm, and co-founder at Mango Farm Assets building asset tokenization software on top of the Ravencoin blockchain. 
 
In this interview with STA's Derek Edward Schloss, Pepe talks about how he approaches teaching blockchain topics to new students at GW School of Law, the current state of securities guidance from the SEC for new and existing token projects, and why Pepe believes tokenization might be the future of asset ownership. Pepe also discusses his much-viewed TED Talk on blockchain and tokenization, and why he decided to start building Mango Farm Assets —a new piece of software that makes it easy to "tokenize any asset" on top of the public Ravencoin blockchain.

In this episode of Stories Token Stories Host Derek Edward Schloss sits with Jor Law, co-founder of Verify Investor. 

• The Jobs Act of 2012 and its limitations
• Accredited Investors under United States Law
• Blockchain in the crowdfunding industry
• Tzero acquiring Verify Investor
• What the future holds for the state of the Security Token Industry 

Luc Falempin is the CEO at Tokeny, a Luxembourg-based tokenization platform for regulated securities. Tokeny is a technology provider and end-to-end platform to issue, manage, and transfer regulated security tokens.

In this interview with STA's Derek Edward Schloss, Falempin walks through the Tokeny platform, and where Tokeny is seeing the most tokenization for demand right now. Falempin also discusses why he believes Ethereum is the most influential blockchain for security tokens. His team is also researching projects like Facebook’s Libra for issuing security tokens in the future. Finally, Falempin discusses Euronext, the largest stock exchange in continental Europe. Euronext recently invested and purchased a significant equity stake in Tokeny—and what that investment means for the future of Tokeny, and Tokeny-powered security tokens.

David Hoffman is the COO at RealT, an Ethereum-based platform for tokenizing real property ownership in the United States. RealT empowers investors around the globe to buy into the US real estate market through compliant, fractional, tokenized ownership–powered by blockchain. RealT’s first tokenized properties are single-family homes in Detroit, Michigan.

In this interview with STA's Derek Edward Schloss, Hoffman walks through the RealT platform, the launch of its first tokenized properties in Detroit. RealT's unique opportunity for overseas investors, and why RealT decided to tokenize on the Ethereum blockchain—including its platform integration of MakerDao’s Dai stable token.