Republic Considers Building Marketplace while tZERO Broadens Capabilities – Digital Securities Weekly

Looking for a Partner

Fresh off a successful $150 million capital raise, Republic has high hopes for the future of digital assets.  In fact, the company is actively considering building its own platform focused on digital securities.  In a recent conversation with TechCrunch, Republic CEO Kendrick Nguyen stated that it is actively looking to work with a capable exchange that, “…delivers good customer service, and that can facilitate secondary active trading of securities and digital securities.”  Nguyen indicates that if a solution fitting these parameters does not arise within a year, Republic will proceed with the development of its own.

While such a solution might not yet fully exist, there are various contenders already in the mix of things.  Not only is Archax on the way, tZERO continues to build on its early mover’s advantage in the space.  Most recently Securitize launched its own highly anticipated marketplace, with a surprisingly diverse offering of assets at launch.

The aforementioned raise was a Series B, headlined by Valor Equity Partners.  This brings the total figure raised by Republic to date up to $186 million.

Clearing & Settlement Support

Vertical integration is a term being bandied about lately – and with good reason.  Often times, the integration of various independent services can bring greater efficiency and flexibility.  tZERO and its digital security marketplace is looking to achieve just that with regards to its asset onboarding by ‘vertically integrating the clearing and settlement processes.  Thankfully for tZERO, it has just received approval to do just that.

Alan Konevsky, Interim CEO at tZERO, states, “Integrating the clearing function is key.  We can scale faster and increase our product onboarding velocity…Vertically integrating these function in the meantime allows us to keep focus and priorities aligned and reduce external variable and dependencies that may impact existential priority on speed and scale for our business and harmonization of the cross-asset user experience for our customers.”

tZERO notes that in the coming months, there are at least 4 digital securities scheduled to begin trading on its ATS.

• Curzio Research’s Curzio Equity Owners Security
• XY Labs Class A Common Stock
• American Films’ Common Equity
• MarketSpace Capital’s the Spot @ Myra Park Security

Tranche 6

In early April, Blockstream launched the first round or ‘tranche’ of its Bitcoin Mining Notes (BMN).  Sold and issued in the form of a digital security, these BMNs provide their holders with rights to a proportionate share of profits derived from Bitcoin mining.

Fast forward to the present, and demand for these BMNs continues to grow, with Blockstream just announcing what is now its 6^th tranche.   Blockstream notes that its first 5 issuances of its BMN have generated nearly $20 million in investments (with this total expected to double after tranche 6).

Interested parties that missed these opportunities are expected to soon be given the chance to trade BMN digital securities on a secondary marketplace, with Bitfinex securities expected to list the asset in the coming weeks.