Jenny Zheng: Good evening all, good to see all of you on this Friday evening. Welcome to Asia Blockchain Community, a community that is based in Asia and run by volunteers.
Mission: Our mission is to create value for projects & members & educate the general public about blockchain and crypto through the work in our community.
Vision: To bring concepts to life and increase blockchain adoption.
Slogan: Long Crypto and Short the World
Let’s find out more about our guests today from Stobox, Gene Deyev (CEO) and Ross Shemeliak (COO)
Blockcast.cc: Dear Gene and Ross, can you give an introduction about yourself. We love to know more about you guys.
Gene: I’ve been in business for the last 20 years and have seen the financial industry from many different perspectives. I was a trader on Wall Street and raised capital for VCs in Silicon Valley for my last hardware startup.
Stobox is a natural application of that experience and way to solve the inefficiencies I saw. This is the most disruptive thing I’ve ever been doing.
Ross: In the last 5 years, I’ve been mostly involved in consulting, financial markets analysis, and sales. My focus has been on taking underrated people and building unstoppable teams. Also, I have been a crypto investor and trader science 2015. I am a super-big believer in the digital assets industry in general. Stobox is a way for me to contribute to the development of the financial system of the future.
Blockcast.cc: Tell us briefly what Stobox is. What is your unique selling proposition?
Ross: We are an award-winning technology and advisory company in the field of digital assets.
Our advisory arm helps business clients find the best application of crypto assets for their business, with the particular focus on security token offering. The advisory arm is an excellent source of market intelligence regarding the client’s needs.
The technology arm uses insights from the advisory arm to build the most disruptive and requested products by the market. We have built the Stobox Digital Securities Dashboard and Stobox DLT Network Protocol, which allows any business to easily tokenize their securities, sell them to investors and manage otherwise.
Tokenization is a technology that transforms business financing, reduces the cost of capital, opens for investors access to investment opportunities that were out of reach and makes it possible to automate legal compliance. It is embraced by companies such as London Stock Exchange, World Bank and HSBC.
The next step is to add a decentralized secondary market for securities – a unique product, currency absent on the market that solves its biggest issue.
We are also releasing a Crypto Exchange distinguished by fair and transparent policies, uncommon for exchanges, and focused on tokens issued by traditional businesses trying new technologies.
We have established partnerships with law firms, regulated secondary markets, advisors and marketing firms in 10+ countries such as Archax (First FCA regulated digital securities exchange), RLP (Liechtenstein STO Legal Provider), Securities.io (The most popular media of digital securities).
We are recognized as one of the TOP-10 most promising Maltese startups in 2020 according to EU-Startups.com Even though we left Malta as a jurisdiction.
Advised governments in Ukraine (Ministry of Digital Transformation) and Malta (Digital Innovation Authority)
Issued a Book on digital securities, read by 1000+ market professionals
Hosted our first online event a Digital Assets Investment Conference.
Here are some speakers:
– David Weild IV (ex Vice-President at @Nasdaq)
– AlexLemarchand (Vice-President at Ledger)
– Lex Sokolin (Global Fintech Co-Head at ConsenSys, LinkedIn Top Voice 2019, contributor to the WSJ, The Economist, Financial Times, CNBC, Reuters)
– Felix Mago (Co-Founder of DASH Next)
– Simon Barnby ( CMO at Archax)
Both Anndy Lian and Jenny Zheng have also participated with insightful speeches
Blockcast.cc: What kind of tokenization services do you offer?
Gene: The big advantage in the eyes of clients is that we offer a comprehensive service: Consulting, Legal Management, Technical set-up Stobox DS Dashboard and helping with Marketing. They can have all their needs covered by one professional company deeply focused on tokenization instead of going to dozens of providers, who would overcharge and underdeliver.
Blockcast.cc: Can you tell us who your clients are now?
Ross: Without names, obviously:) Our clients include a fintech-focused startup accelerator from the UK raising €25 million, crypto mining company from Georgia raising €5 million, real estate marketplace from Switzerland. There are a few other prominent real estate companies from Cyprus, UK, India and Ukraine in the pipeline, an endowment fund, Maltese venture fund, and a few other interesting projects in traditional capital intensive industries.
The demand is gradually increasing, and it’s a good time to be in this market:)
Blockcast.cc: If possible, can you walk us through a case study that you have done?
Gene: Our first case study is ourselves. We are opening our own STO, and after its closure are tokenized shares will be traded via the DS Swap.
The overarching theme of all case studies is improved access for investors, when DS Dashboard reduces the investment threshold drastically, in some cases 2,000 times.
Blockcast.cc: How does Stobox Digital Securities Dashboard work?
Ross: It is a personal fundraising portal for each company. You set it up as part of your website and now can accept investments, allow your investors to trade, distribute reports to investors, etc. The power of the DS Dashboard is in the flexibility it provides to businesses. You can award your shares as part of the loyalty program; you can make an early exit instead of waiting until the IPO, which most business owners will never reach. The opportunities are endless.
The big problem is that the investment process is complex and includes many operations – KYC, sending invoices and receiving funds, signing legal agreements, sending tokens, setting investment limits, recording securities ownership, etc. After that, issuers have to communicate with investors, share reports, pay dividends, organize voting.
Due to this complexity, very few offer their securities to a wide public, especially in early stages.The Dashboard automates or streamlines the processes above, making all relations with investors drastically simpler. Therefore, crowdfunding becomes a much more viable option.
Our dream is that anyone could walk into the new coffee shop in your street and invest in it a hundred bucks if you liked the coffee and the owner. This is a completely new paradigm of investing and business financing.
Blockcast.cc: I believe you have your own Stobox utility token. How does this work with your ecosystem?
Gene: STBU has several use cases as a payment token. It can be used to pay trading fees on Stobox Exchange, pay for shares on our STO, transaction fees on the DS Swap, pay for our consulting services, participate in our marketing activities, etc. We are often coming up with new use cases for STBU to build up more demand. In particular, we are researching staking schemes to find out whether we can do it in a legally correct way.
Blockcast.cc: How do you see STO for 2021? Is the market ready for security tokens and operations?
Ross: Yes, the market is ready. What was lacking is use cases and supporting infrastructure. In 2018-2020 we had enough successful cases, and currently there are enough providers of token protocols, legal services, etc. The remaining piece of the puzzle that is necessary for tokenization to take off is the secondary market.
We are solving this problem with the DS Swap – first decentralized securities trading protocol. It is our secret weapon to conquer the market:)
Blockcast.cc: Are the regulations ready for STO? Share with us your views.
Gene: They are even more ready for STO than ICO or IEO:) Security tokens are similar to things they already know – conventional regulated securities. Furthermore, many jurisdictions implemented regulations for securities on the blockchain.
As tokenized securities are much more transparent and secure, it is likely that regulators will demand everybody to use solely tokenized securities.
We see significant traction of digital securities regulation in 3 jurisdictions – Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the US.
Blockcast.cc: Do you have any intentions to expand in Asia? Any intentions to be in Singapore since Singapore has a friendly framework and several RMO licenses are already issued.
Ross: Asia is very attractive due to a high penetration of digitalization. We are working with a Japanese advisory firm Standard Capital and Singaporian technology firm 482.solutions to penetrate the market. Internally we spend a lot of time researching best practices of securities tokenization in Asia to provide our services in that region.
As a service and technology business, we are global, not limited to any single jurisdiction.
Blockcast.cc: Do you think Bitcoin is a push factor for STO related activities and businesses or STO businesses hinge on the more traditional markets and assets? Yes- Why? No- Why?
Gene: Bitcoin bull run indirectly benefits the STO market by increasing interest in crypto technologies in general, as well as, to different kinds of tokens issued on the blockchain.
Blockcastcc: Can you share an inspiring quote for our community?
Ross: “Long journey starts with a small step”. Stobox, as well as all the tokenization market, is at an extremely early stage. Today’s first steps lay the foundation for a future explosive growth the market will experience.
5 Questions from Twitter:
- By @mskhate23. We know that there are many DeFi projects available on the market that even function very similar to #STOBOX . So can you say what are the main advantages of #STOBOX over its competitors? And the additional benefits/features offered by #STOBOX project?
We are one of the first entrants in the decentralized securities exchange industry, nobody has been doing it before. Inability to trade an expensive market is the biggest problem of the market. Therefore, we are striking into the heart of the industry.
Most focus only on the tech part. We provide complete support, which is crucial for clients, as many of them don’t have the expertise to conduct STO on their own.
Most are shell projects and lack patience. In the last two years, we saw dozens of companies enter and exit the industry because they couldn’t get profit fast and had no patience to wait until the industry takes off and until they accumulate enough expertise and brand recognition.
- By @ArtemisLiana. Do you have any specific marketing strategies to increase your adoption on the market? Do you have the plan to establish Philippine Community or Asian Community to expand globally because for your information Filipinos are always attracted in a new and making a progress project?
We are currently speaking to several recognized marketing agencies to learn the best practices and build strategic partnerships for the promotion of Stobox products. Currently, it seems that influencer marketing has the highest ROI, and we will focus on it.
In terms of the marketing of tokenization, we focus on content marketing because there is a need to educate the marketing about fascinating opportunities tokenization provides.
- By @Blockreviewnet. We looked at your on-chain stats for your token, stbu. There are not much movement, trade and utility. What are the intentions for it?
The behaviour of the token is normal – traders are waiting until the product release. Currently, all short-term investors exited, so the price is good for entry.
We are also at this moment not doing a full-scale marketing campaign until the products are live.
It is better to convert traders not only in buying STBU to sell it in a few days but in registering in the Exchange and being with us for a long time, supporting the token value.
When the Exchange is live, there is a day-to-day use case for the token and we have an incentive to invest fully in marketing.
Furthermore, we are getting more interest from STO clients, who can pay with STBU, which is also beneficial for the price.
- By @kaka_abdoel. Can #STOBOX provide traders with a single interface to execute all trading needs? What technology does #STOBOX use to provide trading and protection of user assets? And Can #STOBOX explain in simple terms How does the #stobox Ecosystem work?
The key to greatness is not in providing a single interface for all trading needs.
It’s in providing access to unique needs other companies cannot. Via Stobox you will be able to invest and trade shares in private companies, such as venture funds or industrial plants, which are open only to rich investors. Stobox Crypto Exchange is also focused on listing tokens issued by traditional companies or decent crypto projects.
Stobox uses top-level technology in the Digital Assets Exchange to provide fast and reliable data storage, processing, and ensuring safety and security. We use Go, Lua, Tarantool, gRPC, Angular. It is a different programming language used either for database management, backend, or frontend.
They allow building features that are more flexible, faster than those built with more common but less advanced languages.
- By @klapklapco. So are you a tech company? An STO exchange? Consultancy firm? Platform service provider? Or? The website is not very clear on the company objectives. Doing a bit of everything?
Having a wide stack of products is a competitive advantage.
We provide a full range of services for our clients:
– Consulting and Legal Management (how to improve for business needs, what jurisdiction, company structure)
– Digital Securities Dashboard (tool to tokenize and manage shares)
– DS Swap (secondary market access for STO companies)
– Crypto Exchange
5 Questions from Telegram:
- By Hock Wang. You are trying to do so much. The focus is not there. How can you convince all that you can do what you have promised into today’s crypto space? Bear in mind that you may not have the resources too.
Thank you for the question. It may sound optimistic, but there are 2 tech products: Securities Dashboard, which is ready and we’ll show it with our STO later Q1, and Crypto Exchange. We have tech partners to support us. Especially giving the fact that we are based in Ukraine (4th country in terms of tech outsource). The rest are services for clients who lack information on crypto space. We are monetizing our knowledge. Some parts of the world are not as progressive in crypto terms as Asians, for example.
Regarding promises. We are public and opened to the community. We build the business, not the short-term project. All promises will be delivered. Isn’t it great to build a business rather than scamming?
- By @Bdul_33. Where did you get the inspiration for this unique project idea? And what influence will we have on the crypto industry due to the project?
Great question. Inspiration comes from several experiences:
- At first, I spent years working with VCs and know how it’s difficult for a business to raise funds. Therefore tokenized shares – is the solution!
- I spent several trading stocks in New York and therefore familiar with the securities landscape
- One of my uni degrees is in Computer Science.
When everything clicked. There are no other options but to build something that would be a solution to many founder’s problems.
- By @Mahathi21. #STOBOX run against BTC if yes what’s the strong feature it will let unique run
We don’t run again. Never. We believe in adoption of crypto. Regardless if it’s BTC today or ETH tomorrow. More businesses will adopt crypto, better business we would have. So far we have increasign number of clients willing to do STO. Everone hears BTC @35-40 and catch FOMO. I believe it will be the same with some security token.
- By @M13_Max. #Stobox why choose ERC20. Not Tron or BEP20 platform. As everyone knows ERC20 fee’s very Higher.
We tested several infrastructures, from proprietary blockchain to Hyperledger from IBM.
Ethereum infrastructure is the most adopted from investors and regulators perspectives.
Also, there are a lot of great application build, such as Metamask and we can use them on our DS Dashboard
Blockcast.cc: Thanks for your time Ross and Gene. For more contents and interviews, visit us at https://www.blockcast.cc. This is Jenny, good night all.
Original Source: https://blockcast.cc/interviews/blockcast-cc-interviews-stobox-founders-tokenization-transformation/
