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Securitize, a California-based blockchain technology startup, has registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a transfer agent, CoinDesk reported.
Founded in 2017, Securitize is a compliance platform and protocol for issuing and managing digital securities on the blockchain, including dividends, distributions, and share buy-backs. It raised $12.75 million last November and is backed by Coinbase Ventures and Xpring at Ripple, among others.
With this registration, the company can now act as the official record-keeper of ownership changes in securities. It would be able to “keep a real-time cap table of investors and facilitate corporate actions for issuers, including, among other things, the payment of dividends and interest, conducting shareholder votes and redemptions/share buybacks,” the press release said.
“We can increase the amount of securities issued on the blockchain and give comfort to people that this is a regulated space,” said Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize. “The SEC has also started approving other types of exempted securities like Reg A+ and down the road those people will need transfer agents.”
Domingo told the news outlet that Securitize will record transfers at zero fees, which usually cost around $150 per transfer for regular, SEC-registered securities. The company, however, would charge a fee for the management of securities and corporate actions.
In an update, dated July 12, on the progress made since its inception, Securitize said:
“[We] have signed a total of 43 customers. We had a record number of signings with 17 new customers coming in Q2 2019 (it was also our record revenue per quarter). Out of our 47 total customers, nine have already issued security tokens on the public Ethereum blockchain … with the total value of the securities reaching close to $200M. All of these securities are digitally represented on the blockchain through tokens issued using our Digital Securities compliance protocol…”
According to CoinDesk, the company has recently announced the eleventh issued and outstanding digital security on its platform. Five of these digital securities are traded on regulated, SEC-registered alternative trading systems (ATSs).
In its press release, Securitize has claimed to be the first transfer agent registered with the SEC that has a “working blockchain protocol, active securities issuers and integrations” which allow digital securities enabled by its protocol to be traded on SEC-registered ATSs.
