Nick Cowan is the CEO and Founder of the Gibraltar Stock Exchange Group, a financial services portfolio that includes the Gibraltar Stock Exchange, the Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange, JUNO Fund Administration, FORT Advisory Firm, and HASHTACS, a fintech subsidiary and developer of the proprietary STACS blockchain and protocol. The Gibraltar Stock Exchange aims to be one of the world’s first regulated stock exchanges to list and trade security tokens.

In this interview with STA's Derek Edward Schloss, Cowan walks through the launch of Gibraltar Stock Exchange in 2014, Gibraltar’s blockchain initiatives, and working closely with Gibraltar’s regulators and legislators to create a regulated security token exchange.

Stephen McKeon is a partner at Collaborative Fund, a venture fund investing in blockchain-based financial infrastructure with an eye towards the future of our financial markets. McKeon is also a finance professor at the University of Oregon, and one of the leading thinkers in the security token space. In addition to his role at Collaborative Fund and the University of Oregon, McKeon is also the chief strategy advisor at Security Token Academy.

In this interview with STA's Derek Edward Schloss, McKeon walks through The Security Token Thesis, a paper he published in May 2018. In the paper, McKeon argues that for a number of traditional assets, security tokens will simply dominate previous methods of reporting and trading ownership. Over the course of the episode, Stephen McKeon and Derek Edward Schloss walk through the eight "killer features" that form what McKeon describes as the thesis powering the security token movement.

In this episode, Derek and Bryan discuss:

• Republic's background and how Republic Crypto was formed
• The benefits of regulated "Airdrops."
• The launch of Republic's "Note" token
• The benefits and limitations of Reg CF and Reg A+ as it relates to security tokens
• Working with regulations to update securities regulations in the future
• What the future holds for Republic and blockchain securities in 2019 and beyond