The cryptocurrency/blockchain industry has been a moving target mostly over the past 5 years from ICO`s, STO`s, IEO`s, NFT`s, Defi, etc. but one thing we all can agree on is to grow as a company, you have to adjust with the times. When you think of LG, you're probably thinking of that nice flat screen TV you saw at the electronics store the other day, or that shiny washing machine. But LG didn't start off as an electronics giant; it all started in 1947 and moved to hygiene and cosmetics products soon after. Same for Tiffany`s. When you think high-quality jewelry, you think Tiffany's, right? You may be surprised to find that this gem of a household name started its business as a New York stationery store.
“Ideas don't come out fully formed , they only become clearer as you work on them . You just have to get started.” – Mark Zuckerberg
The truth is the concept of Digital shares in the form of security tokens are ten years away especially outside of USA. In Africa crowdfunding is still a grey area and not fully regulated. South Africa is still trying to manage electricity and struggles with load shedding. Security tokens is simply too futuristic at this stage for most of the world. Legally it is simply not recognised linking a real world asset to a blockchain token in most parts of the world.
Other than legalities, Securitizeprobably is leading the pack but even they are 4 times more expensive to manage a company`s cap table than traditional Carta for equity. We admit that capital markets are inefficient but the current security token solution is making it even more inefficient. Most of the security token exchanges are burning money as the expectation that STO`s will be the new ICO`s is clearly a myth. Most security tokens are build on Ethereum blockchain in their standard ERC721 protocol or ERC20 with some amendments. The average Ethereum transaction fee was 5.70 USD in march of 2021 and is simply too expensive especially in times of high ETH/BTC prices and usage the market gets congested. Polymath`s STO20 protocol is simply 5 lines of code added to traditional ERC20 protocol focusing on not being anonymous and allowing reversal of transactions for regulators.
MOBU remains a digital investment bank but the focus has shifted to solving practical issues, thus from security tokens to cheaper payments. Creating a low transaction scalable blockchain and manually adding merchants is a real problem being addressed. MOBU has undoubtably acquired a large investor network and will continue to assist great companies to raise capital but in equity. To date there is no Security token offering worth mentioning and most ICO`s lied about their actual raise. MOBU intends to integrate their payment solution for the companies they assist in raising capital. Juan Engelbrecht, CEO of MOBU, one of the leaders in the security token space alongside Polymath and Securitize, who was offered a board seat on one of stock exchanges in South Africa called equity express is of opinion that Security tokens is simply too futuristic for Africa at this stage but innovation is needed to create more efficiency in capital markets.