After working with token issuance projects for almost half a decade, Lisa has seen her fair share of what projects are going to make it or break it when they want to do a token sale.

One thing that is different this year, that investors (yes, we can call them investors now) can take comfort in - is that this new phase of token issuances has a new set of guidelines and best practices to follow.

Whitepaper: meh. Memorandum: Yes.

The days are gone when projects could raise off the backs of a whitepaper and cool looking website. Now, projects are required to prepare a PPM (private placement memorandum) which basically contains all the information and disclosures the investor requires to make an informed decision.

This is often done in conjunction with your legal, broker dealer, and us (Vanbex). It goes like this:

legal prepares the disclosures, compliance requirements, and required documents for signature

broker dealer provides the requirements for investors

Vanbex adds all the market research/sizing, token economics, and content around the project's use of blockchain via a crypto asset and how that would work for investors

Vanbex collates all this into a digital memorandum - we like to use Adobe InDesign and print paper copies to accompany the digital version. Now all of this information is assembled into a nice shiny new package ready to be shared with your potential investors.

Next steps:

legal signs off on all outgoing materials

broker dealer handles compliance and solicitation of investors

Vanbex builds the smart contracts for the STO issuance via Rocket

Because we are now able to clearly and confidently say that projects doing an STO are done in accordance with Reg A / Reg D or private equity offerings - the rules are clearer.

Shareholders?

Traditionally shareholder rights such as voting and dividends were managed through third party service providers. The idea of offering these rights via a blockchain was unheard of.

Nowadays, voting done via the blockchain is not only expected but becoming the new standard for shareholders to vote.

The same can be said about dividends - automatically and transparently, send dividends in crypto via the blockchain to shareholders (yes they are shareholders now!) without the need to cut cheques, pay wire fees, or rely on a third party to process the transaction.

Both of these are done through smart contracts on our platform, Rocket.

Another thing, liquidity (the one thing investors look forward to after investing) is that you now have a way to provide liquidity either via listing on an STO exchange (coming soon to an exchange near you), or another private equity round (repeat steps 1 - 6).

Let's hold hands

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to doing a proper STO and what projects should be aware of. That's why we are working with lawyers, broker dealers, transfer agents to assemble the perfect trifecta to make sure these STO projects are on the right foot when they go down this path.

Whether you work with a company like Vanbex, or decide to handle the work through other means, remember that STOs are not ICOs and to set your expectations (and your investors expectations) accordingly.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out - I'm always interested in hearing about the next token issuance.





*disclaimer - this is not a complete picture but a very coles notes version, for more details please contact