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Bernard Lunn is a Fintech deal-maker, investor, entrepreneur and advisor. He is CEO and Editor of Daily Fintech and author of The Blockchain Economy. Hoping 3 pictures will paint a thousand words
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TLDR. Napster blew up the music business with free and illegal. Then we had low cost and legal like Spotify, Pandora and iTunes. The same is happening to innovation capital. The summer of 2017 ICO, kicked off by Bancor, was the now illegal way to raise a lot of money easily and at virtually no cost. That was a lousy deal for investors and naturally then regulators jumped in.
This update to The Blockchain Economy digital book covers:
What is broken in the legacy innovation capital business
In March 2017, in Crypto equity via ICO and the other innovation chasm we wrote that:
“Most entrepreneurs understand the chasm between MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and PMF (Product Market Fit). The low cost to build MVP increases supply, but real demand does not change that fast, so lots of MVP ventures fall into the chasm (i.e. they fail).
The next chasm is less well understood. This is the chasm between PMF and Liquidity (via an IPO on the Public Markets and failing that via trade sale).
Today, we don’t see this chasm so clearly because there is a very expensive bridge across it – in a few locations. The very expensive bridge is provided by the big PE/VC Funds.”
Why the ICO went too far in the opposite direction
In 3 hours that shook my world: the Bancor ICO in June 2017 we described Bancor raising over $150 million in 3 hours in an ICO that kicked off the ICO craziness in 2017 when ventures could raise huge sums on not much more than a “minimally viable white paper”. The ICO went too far in the opposite direction – good for the entrepreneur and bad for the investor.
The news about Blockstack and Reg A
The news as reported in many media outlets was that the SEC gave Blockstack the go-ahead to conduct a $28 million digital token offering under Regulation A (which enables smaller companies to raise money from the public with less strenuous accounting and disclosure standards than a traditional IPO).
This is big news because the SEC is creating a new protocol for token offerings under Reg A. This is tokenized early stage crowdfunding. While neither tokens nor crowdfunding are new, this the first time they have been combined in a global market that US public investors can participate in.
America has been losing ground in crypto as it was not perceived as a friendly regulatory environment. This news is a big win for American entrepreneurs and investors.
Reg A Basics
“is an exemption from registration for public offerings. Regulation A has two offering tiers: Tier 1, for offerings of up to $20 million in a 12-month period; and Tier 2, for offerings of up to $50 million in a 12-month period. For offerings of up to $20 million, companies can elect to proceed under the requirements for either Tier 1 or Tier 2.
There are certain basic requirements applicable to both Tier 1 and Tier 2 offerings, including company eligibility requirements, bad actor disqualification provisions, disclosure, and other matters. Additional requirements apply to Tier 2 offerings, including limitations on the amount of money a non-accredited investor may invest in a Tier 2 offering, requirements for audited financial statements and the filing of ongoing reports. Issuers in Tier 2 offerings are not required to register or qualify their offerings with state securities regulators.”
Blockstack Basics
Blockstack describe themselves as the” easiest way to build decentralized apps that can scale” and claim over 120 independent developer teams that have built apps on Blockstack.
Like Ethereum and many ICOs, Blockstack is a developer-focussed open source platform. It is the sort of innovation that the crypto community needs.
Jurisdictional competition will continue
In Some Governments Want To Shut Down Bitcoin But They Don’t Know How we wrote that:
“For a long time, entrepreneurs faced competition and regulators sent them the rule book. Regulators were government employees who thought about competition only in the abstract; competition was something that other people had to worry about.Today, the environment is more fluid as governments recognize the economic return on innovation in terms of jobs and GDP growth. The regulators now face real competition because their political masters have to keep citizens happy and citizens care about jobs and GDP growth. Both Fintech upstarts and incumbent global banks are increasingly mobile; so jobs can disappear fast if regulators get it wrong. Plus, innovation is the primary driver of productivity which drives GDP per capita. Pity the poor regulator who must balance that with protecting citizens from fraud and enforcing existing laws.”
This jurisdictional competition is a good thing because while, the SEC may have got it almost right with Reg A and the Blockstack token offering, there is still room for improvement. If you look at the details, you will see that accredited investors get in early and the public get in later. The public gets in earlier than they do in a traditional IPO, but this is still a two tier market. In a global market with jurisdictional competition, expect big moves by Singapore, Hong Kong, UK, Switzerland the EU and other tech/finance centers.
Context & References
3 hours that shook my world: the Bancor ICO in June 2017.
Crypto equity via ICO and the other innovation chasm
Some Governments Want To Shut Down Bitcoin But They Don’t Know How
Bernard Lunn is a Fintech deal-maker, investor, entrepreneur and advisor. He is CEO of Daily Fintech and author of The Blockchain Economy.
I have no positions or commercial relationships with the companies or people mentioned. I am not receiving compensation for this post.
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The post Amazingly, the SEC may have got it almost right with the Reg A Blockstack token offering and this may define a new innovation capital market appeared first on Daily Fintech.
Interesting times! I am not referring to politics but financial markets both the traditional stakeholders and the disruptors. From Roubini lashing out on the crypto ecosystem, to Morgan Stanley gearing up to trade crypto derivatives, and Circle buying crowdfunding and broker-dealer Seedinvest.
The narrative around tokens has shifted Q1 2018. Utility tokens are no more darlings, STOs seem “the way to go” but pieces are missing still to satisfy the much-anticipated institutional appetite. #AndTheIronyIs that the ICO frenzy aimed to democratize early stage startup investing. It was supposed to allow retail to fund and participate in the startup tsunami that is building the winners of the 4th industrial revolution. Transparency and no gate-keepers were also promised.
#AndTheIronyIs it became about whales (the new gate-keepers) and now it is about crypto funds (the other new gatekeepers) and the conventional institutional money (e.g. the Ivy League US endowments[1]).
On the regulatory front, Europe seems to be leading with frameworks that try to not choke the blockchain early-stage innovation and at the same time provide some guidelines. The recent support from EU parliament of the Blockchain Resolution[2], is significant for several reasons. Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Malta, France, etc have also made progress on the regulatory front. Lithuania is one of the small Baltic countries which has attracted several Fintechs (even the Revolut unicorn) because it has been offered licensing and therefore EU passporting to these Fintech innovators.
In a September Forbes article[3] the Central Bank of Lithuania is singled out because of a new law allowing to invest in crypto assets through Security Token Offerings (STOs) in Europe. DESICO is referenced as it is taking advantage of this retail STO law and building a token platform for issuing, listing and trading security tokens in a fully compliant way.
DESICO has designed a different business model
The founders of the DESICO platform are Fintechers, founders of Finbee a P2P online lending platform. They saw a business opportunity to not only legally launch an ICO platform for early-stage startups in which both institutional but retail also can invest; they are also designing it to onboard revenue generating SMEs (not necessarily blockchain businesses) that need to raise capital. As Laimonas Noreika, the CEO of DESICO, said to TechStartups “Desico doesn’t want to focus on tokenizing pension funds, investment funds, or real estate projects.”
DESICO will filter companies for scams and will let the crowd vet projects on the DESICO platform. The costs of the entire ICO process will be cut to one third the current costs, and various service providers will be onboarding on the DESICO platform. Once the token sale is successful, the tokens will be listed on the DESICO exchange and investors will be able to trade (no waiting times, no exorbitant costs). Investors (both retail and institutional) will be legally able to buy the tokens on the DESICO platform. Any kind of security token issued on the DESICO platform will be fully compliant. With the support and backing of the Lithuanian Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of the Economy and the Central Bank of Lithuania, and under the crowdfunding law, any funding under 5million euros following the crowdfunding requirements is a legal security token.
The DESICO platform will be an end-to-end platform (for early startups and SMEs) to crowdfund, to list and trade on an exchange, and to invest. The founders are in the process of acquiring the three required licenses, a crowdfunding license, an e-money licenses, and brokerage licenses.
The DESI token is a security token and the sale starts on November 7. DESI token holders will receive a revenue share of 12.5% of DESICO’s gross income over the next 30 years. Payouts will be quarterly, with no cap on the revenues. It is a 30-year Revenue Participation Note that is callable after 5 years at any time.
DESICO revenues will come from primary and secondary market fees of the tokens issued and traded on the DESICO ecosystem. The primary fees will be paid by the security token issuers in a mix of fiat and project security (STO) tokens. Secondary market fees will come from the exchange activities.
DESICO is as close as it gets to the next generation of a crowdfunding platform with in-house liquidity. It’s design is for the crowd too, not only for institutional. It’s business model borrows elements from Angel list, as its revenues include security tokens issued on the platform. The founders know how to work with regulators and license providers and know how to build an investor base. For details, read thoroughly the white paper.
Disclaimer: I am an advisor to the DESICO platform.
[1] Report: Harvard, Stanford, MIT Endowments All Invest in Crypto Funds, Cointelegraph
[2] In the EU Blockchain Resolution we Trust, DailyFintech
[3] Institutional Investors Bet On Crypto Market With Tokenized Securities, Forbes
Efi Pylarinou is a Fintech thought-leader, consultant and investor.
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