Digital Security Industry in Canada|Digital Security Frontier Vision #4

Welcome to Digital Security Frontier Vision: The Voice of the Core Builders from Global Digital Security Industry #4

This interview was published in February, 2019 in China. And now we also want to share this interview here. Welcome Brian Leiberman to share his views about Digital Security Industry in Canada.

Brian Leiberman is the Chief Operating Officer at MLG Blockchain. Brian is the director of BlockHacks, a blockchain centered hackathathon and is a Certified Bitcoin Professional. Before joining MLG, Brian served as Head of Operations and Business Development at Guiker.com as well as for Sonder.com previous to that.

1.Canadian Governments has adopted a regulatory sandboxes of Crypto industry, How has this regulation affected the this industry？

I think this is a positive step forward for the industry. I am not a lawyer so I shouldn’t be giving out legal advice but it is great to see companies like Corl coming to market with security tokens that the regulators are comfortable with. I think this will spur innovation in many sectors. It is an exciting time in the financial space for sure.

2.What do you think of the strong regulatory attitude held by the United States?

I think that the SEC is the gold standard for regulatory frameworks globally so they must be stringent with their regulations as many countries are looking to the US for guidance. I think this year we will see the first Reg A+ STO in the United States with many more companies doing the same once the path is cleared. It wouldn’t surprise me to see public companies use an STO as a funding mechanism for certain projects. If you look at Biotech for example, there are high fees associated with R&D that could potentially be offset using this type of funding mechanism where a company would then pay royalty revenue to the folks who have decided to fund the project.

3.Where are your customers coming from?

Our customers are global. I think there is an interest from all industries in what we are doing and we have been fortunate to attract a global clientele base.The services provided by MLG in the blockchain industry are well established. What do you think is the most challenging business?

4.You have so many Business partner, but only a few of them from Asia. Why? How do you see the Asian market?

I think Asia is an extremely important market, though we have yet to spend much time there. We are continuously looking for strong Asian partners as we are aware of the differences and challenges that North American businesses face when entering Asian markets. We are excited about the collaboration opportunities with Cabn Capital and the STOCOOP as we believe this will help position us properly in the Asian marketplace.

5.You said,“Over the past year, we’ve consulted on over 100 million dollars worth of token sales” Can you tell me more about that experience?

2018 has been a wild ride, we have learned a lot about the industry and what makes token sales successful. I think 2019 will be the year people focus more on private sales and STO’s or Digital Securities offerings as the public market has calmed down substantially.

6.What’s your experience of project incubation? What kind of projects do you prefer to incubate?

We have worked on a few projects internally and have taken them to market successfully. We are always on the look out for best in class technology companies with a unique offering. We believe that with our network we are able to create go to market strategies that will ultimately be successful.

7.How does STO industry in Canada develop currently?

In Canada, to be able to buy and sell securities in Canada you need to have an Canadian securities license or use a regulated entity to do the underwriting. Much like in the USA where you need to have a Broker Dealer represent the issuer when selling security tokens to the public.

Corl officially launched their security on the Polymath network. So the industry is live so to speak. I would look for many more STO’s to launch this year.

Polymath is also a Canadian company that has many people excited as it has created a security token protocol for issuance of security tokens.

Hyperion is another company that I think is interesting as they will allow for primary issuance and secondary market trading.

8.What is your opinion on the current bear market? Do you think STO will have a positive impact on market’s rally?

I think a lot of people lost money in this market and as such, they are looking at blockchain investments skeptically. However, given security tokens are backed by real businesses and/or assets people have the ability to invest in opportunities that they did not have before.

9.What is MLG ‘s investment in STO industry?

We have invested in the security token exchange and issuance platform Hyperion. I think ultimately, digital securities will transform much of the current financial world and we were excited about the technology and team behind Hyperion.

10.What do you think is the biggest problem with STO? And what do you think about STO’s shortage of liquidity?

Right now I believe it is the lack of education about what STO’s truly are and what advantages they bring to the market. I think 2019 will be a big year for the industry.

Again, the shortage of liquidity comes down to education. The more people understand what is going on the more people will become interested.

Also, you must think about the 6–12 month holding periods a lot of these projects have on there tokens. Once these expire I would expect to see an uptick in trading.

11.The traditional UT market is based on the exchange. What changes will happen in the ST market?

I think platforms will still be important. Further I think the platform with the projects that have the best returns will ultimately be the most popular among investors, meaning more projects will want to list on those platforms etc. This leads to the conclusion that the teams who are able to generate the best returns will likely be courted by platforms to post their projects there to continue the above cycle.

The issuance platforms will become commoditized as the industry matures. The more difficult part of the equation is lining up the investors on the platform who understand what they are buying, and how to trade the tokens. This is why we spend a lot of time and resources at MLG educating investors on whats to come and how to participate in the market.

12.How will STO industry develop in 2019?

I think you will see platforms go live, secondary markets start to trade more tokens and ultimately more attention being paid to the sector in general.

Thank you for the interview!

• Check Chinese version of this interview here
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