BANKEX CEO Igor Khmel about being the only crypto-player during SFIG Vegas 2018 and a difference between securitization and tokenization.

BANKEX CEO Igor Khmel:

“SFIG Vegas 2018 brought the world’s leading banks, finance executives, and economic thought leaders to the Aria Hotel on the Las Vegas strip to discuss the latest trends, developments, and the forecast for the future of finance and securitization. We at BANKEX were happy to be included among so many seminal financial institutions such as JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and BNP Paribas, to name a few.

SFIG Vegas is the biggest structured finance conference in the United States and is attended by some of the most prominent banks, broker-dealers, lawyers, and rating agencies in the world. One of the many highlights was having the opportunity to listen to the ideas shared by speakers, panelists, and scholars in attendance and on the agenda. Chief among them was Economics Professor at the University of Chicago & Co-Author of the now famous book Freakonomics, Steven Levitt, Comptroller of the Currency at the US Treasury Department, Joseph Otting, and CFTC Commissioner, Brian Quintenz.

But some of the most fortuitous discussions and debates that we had at the conference occurred during the networking hours and at our exhibit booth. We met with representatives from institutions such as S&P, Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, The Cayman Stock Exchange, Symbiont, Yamaha Financial Services and many brokers and lawyers.

Interestingly enough, we were the only crypto-player sponsoring the event which gave us the unique position as being the people to talk to about all things Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, and Tokenization. This allowed us to meet so of the most significant players in the world of banking and structured finance and provided us with the opportunity to introduce to them the concept of tokenization. Everyone was coming up to asking “So, what’s so good about blockchain technology”. Talk about a loaded question!

I could go on for hours about why blockchain is such an essential technological architecture and how it will define much of what we do throughout the rest of the 21st Century, but I’m sure many of you reading this feel the same. Still, we received many other great questions over the course of the week.

Why is Tokenization better than Securitization?

Well, there are many advantages that Tokenization has over Securitization. First, is the time efficiency. Traditionally, the process of securitizing an asset like real estate or a mortgage can take from 6 months to a year. Securitization also involves multiple parties, like SPVs, auditors, and credit rating agencies, who all provide important functions, but do so at a high time and financial cost. Tokenization streamlines these processes using the immutable transaction and assessment history of the asset on the blockchain. The single, standardized source of data and information makes this entire process move to completion far quicker than involving multiple parties and multiple data silos.

Finally, there’s transparency. Tokenization is obviously done via the blockchain ledger. In our case, it’s done on the Ethereum network. The greater transparency involved with tokenizing an asset on the blockchain addresses many of the transparency inefficiencies involved in the securitization process. As mentioned previously, the immutable record of changes to the asset allows all parties involved to see the history of a pool of assets. The possibility of issues like inaccurate risk assessment and fraud (for example, the inclusion of non-existent assets) is abated.

Can you give us an example of a tokenization product you have developed?

BANKEX has developed a few tokenization products thus far and has many more on the way. One of our more recent tokenization products is MediaToken, a platform for tokenizing Instagram accounts.

Social Media & Instagram follower and engagement data has always been a decent measure of popularity, but not as many people realize that it is also a measure of monetization. The Instagram Influencer economy is both emerging and complex, and the potential for companies and individuals to use Social Media metrics to their financial benefit represents a source of cash flow and the opportunity for tokenization.

So how does Tokenization of an Instagram account work? Data from the account, such as follower numbers, engagement, and impressions are processed on the Blockchain and performance parameter algorithms estimate the volume of funding the account could attract from investors. Based on these data inputs, tokens are created relative to the amount of funding the Instagram account could attract. The newly created mediatokens are placed on the BANKEX exchange where they can be purchased and transacted by investors around the world.

SFIG Vegas 2018 was a fantastic experience for the BANKEX team. We developed relationships with a number of brilliant individuals and began formulating ideas for the next big steps in the development of our company. We’re excited to share with you our new ideas and projects moving forward!”