Proceeds from the first-ever initial public offering of security
tokens amounted to $85 million, received from more than 7,200
institutional and retail investors, the company said. That adds
to INX's previously closed private token sale of $7.5 million
and a pending equity offering in Canada that raised C$39.6
million (roughly US$32.2 million).
INX, a Gibraltar-based company with most of its operations in
the United States, in August launched the first security token
IPO for both retail and institutional investors approved by the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Security tokens are digital currencies backed by a tradable
asset such as real estate or equity and are subject to federal
regulations. The tokens represent a right to the underlying
asset.
"There is a very wide range of retail and institutional
investors that believe in the idea of blockchain ... that we
will see most of financial instruments and financial assets move
to trade on the blockchain," INX co-founder and President Shy
Datika said in a telephone interview.
"We believe that we will see more and more companies going our
way and issuing security tokens, regulated tokens, supervised by
regulators. We went through the SEC route, and we will see more
regular shares moving to the blockchain," Datika added.
The IPO registration with the SEC could open the path for legal
and regulated capital raising and trading for enterprises and
early-stage companies through the issuance of security tokens as
an alternative to traditional equity offerings.
INX's trading platform is already up and running for the
company's investors, friends and family, but it will be made
available to the public later this month, Datika said.
The company said it plans to enable both cryptocurrency and
security token trading on its platform, as well as capital-raise
listings for these digital assets.
(1 U.S. dollar = C$1.2279)
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Will Dunham
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