Author Archives: Vanessa Malone

By Vanessa Malone Security token offerings (STOs), or digital securities offerings (DSOs), offer issuers an incredible capital raising vehicle with unprecedented transparency and liquidity potential in the secondary market. As the majority of DSOs were deemed offerings of securities by regulators, most issuers turned to Regulation A+(Reg A+), Rule 506(C) of Regulation D (Reg D), […]Continue Reading

By Vanessa Malone Money laundering has reached a new level of sophistication in today’s digital age, with criminals finding new ways to utilize the internet and conceal the origin of illegally obtained funds every day. The blockchain introduced a new anti-money laundering (AML) hurdle — the ability to make transactions to anyone in the world anonymously. With […]Continue Reading

Since April 11th, when Blockstack first announced their Regulation A+(Reg A+) filing with the SEC, the blockchain and financial community have been observing closely. Many industry thought-leaders have predicted the approval of a Reg A+ digital securities offering (DSO) or security token offering (STO) to be in the cards this year. The question: What was […]Continue Reading

By Vanessa Malone In a previous blog, we discussed how a transfer agent’s role is of critical importance when it comes to maintaining truly compliant digital securities offerings. We also introduced CustodyWare, our blockchain solution which enables an issuer’s designated transfer agent to compliantly custody digital securities, manage transfers, and maintain accurate shareholder listings leveraging […]Continue Reading

By Vanessa Malone We live in an increasingly digitized world and technology is making everything more simple, transparent, and efficient on a multitude of levels. It only makes sense that advanced technology would come around to evolve today’s capital markets and solve for inefficiencies.  While digital securities are still securities, as the SEC may have […]Continue Reading

By Vanessa Malone The global online gambling market is experiencing unprecedented growth, anticipated to double in size from 2016 to more than $94 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. (Statista) A combination of factors is contributing to this growth. One key reason is that our world is becoming increasingly more digitized every day. Smartphones and other […]Continue Reading

By Vanessa Malone First, what is the upcoming FATF news everyone is talking about? The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 by the Ministers of its member jurisdictions. The FATF develops Recommendations with the goal of bringing about international legislative and regulatory reform to combat money laundering and terrorism financing.  […]Continue Reading

By Vanessa Malone Yesterday, Horizon announced the formal launch of KYCware, an advanced KYC software solution built on the Ethereum blockchain to streamline the investor onboarding and identity verification process globally. While Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) processes already play an integral role in client onboarding for financial intermediaries, they are becoming an […]Continue Reading

By Vanessa Malone with insights from Dr. Andrew Le Gear, CTO of Horizon What’s discussed: What is decentralization. Why compliant security tokens cannot be fully decentralized. How technology can be used to find the right balance of centralized and decentralized components for digital securities. In 2008, blockchain technology made its debut in Bitcoin’s whitepaper describing […]Continue Reading

By Vanessa Malone Key Points: Blockchain technology may not eliminate third-parties from a digital securities offering, but it will definitely evolve them Regulators have hinted that the blockchain is not a valid source of truth, making the use of a transfer agent crucial Technology can be used to provide the necessary digital securities custody tools […]Continue Reading