Book Image

Security Tokens and Stablecoins Quick Start Guide

By : Weimin Sun, Xun (Brian) Wu, Angela Kwok
Book Image

Security Tokens and Stablecoins Quick Start Guide

By: Weimin Sun, Xun (Brian) Wu, Angela Kwok

Overview of this book

The failure of initial coin offerings (ICOs) is no accident, as most ICOs do not link to a real asset and are not regulated. Realizing the shortcomings of ICOs, the blockchain community and potential investors embraced security token offerings (STOs) and stablecoins enthusiastically. In this book, we start with an overview of the blockchain technology along with its basic concepts. We introduce the concept behind STO, and cover the basic requirements for launching a STO and the relevant regulations governing its issuance. We discuss U.S. securities laws development in launching security digital tokens using blockchain technology and show some real use cases. We also explore the process of STO launches and legal considerations. We introduce popular security tokens in the current blockchain space and talk about how to develop a security token DApp, including smart contract development for ERC1404 tokens. Later, you'll learn to build frontend side functionalities to interact with smart contracts. Finally, we discuss stablecoin technical design functionalities for issuing and operating STO tokens by interacting with Ethereum smart contracts. By the end of this book, you will have learned more about STOs and gained a detailed knowledge of building relevant applications—all with the help of practical examples.
Table of Contents (9 chapters)

Summary

To issue an STO, issuers need to follow requirements under the Securities Act of 1933 and be monitored by the SEC and FinCEN. For state issuance, issuers are subject to the state's blue sky laws and state regulators. The main issue is that the federal and state governments' goals are to protect the general public and investors against fraud and ensure that the investors are informed so they can make informed investment decisions.

However, whether an STO is subject to US securities laws is very fact specific. As you can see from the preceding real cases, the SEC's analysis emphasizes the economic reality of the transaction and the way the creators of the tokens market the STO. The SEC will look at substance rather than form. A token being called a utility token will not preclude the SEC from reclassifying such a token as a security.

Other than securities...