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The Short STOry

The Short STOry

By Stefan Loesch

It is hard to navigate the fast-paced developments in STOs. The topic is at the intersection of regulated finance and blockchain technology, and understanding both is required.

Stefan Loesch is the author of a popular book on Fintech regulation, a financial services veteran at JPMorgan and McKinsey, and a thought leader on STOs. In his daily podcasts he provides concise expert commentary on one topic of interest arising from the news.

If you are an expert yourself, someone aspiring to become an expert, or are just interested in the topic, this is the podcast for you.
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Commit / reveal, hashes, and how to play "Rock, Paper, Scissors" over Slack

The Short STOryJun 06, 2020

00:00
06:55
Introducing the TheShortSTOry Botcast
Oct 31, 202002:57
Uniswap Papers ep. 2: The Reckoning

Uniswap Papers ep. 2: The Reckoning

Today we will be discussing the second part of the Uniswap paper [1]. If you found yesterday's episode a bit dry, worry not. This one is more fun and economics, the mathematics stuff is mostly over. We are now moving on to the economics implications, and those are very interesting. Also honorable mentions of Sushiswap [3].

1. https://theshortstory-podcast.com/papers/202009-uniswap-multipool/#part2

2. https://theshortstory-podcast.com/papers/202009-uniswap-formulas/

3. https://thedefiant.substack.com/p/sushiswaps-vampire-scheme-hours-away

Sep 09, 202010:10
The Uniswap papers
Sep 07, 202010:10
The new SEC rules for accredited investors (with Jeff Bandman)
Sep 04, 202011:43
Japanese messaging giant LINE in massive new push into crypto
Sep 01, 202003:43
Man bites dog; also: Korea's ICON blockchain offers ID services to established banks
Aug 30, 202003:34
Ethereum is a Dark Forest
Aug 29, 202007:38
What color does Uniswap bleed?
Aug 21, 202017:52
Thomas Naegele's assessment of EU and Liechtenstein securities law with respect to security tokens
Aug 10, 202002:22
Ethereum Classic 51% attack nets 5.6m
Aug 06, 202010:24
The Exordium aka Infinite Fleet STO

The Exordium aka Infinite Fleet STO

In our series on interesting deals in the STO space, today a particular gem because of the unusual asset class and the people involved. Asset class first: this is a security token [1,2,3] giving the investors economic interest in an online game called Infinite Fleet. This security token is not to be confounded with Infinite Fleet's in game currency [4]. In terms of people involved there is obviously Samson Mow who is heading Pixelmatic, the developer of the game, and who also has quite a high profile as CSO of Blockstream, a crypto infrastructure company. The backers include Adam Back, Blockstream's CSO, Max Keiser, of the Keiser Report, and Charlies Lee the founder of LiteCoin who famously sold his holdings just before the market crashed.

The main deal platform seems to be BnkToTheFuture [5] who has supported quite a lot of companies raising fund in the crypto space, including Kraken [6,7]. The issuance is a SAFT, but they are planning to use the Liquid Network [10] eventually. Also involved STOKR [9] hence the deal being registerd both in the US and in Luxemburg.

For those interested in the legal framework under which the offering takes place, STOKR seems to only have an agent payments license from the French ACPR.



1.
coinjournal.net/news/infinite-fleet-raises-3-1m-in-private-security-token-offering/
2. www.coindesk.com/charlie-lee-adam-back-private-sto-round-blockchain-game-infinite-fleet
3. cointelegraph.com/news/samson-mows-infinite-fleet-game-raises-31m-on-bnktothefuture
4. www.infinitefleet.com/gamecurrency
5. bnktothefuture.com
6. app.bnktothefuture.com/companies
7. www.coindesk.com/over-2000-investors-back-kraken-crypto-exchanges-13-million-crowdfunding
8. www.coindesk.com/bnktothefuture-ceo-50-percent-of-funding-will-be-through-security-tokens-in-2020
9. stokr.io
10. stokr.io/legal
11. liquid.net
12. www.businessinsider.com/litecoin-founder-charlie-lee-on-decision-to-sell-entire-crypto-holding-2018-4
Aug 05, 202006:52
tZero updates their investors -- and it's not all a happy update
Aug 03, 202005:37
New Shore Invest - yet another German shipping token

New Shore Invest - yet another German shipping token

After the podcast on German ship finance I made two weeks ago [1] I have come across another German platform because of an pretty extensive interview in BTC Echo [2] and some other news in German media [5]. It turns out that those guys have been around for a while, there was a very good article on them in February [3] and an even earlier one last October [4], so it might well be that this is part of a concerted media push.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE, I HAVE NO VIEW AS TO WHETHER THIS IS A GOOD INVESTMENT OR NOT, AND I AM IN NO WAY RELATED TO THAT PARTICULAR ISSUANCE. What I found interesting was that (a) there are two retail-focused German shipping offerings in the news, the one I talked about recently [1,8-11] and this one [6,7], and they have chosen markedly different investment structures.



1.
theshortstory-podcast.com/2020/07/the-green-ship-security-token-offering/
2. www.btc-echo.de/ahoi-tokenisierung-investmentgelegenheiten-auf-hoher-see/
3. www.ico.li/de/new-shore-invest-lanciert-digitale-schiffsfinanzierungsplattform/
4. hansa-online.de/2019/10/featured/137096/hamburger-online-plattform-will-kg-modell-wiederbeleben/
5. blockchainwelt.de/sto/new-shore-invest-sto/
6. new-shore-invest.de/
7. new-shore-invest.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/WIB_RHAS-5_Stand-12_05_2020.pdf
8. de.cointelegraph.com/news/vogemann-raises-investment-capital-with-its-first-sto
9. www.vogemann.de/green-deal/
10. greenshiptoken.com/
11. www.fma-li.li/files/wp/20200703-green-ship-token-prospekt-final.pdf
Aug 02, 202009:24
What is Ampleforth?

What is Ampleforth?

In this article [1] I want to discuss the dynamics of Ampleforth [2,3], which is a crypto currency with its twist. Instead of issuing a fixed number of units, Ampleforth monetary supply expands and contracts dynamically to keep one Ampleforth valued at around 1 USD. The expansion and contraction is executed in a pro-rata manner, meaning that they do not impact the percentage of overall supply an investor holds. On first sight this looks like a stable coin, but on second sight it is clear that this is not quite the case -- it is a regular crypto coin whose price dynamics has been moved to play out in the volume space. What I mean with this is that when Ampleforth market cap goes up / down 10% then investors will feel the impact of that -- not by a change in price, but by the fact that they suddenly hold more / less currency units.
Aug 01, 202010:34
Banque de France selected companies for CBDC trial, and related news
Jul 21, 202006:52
Cloudcoin and the old school way of transferring value
Jul 18, 202013:04
The Green Ship Security Token Offering
Jul 17, 202008:53
Binance issues Swipe-powered debit card against crypto balances
Jul 14, 202006:10
How Public Key Infrastructure Will Revolutionize Custody and Fund Management
Jun 20, 202010:49
Did someone really just pay a few million dollars in fees? Twice? Or was this money laundering?
Jun 11, 202012:17
Securitize pays out dividend-like payment on-chain
Jun 08, 202003:47
Are CBDCs a threat to commercial banking? The Philedelphia Fed weighs in
Jun 08, 202014:15
Commit / reveal, hashes, and how to play "Rock, Paper, Scissors" over Slack
Jun 06, 202006:55
Blockchain voting, corporate governance and liquid democracy (with Dr Mark van Rijmenam)

Blockchain voting, corporate governance and liquid democracy (with Dr Mark van Rijmenam)

In today's episode I am talking with Dr Mark van Rijmenam the author of the Organisation of Tomorrow [1] and who is a leading expert in the blockchain space and how it changes the future of work. In today's episode based on a recent blog post of Mark [2] we are discussing how blockchain voting changes the world of corporate governance by moving from a proxy-based voting system to a blockchain based direct one, and we end up discussing liquid democracy [3]. 1. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S1PNQ67 2. https://vanrijmenam.nl/blockchain-proxy-voting-improves-shareholder-engagement/ 3. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/liquid-democracy-how-blockchain-can-improve-process-mark-van-rijmenam **Dr Mark van Rijmenam, Founder Datafloq and Mavin.org.** Dr Mark van Rijmenam is Founder of Datafloq and Mavin.org. He is a highly sought-after international public speaker [1], a Big Data and Blockchain strategist and author of the best-selling book Think Bigger - Developing a Successful Big Data Strategy for Your Business[2]. He is the co-author of the book Blockchain: Transforming Your Business and Our World [3], which details how blockchain can be used for social good. His third book, The Organisation of Tomorrow [4], discusses how AI, blockchain and analytics turn your business into a data organisation. He is named a global top 10 Big Data influencer and one of the most influential Blockchain people. He holds PhD in management from the University of Technology Sydney on how organizations should deal with Big Data, Blockchain and (Responsible) AI and he is a faculty member of the Blockchain Research Institute in Canada [6]. He is a strategic advisor to several blockchain startups and publisher of the ‘f(x) = ex‘ newsletter [7] read by thousands of executives. 1. https://vanrijmenam.nl 2. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814434150 3. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1138313246 4. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S1PNQ67 5. https://onalytica.com/blog/posts/big-data-2016-top-100-influencers-and-brands/ 6. https://www.blockchainresearchinstitute.org/faculty/ 7. https://us18.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=a77ea90b1e0814a292d8dc9f2&id=8bc7c46a25
Jun 04, 202014:12
How public / private keys will change the world of financial services and custody

How public / private keys will change the world of financial services and custody

In line with the custody theme in the podcast I am discussing here the profound changes the use of a public key infrastructure will have on the world of financial services, in particular in the area of custody. Note that this is the audio portion of a video lecture.
Jun 02, 202013:24
Gemini exchange platform integrates with Samsung mobile phone wallets
Jun 01, 202004:26
Ethereum's aggregate market cap now 50% in ERC20 tokens
May 30, 202005:28
Samsung’s new mobile crypto chip (with Ken Tindell)

Samsung’s new mobile crypto chip (with Ken Tindell)

As MPT [1] reports, Samsung just announced a new security chip for mobile phones [3], or -- as Cointelegraph refers to it [2] -- a "new chip to secure crypto transactions". In this episode I am talking with Ken Tindell about what this chip does and why it matters for (security) tokens and their custody.

1.
www.mobilepaymentstoday.com/news/samsung-upgrades-security-chip-solution-for-mobile/
2. cointelegraph.com/news/samsungs-new-chip-to-secure-crypto-transactions-on-mobile-devices
3. news.samsung.com/in/samsung-elevates-data-protection-for-mobile-devices-with-new-security-chip-solution


**Dr Ken Tindell, CTO, Canis Automotive Labs.** Ken is a technologist and entrepreneur. He holds a doctorate in real-time systems from the University of York and in the past has been the CTO of several startups. In the late 1990s he founded LiveDevices to develop embedded software for automotive applications and what we now call Internet-of-Things, and was subsequently acquired by Bosch. He also co-founded Volcano Communications Technologies, a joint venture with Volvo Cars and Motorola, that developed communications software for CAN bus and developed the LIN protocol, and was acquired by Mentor Graphics. He currently is the CTO of Canis Automotive Labs, a hardware IP company focused on securing communications and computation in automotive systems.

1. linkedin.com/in/kentindell
2. twitter.com/kentindell (@kentindell)
3. kentindell.github.io
May 27, 202008:46
Italian banking reconciliation platform Spunta adds another 23 members
May 27, 202005:17
On (Ca)Libra the next shoe drops
May 26, 202006:00
Consensus interviews - Part 2

Consensus interviews - Part 2

This episode is the second of my Consensus interview episodes where I am discussing with some of the people I met at the excellent networking event what they got out of the conference, and what they thought of the virtual format. In today's episode we have Brian Nistler from Lowenstein Sandler, Carlos Cabrera from Sigma Capital, and Laura Harper Powell who is a regulatory policy attorney in the US.

**Brian Nistler, Attorney, Lowenstein Sandler.** Brian advises clients on legal, regulatory, and compliance matters related to broker-dealers, investment advisers, and cryptocurrency-focused businesses in the firm’s emerging practice representing regulated financial technology companies, including brokerage platforms, robo-advisers, crypto exchanges, and money transmitters. He also has experience advising venture capital funds, hedge funds, and private equity funds in various regulatory and compliance matters.

His experience includes serving as a liaison between clients and regulatory agencies regarding the changing regulatory environment concerning broker-dealer formation and changes to business, ICOs, investments in and custody of digital assets, P2P lending, digital asset exchanges, crowdfunding, and other emerging fintech. Brian has also handled regulatory investigations initiated by the SEC, CFTC, DOJ, and self-regulatory organizations. He has drafted a variety of agreements and no-action letters and conducted extensive research, drafting, and advising regarding the Dodd-Frank Act, the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Commodity Exchange Act, and the JOBS Act.

Prior to joining the firm, Brian worked as a regulatory analyst for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). While in law school, he interned at the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office in Arlington, Virginia, served as a law clerk for NPR’s General Counsel, and clerked for the Fraud and Corruption Section of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.

1.
www.linkedin.com/in/brian-nistler/
2. twitter.com/Briannistler
3. www.lowenstein.com/people/attorneys/brian-nistler


**Carlos Cabrera, CFO, Sigma Capital and Quorum Ambassador Canada.**

1. www.linkedin.com/in/carlosgcabrera


**Laura Harper Powell, Regulatory Policy Attorney.** Laura is a regulatory policy attorney, engaging on fintech and blockchain issues msotly in the US.

1. www.linkedin.com/in/lauraharperpowell


May 25, 202005:42
Hyperledger Cactus grows up (with Thomas Barker)

Hyperledger Cactus grows up (with Thomas Barker)

Today's episode is with Thomas Barker, a software engineer and my goto person for everything blockchain technology, with whom I'll discuss Hyperledger Cactus that recently graduated from Hyperledger's Lab to the Greenhouse [1]. Hyperledger Cactus is the old "Blockchain Integration Framework" [2] that allows different blockchains to interact with each other, and having standardised technology of this kind is a key step in the blockchain ecosystem growing up.

My sincere apologies for overrunning my time budget on this occasion -- my discussion with Thomas is almost 17 minutes. I did not have the heart to cut it as I think it is a good discussion on an important topic, but I promise I'll try to do better next time.

1.
wiki.hyperledger.org/display/cactus
2. www.hyperledger.org/blog/2020/05/13/tsc-approves-hyperledger-cactus-as-new-project

**Thomas Barker.** Graduating from the University of Warwick in 2004, Thomas wrote the words ‘Digital money techniques allow creation of unforgeable tokens’ in the future research section of his final report. Sadly he is not Satoshi, but does bring with him over a decade of engineering experience within FinTech. Thomas was the first outside technology hire of both P2P lending market Zopa, now valued over £400m, and BullionVault, a retail gold broker with Assets-Under-Management of over $2bn. He has been involved in the Ethereum community from the start. Attending every Devcon across three continents, and has been involved in a number of startups trying to bring blockchain into real work commerce. Presently, Thomas consults for a number of clients across Europe from tiny startup to giant banks.

1. thomasbarker.com
2. twitter.com/thomasbarkercom/ (@thomasbarkercom)
3. theguywhousedtoworkat.com
May 24, 202017:47
BLOG: Putting the “Fun“ back in Fractionalisation
May 23, 202013:09
Consensus interviews - Part 1

Consensus interviews - Part 1

This episode is the first of my Consensus interview episodes where I am discussing with some of the people I met at the excellent networking event what they got out of the conference, and what they thought of the virtual format. In today's episode we have Lourdes Miranda from Miranda Fintel Consulting, Harrison Wright aka "The Blockchain Recruiter", and John McLaughlin, CEO of McKurz Capital.

**Lourdes Miranda, Principal, Miranda FinIntel Consulting LLC.**
A Washington, DC-based cryptocurrency and blockchain compliance analyst and investigator; a financial crimes investigator; a Bank Secrecy Act and Anti-Money Laundering compliance officer and investigator; a former CIA officer and a FBI analyst with decades of experience in both the private and public sector. She is Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists and a Certified Fraud Examiner. As a consultant, she specializes in cyber counter-threat finance investigations, compliance, and financial intelligence collection and analysis for the US intelligence community, US law enforcement agencies, US and international financial institutions, the legal industry as well as the for the trade industry.

1.
www.linkedin.com/in/lourdescmiranda-crypto-aml-investigations-intelligence

** Harrison Wright aka The Blockchain Recruiter.** Recruitement services in the blockchain space.

1. www.linkedin.com/in/the-blockchain-recruiter

**John McLauglin, CEO of McKurz Capital.**
McKurz Capital are developers of defi products that are end-user friendly. They also provide STO derivative products. Their DEX is at mckurzcapital.com.

1. mckurzcapital.com
May 21, 202009:06
The EU non-paper on crypto regulation
May 19, 202004:50
Sequioa Capital is investing in AI investment platform Vise
May 18, 202008:31
The dangers of sending crypto funds to the wrong address
May 17, 202007:46
BLOG: Tokenisation and fractionalisation -- A ten year vision
May 16, 202025:55
ANNOUNCEMENT: I am setting up a virtual networking corner. Please drop in!

ANNOUNCEMENT: I am setting up a virtual networking corner. Please drop in!

Consensus Distributed is over, and it was great, in particular the Zoom networking part. The networking was so good in fact that I decided to establish regular networking open hours [1].

As I was asked what "Zoom networking" is, let me briefly describe how it worked. The app (Brella; it had a few glitches but it got the job done) initially asked you to fill in your profile, including your interests. Then it matched you with others, and essentially you went through the list and suggested whom you wanted to meet. Brella was managing everyone's schedule, so you suggested already a specific 15 minutes time slot for a meeting, and the other person could accept, reject, or reschedule. Super easy. And I probably had 10-20 conversations per day, and I have to say that everyone I spoke to was super nice, the conversation was good, and I literally do not regret a single meeting. So also shoutout to everyone I met -- you are awesome!

So if you are interested networking with me, just follow the calendly link [2], book a spot, and we are on (I'll send you a Zoom link so please do make sure you have Zoom installed [4] by the time we talk). If you really can't make it during my "office hours", say because your time zone is such that it is the middle of the night for you, then feel free to book a 15 minutes slot on my regular calendar [3], mentioning that you'd like to network and that my regular hours dont work for you.

I am looking to seeing you in my virtual office -- and don't be shy. Just drop in!

1.
theshortstory-podcast.com/pages/networking/
2. calendly.com/skloesch/networking
3. calendly.com/skloesch/15min
4. zoom.us
May 16, 202002:13
Visa's patent for a blockchain currency

Visa's patent for a blockchain currency

The US patents and trademark office today published a patent by Visa [1], the card payments network, for a digital currency issued on a blockchain [2-4]. This is not their first patent in this area [5]. 1. http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=20200151682.PGNR. 2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2020/05/14/visa-submits-patent-application-for-digital-dollar-using-blockchain/ 3. https://www.coindesk.com/visa-digital-fiat-currency 4. https://news.bitcoin.com/visa-cryptocurrency-system/ 5. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=%22Visa+International+Service+Association%22&OS=%22Visa+International+Service+Association%22&RS=%22Visa+International+Service+Association%22
May 16, 202006:17
Telegram cancels TON, [probably] reimburses investors
May 13, 202008:07
JPMorgan now serves CoinBase and Gemini
May 13, 202003:26
Consensus 2020
May 11, 202000:43
No podcast today, but check out the links
May 09, 202001:02
The Ben Elliot Token, or how to raise financing as an up and coming artist
May 09, 202007:06
Paul Tudor Jones invests in Bitcoin ... futures
May 08, 202006:58
Libra’s got a new CEO
May 07, 202005:27
Charles Schwab offers fractionalised stock trading

Charles Schwab offers fractionalised stock trading

After Robinhood and Fidelity, now Charles Schwab allows for “fractional” stock trading in S&P 500 companies, for a minimum investment as little as $5. Another step towards asset fractionalisation and making finance available for the masses. 1. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/charles-schwab-introduces-stock-slices-service-allowing-investment-in-sp-500-stocks-for-5-2020-05-05 2. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200505005240/en/Introducing-Schwab-Stock-Slices™-–-Designed-Investing
May 06, 202003:34
Malaysia eases regulations for distribution of digital securities
May 06, 202003:16
ECB publishes assessment of global stable coins
May 06, 202009:05