Australian blockchain project Power Ledger has been featured by one of the world’s most respected blockchain podcasters.

The podcast episode, presented by well-known blockchain and cryptocurrency journalist Laura Shin, was a chance for Power Ledger’s co-founder Dr Jemma Green to tell the world about the progress of the energy trading platform.

“This year was really about us deploying our products in multiple locations around the world so we could see where was the biggest opportunity for us to scale and commercialise our technology,” Dr Green said.

“We’ve got four apartment buildings in Fremantle. In Thailand, we’ve got six commercial sites trading peer-to-peer and in the US our carbon project has one parking garage, which charges electric vehicles.

“Most of our projects to date have been around being proof of concept … but we do now have contracts for more commercial projects coming on line in the next few months.”

Fixing climate change

Ms Shin asked Dr Green about recent praise from Sir Richard Branson and the suggestion Power Ledger could help fight climate change.

“Sir Richard Branson … was at the Paris climate talks … when the pledge for carbon neutrality by 2050 was made,” Dr Green said.

“He said that he saw Power Ledger as potentially being instrumental in delivering on that pledge so I am very proud that Power Ledger is such a part of the future as he sees it.”

Security Token

During the Podcast, Dr Green revealed Power Ledger is purchasing a commercial scale solar system and a large and grid-connected community battery to kick off its ‘asset germination’ project.

“People will be able to purchase a token which will represent a percentage of ownership of one of those assets and in doing so they will receive a (share) of income that asset generates,” Dr Green said.

The security token we will be launched in 2019 to allow everyday people to invest in and co-own the assets.

The asset registry will be managed on a blockchain and Power Ledger token holders will be able to use their tokens (POWR) to purchase a share in energy assets.

“We are in the final stages of procuring our first assets for the launch of that next year,” Dr Green said.

“Say they purchase an amount of tokens that represents 10 per cent of that asset, then they would receive ten per cent of the income that that asset generates.

“Previously in Australia, only people with an annual income of at least a quarter of a million dollars or net assets of two and a half million dollars were able to invest in this asset class and the asset germination token will be available to people who do not have these financial means.”

Regulation

In the United States, regulators have indicated they will treat any security token offering as any other kind of security and investors will need to meet the standard criteria. When Ms Shin raised this issue, Dr Green responded by saying:

“The Australian regulator, ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission), is watching this with a great deal of interest and we’re actually engaging with ASIC around the launch and release of the asset germination token next year, so we will be doing that with their full blessing.”

“I think 2019 will be about really unlocking trillions of dollars of private assets with security tokens and the infrastructure to support security tokens such as wallets and exchanges will develop faster than we think.” M