BitBay to give fiat links to Malta’s equity token cryptocurrency market
BitBay might be the first cryptocurrency exchange to let people buy and sell equity tokens for fiat.
Malta is one of several countries in the world currently making a hard push towards cryptocurrency-friendliness. Among other benefits, it’s offering the facilitation of the Malta Stock Exchange’s blockchain program, and easier European-based fiat to crypto links, which has let it attract a lot of companies from mainland EU, as well as those from further afield, like Binance.
Two of the European companies it’s attracted are German tokenised equity startup Neufund, and the highly-regarded BitBay cryptocurrency exchange, which have recently partnered to easily trade equity tokens, and equity token offerings (ETOs) though BitBay.
ETOs and equity tokens
Equity tokens are simply tokenised equity. It’s company shares tokenised as a cryptocurrency.
This isn’t just crypto for crypto’s take, but offers a number of immediate benefits. For example, being able to transfer them easily and buy and sell them on markets alongside other asset classes, while still allowing the owner of the equity at the time to receive dividends and exercise rights as a company shareholder without needing to arduously register each change of ownership.
Beyond that it can also open up fundraising opportunities for companies that would prefer to crowdfund rather than worry about the headaches caused by shacking up with venture capital firms, and help make equity more accessible to main street investors for a more open and fair economy.
An equity token offering, or ETO is a lot like an initial coin offering (ICO), except specifically for tokenised equity.
The new partnership
The new partnership is intended to open up more fiat links for Neufund’s tokenised equity. These will eventually be bought and sold just like any other cryptocurrency on the BitBay platform.
It’s broadly similar to Binance exchange’s plans to start trading equity tokens, except BitBay already has fiat pairs available, and so might be able to offer those direct fiat to equity connections more quickly. At the moment the tradeable fiat pairs include US dollars, Euros and Polish zloty.
If all goes to plan, it might be the world’s first place to buy and sell equity tokens for fiat.
“We welcome BitBay among our partners with great excitement”, said Zoe Adamovicz, CEO and co-founder of Neufund. “It is Neufund’s mission to make fundraising more inclusive and easier for companies, while bringing investors more liquid investment assets, and our partnership will enable investors to liquidate their investments directly into fiat currencies.”
“Our partnership with Neufund aims to bring security tokens to BitBay’s everyday operations in a fully compliant and regulated way. We are proud to be on the frontline of implementing equity tokens into 24/7 crypto trading systems,”said Paweł Sobków, CEO of BitBay operator Pinewood.
Disclosure: At the time of writing the author holds ETH, IOTA, ICX, VET, XLM, BTC, ADA
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