May 29, 2018
Ben catches up with Greg Gilman, Founder of Science Blockchain, to talk about launching one of the world's first security tokens. Greg talks about his journey from security token discovery to evangelizing and managing the process with venture firms new to digital ownership. Greg recalls his initial conversations with institutional investors; answering their questions about custody and calming their fears about custody and legalities. Greg goes into why Science Blockchain decided to issue such a complex security token, and why it was so important to deliver value back to token holders -- who are limited partners -- who have a vested interest in Science's portfolio companies.
Greg discusses his partnership with Argon Group and Tokenhub, to ensure full and ongoing compliance for Science's security token. He mentions the role Open Finance Network, Polymath's wrapper and Habor's R-Token standard play in managing the downstream, post-sale life of a security token. Greg offers some thoughts on what it will take for security tokenization to go mainstream with retail and institutional investors, and why that could lead to an explosion in wealth when illiquid assets become liquid.
Ben and Jay dissect the conversation and how much the security token space has changed in the past few months; how issuers are testing the infrastructure on themselves; and the challenges and realities of post-issuance compliance and trading. They compare and contrast investment practices of VCs with their new blockchain-based brethren.
Jay talks about the "anticipointment" left in the market by utility tokens, and why it has muddied the waters on security tokens. He talks about how the media are trying to handle the unknowns of security tokens. While Ben explains why security tokes are more comparable to investment options that have been around for decades, just with greater liquidity.
Ben and Jay wrap with a shout out to the "Tokenize the World" crew and Ben claims that "every asset on NASDAQ will be tokenized."