Digital Securities
Smartlands Begins Realignment with Eyes on Liechtenstein Blockchain Act
A Diverse Framework
Like any forward thinking company, tokenization platform, Smartlands, is in a constant state of growth. This means pivoting with developments seen in the digital securities sector, in an effort to continue providing their clientele with the best experience possible.
With this in mind, the team at Smartlands recently announced that they would be looking to capitalize on friendly regulation, towards tokenization, put forth by Liechtenstein.
The company states that they are looking to ‘revise and expand legal framework’. Furthermore, they will ‘base future projects on Liechtenstein Law’.
Ilia Obraztsov, CEO of Smartlands, elaborates,
“We remain believers in crowdfunding…but dwelling on our past successes is not in Smartlands' book. We're excited about the possibilities the Liechtenstein Blockchain Act presents to investors and issuers in regards to direct tokenisation of any asset using blockchain tokens as containers for any assets. Armed with cutting-edge legislation for investment funds, the Liechtenstein jurisdiction is ideal for structuring basically any financial product on blockchain there may be. Liechtenstein SICAVs (or open-ended funds) are industry standard and one of the most popular types of funds in the EU. SICAVs can be used as umbrella funds for multiple sub-funds. Such structure provides an efficient and fast way to introduce new investment ideas and opportunities on blockchain in one of the most prestigious fund jurisdictions. It is possible to tokenise any assets with a dedicated sub-fund.”
Platform Alignment
News of a platform ‘realignment’ surrounding Smartlands was first divulged by the team in early 2020. While 2019 was a year of great growth for the digital securities sector, it, unfortunately, did not live up to the expectations of many.
Looking to realize this growth, in 2020, Smartlands announced this realignment of their actions, to better serve high-net worth individuals, firm, etc. – as opposed to the retail investor. This, however, does not mean that the company is also pivoting away completely from retail based crowdfunding.
Yaroslava Tkalich, CMO of Smartlands, states,
“Crowdfunding is a very exciting area of fundraising, particularly in the UK with the country’s dense financial markets and tight regulations. Those preconditions allow us to involve all types of retail investors in campaigns for tokenised shares in virtually any asset class.”
High Hopes
The ‘Token and TT Service Provider Act; TVTG’ or ‘Liechtenstein Blockchain Act’, which has resulted in Smartlands rethinking their strategies, was originally announced by the Liechtenstein government in mid-2018. The framework established through its implementation, however, only recently came into effect in January 2020.
The act was specifically structured by the Liechtenstein government, to allow for expected growth in the world of blockchain. This meant writing an Act that while broad, would still allow for appropriate protections to be put into place.
At the time of its announcement, the Liechtenstein government stated,
“Because of the rapid pace of development of blockchain technology and its areas of application, it is very important to draft a law abstractly enough to ensure that it remains applicable for subsequent technology generations. That is why the term “transaction systems based on trustworthy technologies (TT systems)” is used for blockchain systems in this law. Due to the enormous potential of blockchain as a basic technology, the Government has decided to create a legal basis for the areas of application of the token economy and not only to regulate current applications, in particular crypto-currencies or initial coin offerings (ICOs). The goal is to ensure that a new law does not have to be created for every case of application, but also to create legal certainty for the many cases which are only just beginning to emerge in practice and are likely to develop in the near future. However, the Government is leaving open the option of regulating applications close to the financial market in a further step.”
The flexibility afforded through this Act is expected to attract many companies, similar to Smartlands, throughout the coming year, as they look to tokenize basically anything and everything. Smartlands is simply one of the first to publically announce their intent.
Smartlands
Founded in 2017, Smartlands maintains operations in London, England. Above all, Smartlands acts as a tokenization platform, operating under the watch of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
CEO, Ilia Obraztsov, currently oversees company operations.
In Other News
Beyond growth in their market approach, Smartlands has been hard at work on, not only viable consumer products, but the tokenization of real estate projects. The following articles are examples of each of these.
Smartee Looks to Change the Way Investors Store, Use, and Access, Digital Assets
