David Durand, Advisor, Innovation and Advocacy
September 9th, 2020
David Durand, LL.L., B.Sc. chem., – Founder and Managing Partner of Durand Lawyers – Lawyer (Québec)[...]
Entrepreneurs who use Utility Tokens to reduce CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) will create the most valuable Security Tokens
Daily Fintech | | Apr 13, 2019
This post is an update to the chapter on Investing in Utility Tokens in The Blockchain Economy digital book.
This post describes:
- The SEC rules governing Utility Tokens.
- Laws change over time and vary by jurisdiction.
- Four reasons why other jurisdictions will probably follow the SEC rules.
- Utility Tokens can be used to improve CAC/LTV, which is a critical metric driving valuation.
- Invest in Security Tokens of ventures that offer great Utility Tokens.
- Two ways that a Utility Token is different from a traditional crowdsale.
- The future cryptocurrency landscape will have 4 different types of assets.
See: A Regulation Revolution In Financial Services
The SEC rules governing Utility Tokens
The SEC rules were analysed in Ilias Louis Hatzis’s Daily Fintech post on Monday. For convenience the key rules (defined in a No Action letter for the Utility Token of a company called TJK) are copied below:
- “Token holders won’t be granted an ownership stake in the company.
- Any funds raised from the token sale will not be used develop the platform or app.
- When the tokens are sold, they must be usable immediately for their intended functionality.
- Transfers of the TKJ tokens are restricted only to TKJ wallets. External wallets are not allowed.
- TKJ tokens will be priced at 1 USD per token. Each token will essentially function as a pre-paid coupon for TurnKey’s air charter services. If TurnKey wants to buy back the token (coupon), it must do so at a discount (less than 1 USD).
- The token must be marketed in a way that emphasizes its functionality, and not its potential to increase in value, over time.”
Laws change over time and vary by jurisdiction
The Legacy Finance world has Debt and Equity. The Blockchain Economy has Utility and Security Tokens. You can tokenise Debt (just like you can tokenise Equity or any other asset) but that does not change the fundamental characteristic of that asset.
See: The Security Token Field – The Next Step After the ICO Annihilation?
Debt is illegal in Islamic Finance (for more please read this). There are workarounds that dress up debt to look like equity, just like there are workarounds that ICOs used to dress up a security to make it look like a utility token. This perspective is useful when you look at the legality of Security vs Utility tokens ie laws change over time and vary by jurisdiction.
Four reasons why other jurisdictions will probably follow the SEC rules
Yes, the SEC only has jurisdiction over one market – America, but here are the four reasons why other jurisdictions will probably follow the SEC rules:
- America is still the biggest single market.
- SEC is known as a tough regulator that is not afraid to take cross border action.
- SEC has defined some clear rules. So entrepreneurs can plan around these rules.
- There is no single regulatory market in Asia, which is the growth engine of the 21st century.
There will be minor markets that differentiate by being easier on Utility Tokens, but unless they also offer a large investor pool, that will be “noise on the line”. Europe’s legislation/regulation will be interesting to watch. Unless Europe takes a differentiated position soon, the market will follow the SEC rules.
Utility Tokens can be used to improve CAC/LTV, which is a critical metric driving valuation
CAC/LTV = Customer Acquisition Cost/Life Time Value.
You can use this to evaluate the value of both Banks and Fintechs, as we described in this post from 2015. In fact just about any company can be evaluated using CAC/LTV.
Both CAC and LTV are complex in their own right, but it is the interaction between the two that is so often confusing or difficult.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the metric to evaluate Marketing efficiency.
See: TokenFunder announces Canada’s first Security Token Exempt Market Dealer
Churn is the kryptonite of Superman Marketing. The problem with Churn it is not directly under the control of Marketing. This is where Product is key. Another way of saying Churn is “if customers think the product sucks, all that expensive Marketing is wasted”. Churn means customers cancel the service and then Marketing have to win new customers, which is far more expensive than retaining them.
Life Time Value is not static. LTV is all about getting the balance right between cross selling, upselling and low churn – too much selling to customers may increase churn. If LTV goes down, you have to reduce CAC. Product strategy, pricing, marketing, customer service all have to be in alignment.
The story of Banking in the 20th century can be summed up as Low Churn. We are statistically more likely to get divorced than change banks. There was no point in changing Banks, because the difference between banks was marginal. The Fintech disruption changes that. Now customers have more real choice and regulation is seeking to protect consumers from lock-in strategies that make it hard for them to switch.
Crowdsales are a great way for companies to sell a service aka reduce CAC. It is Internet Marketing 101. Crowdsales have been around for a while, but Utility Tokens enable Crowdsales on steroids.
Two ways that a Utility Token is different from a traditional crowdsale.
- The buyer has the comfort that if they no longer want to use the service they can sell their Utility Tokens. If everybody wants to sell their Utility Tokens because their service is no good, token holders will lose. If the service is great but the token holder’s life situation changes they can sell their Utility Tokens.
- The buyer feels more committed to the success of the venture. Some of that commitment is psychological and some of it is quite practical. A Utility Token is like a Loyalty Coin (more than it is like a Security) but it is a Loyalty Coin with some fungibility (you can sell it for cash if the venture/service is a success and demand exceeds supply).
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2020 FINTECH DRAFT PITCHING AND DEMO COMPANY WINNERS!   |
AltFi | Daniel Lanyon | Nov 20, 2020 A boom in business banking has helped boost Starling Bank’s coffers. Strong momentum in new customer accounts and increasing revenues have prompted digital bank Starling to break even, according to a trading update for the three months to 31 October. Starling Bank, which was launched by Anne Boden five years ago, is the first ‘neo-bank’ to reach this milestone, the company said. In October Starling hit 1.42 million retail accounts compared to 827k, an increase of 71.7 per cent. Over the same period business accounts were the standout growth area with an increase of 245 per cent, from 74,000 to 256,000. Business accounts saw a 500 per cent increase in total deposits with the average amount held by SMEs also going up. Starling now has total customer deposits of c.£4bn. This has all helped Starling generate a positive operating profit of £0.8m for the month of October 2020, which represents £10.1m on an annualised basis. See: Neobanks Can’t Fight the COVID-19 “Flight to Quality” Investment Crowdfunding Advocates Join to Launch New Fintech Startup GUARDD in Move to Boost Secondary Markets for Exempt Securities In total Starling generated total operating income of £9m for the month of October 2020. This, it adds, translates to an annualised revenue ...
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Read More
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Read More
Gowling WLG | Tara Amiri-Khaledi | Nov 24, 2020 As an entrepreneur trying to get your business off the ground, there are many factors to think about and the legal "stuff" may easily be forgotten. In this article, we touch on the top 5 considerations entrepreneurs need to think about when starting out. Term Sheets Once you have structured your business, you will have your idea tested (hopefully) and you will need capital. One typical way is to look for parties that will invest in start-ups such as angel or venture capital investors ("VC"). At this point, you will hear the term "Term Sheet" a lot. See: Debt vs. Equity Financing: Pros And Cons For Entrepreneurs 7 Types of Investors to Avoid Like The Plague When Trying To Raise Capital For Your Startup Convertible Debt vs. Equity: Which Is Right for Your Startup? At its simplest form a term sheet is a summary big picture document of key terms agreed upon between the entrepreneur and the VC in contemplation of a financing and will cover, at a minimum, "economics issues" (valuation of the company, i.e. how much money for what percentage of the company) and "control issues" (who will run ...
Read More
Bloomberg | Katie Roof and Scott Deveau | Nov 24, 2020 Private financial technology business Stripe Inc. is in talks to raise a new funding round valuing it higher than its last private valuation of $36 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The valuation being discussed could be more than $70 billion or significantly higher, at as much as $100 billion, said one of the people, who asked not be identified because the matter is private. That would make it currently the most valuable venture-backed startup in the U.S., according to CB Insights. Stripe’s software, which competes with Square Inc. and Paypal Holdings Inc., is used by businesses to accept payments. According to its website, Stripe’s customers include Amazon.com Inc., Salesforce.com Inc., Lyft Inc. and Instacart Inc. See: Lightspeed and Stripe Partner to Launch New Payments Feature Stripe, the world’s most valuable private fintech company, is getting into lending The company has benefited during the pandemic with more shoppers turning to e-commerce. It’s gone on offense during the downturn this year, starting a card-issuing service for U.S. clients and agreeing to acquire a Nigerian startup to expand in Africa. Brother Founders Irish brothers John and Patrick Collison founded Stripe ...
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Mayer Brown | Paul Forrester | Nov 18, 2020 In its recent report “Holistic Review of the March Market Turmoil” (Report), the Financial Stability Board (FSB) notes that “[t]he March [2020] turmoil has reinforced the need to better understand interconnections and amplification channels in the financial system and to consider the nature of vulnerabilities in non-bank financial intermediation (NBFI) in relation to the liquidity stress and the implications of central bank liquidity support, and draw lessons about overall resilience of the NBFI sector.”1 The Report also notes the need “for further work to increase the resilience of NBFI.”2 The Report also notes that “non-bank financial entities – comprising investment funds, insurance companies, pension funds and other financial intermediaries – have different structures and are subject to distinct regulatory frameworks within and across jurisdictions. Their asset share has increased to almost half of global financial assets, compared to 42% in 2008, due to both inflows and valuation increases. One factor behind this increase has been the growth of investment funds, whose assets have expanded from roughly US$21 trillion in 2008 to US$53 trillion in 2018.”3 See: OSFI launches consultation on technology risks in the financial sector (Deadline: Dec 15) The Report ...
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GSMA | Nov 25, 2020 GROWING AND GLOBALISING 2019 marked a major milestone for the mobile money industry: the number of registered mobile money accounts surpassed one billion. Reaching the one billion mark is a tremendous achievement for an industry that is just over a decade old. The mobile money industry of today has a host of seasoned providers with a broad set of operational capabilities, a full suite of products and a global reach. With 290 live services in 95 countries and 372 million active accounts, mobile money is entering the mainstream and becoming the path to financial inclusion in most low-income countries. See: Task Force Analyzes Role of Fintech in Accelerating SDGs Mobile money services are available in 96 per cent of countries where less than a third of the population have an account at a formal financial institution. INCREASING USER TRUST AND RELEVANCE Overall growth in transaction values has been impressive in the past 12 months. Total transaction values grew by 20 per cent, reaching $690 billion in 2019, which means the industry is now processing close to $2 billion a day (over $1.9 billion). This growth and scale is a positive signal for the industry as ...
Read More
Silicon Public | Lisa Ardill | Nov 24, 2020 Learn how to kickstart your career in fintech and what to expect of the field from people working in it, from software developers to blockchain engineers. Wondering what it takes to carve out a career in fintech? It’s an industry going from strength to strength with plenty of choice. You can opt to work for a specialised firm, such as Revolut or Stripe, or in-house at wider companies like Accenture or Aon. And there are plenty of jobs up for grabs in the sector. Recent announcements across the island of Ireland include Transact’s 110 jobs for Limerick, Overstock’s plans for a new tech team in Sligo and Lightyear’s expansion in Belfast. If you’re hoping to take your own career down a fintech route, read on to learn from others in the industry. Who can pursue a career in fintech? As with any field today, it takes a village to make fintech work – and a diverse one, at that. Danny Buckley of EY, for example, started out in law before switching paths. See: AI Will Transform 500 Million White-Collar Jobs In 5 Years; Silicon Valley Must Help He’s now the company’s ...
Read More
Financial News | Will Hadfield and Emily Nicolle | Nov 20, 2020 There is now 'a greater urgency by institutional investors to not miss out — to invest some of their assets in bitcoin, because this time looks different' It may be hedge funds, rather than retail investors, that are driving this autumn’s rally in the price of bitcoin. And this time round, the institutional investors are buying exchange-traded products as well as the underlying cryptocurrency. A bitcoin ETP managed by Swiss issuer 21Shares is receiving creations — the equivalent of inflows — of as much as $3 million a day. In November last year, it took all month to attract the same amount of new money. See: Canada’s first public Bitcoin fund hits $100M mark Investors in bitcoin ETPs are overwhelmingly institutions, rather than individuals. “This is purely us targeting institutional investors,” Laurent Kssis, managing director at 21Shares, told Financial News. “Our business is focused solely on institutional investors’ mandate to add crypto to their portfolio strategies and we have not really touched the retail market yet.” Many institutional investors sat on the sidelines when bitcoin experienced its first dramatic rally in 2017 — the cryptocurrency surged to $19,783 before collapsing ...
Read More
AltFi | Daniel Lanyon | Nov 20, 2020 A boom in business banking has helped boost Starling Bank’s coffers. Strong momentum in new customer accounts and increasing revenues have prompted digital bank Starling to break even, according to a trading update for the three months to 31 October. Starling Bank, which was launched by Anne Boden five years ago, is the first ‘neo-bank’ to reach this milestone, the company said. In October Starling hit 1.42 million retail accounts compared to 827k, an increase of 71.7 per cent. Over the same period business accounts were the standout growth area with an increase of 245 per cent, from 74,000 to 256,000. Business accounts saw a 500 per cent increase in total deposits with the average amount held by SMEs also going up. Starling now has total customer deposits of c.£4bn. This has all helped Starling generate a positive operating profit of £0.8m for the month of October 2020, which represents £10.1m on an annualised basis. See: Neobanks Can’t Fight the COVID-19 “Flight to Quality” Investment Crowdfunding Advocates Join to Launch New Fintech Startup GUARDD in Move to Boost Secondary Markets for Exempt Securities In total Starling generated total operating income of £9m for the month of October 2020. This, it adds, translates to an annualised revenue ...
Read More
Read More
Crowdfund Insider | JD Alois | Nov 24, 2020 The exempt securities marketplace can be arcane and challenging to manage for entrepreneurs seeking to raise capital. The advent of online capital formation has helped to democratize access to capital as well as streamline securities offerings but hurdles do remain. A new startup co-founded by several prominent names in the investment crowdfunding industry seeks to facilitate secondary transactions for private securities. Sherwood “Woodie” Neiss, co-founder of Crowdfund Capital Advisors, Doug Ellenoff, Managing Partner of Manhattan law firm of Ellenoff, Grossman, and Schole, and Jim Dowd, founder and CEO of North Capital Private Securities, have joined to launch GUARDD: A Fintech designed to support secondary market trading for private company securities, including digital assets/tokens to facilitate compliance with both federal transparency requirements and state blue sky laws. According to a note from the company, GUARDD enables the necessary disclosure and dissemination of private company information for investors, regulators, and market participants. This allows issuers to comply with federal and state financial disclosure requirements related to the trading of private company securities in secondary markets, thus addressing a challenge regarding exempt securities that tend to be illiquid. Overall, more liquidity can help price discovery ...
Read More
Read More
Paul | Weiss | Nov 18, 2020 China’s competition regulator, the State Administration for Market Regulation (“SAMR”), issued a consultation draft of the Anti-Monopoly Guidelines on the Sector of Platform Economies (the “Draft Guidelines”) on November 10, 2020. This marks China’s first major step in formulating a comprehensive regime to regulate competition among platform businesses operated on the Internet (the “Platform Economy”) and signals SAMR’s changed regulatory priorities with a focus on anti-competitive behavior in the Platform Economy. The Draft Guidelines attempt to address perceived shortcomings in applying traditional antitrust analysis to the Platform Economy. SAMR has drawn upon the experience of regulators and academics in this emerging area and attempted to consolidate the lessons learnt in various jurisdictions. The Draft Guidelines set out in detail the considerations that may be taken into account and the defenses that may be available, providing some guidance to platform businesses on how to achieve compliance. See: China Stops Jack Ma’s $35 Billion Ant IPO From Going Ahead DOJ files antitrust lawesuit challenging Visa’s $5.3 billion acquisition of Plaid While the Draft Guidelines are brief in length, only 23 provisions in total, they are wide‑ranging in their scope. Rather than an exhaustive review of ...
Read More
Read More
The New York Times | Steven Lee Myers and Keith Bradsher | Nov 24, 2020 China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is pursuing a strategy to make the country’s economy more self-sufficient, while making other places more dependent on it than ever. After Australia dared last spring to call for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, China began quietly blocking one import after another from Australia — coal, wine, barley and cotton — in violation of free-trade norms. Then this month, with no clear explanation, China left $3 million worth of Australian rock lobsters dying in Shanghai customs. Australia nonetheless joined 14 Asian nations and just signed a new regional free-trade deal brokered by China. The agreement covers nearly a third of the world’s population and output, reinforcing China’s position as the dominant economic and diplomatic power in Asia. See: What to expect from Biden-Harris on tech policy, platform regulation, and China It’s globalization with Communist characteristics: The Chinese government promotes the country’s openness to the world, even as it adopts increasingly aggressive and at times punitive policies that force countries to play by its rules. With the United States and others wary of its growing dominance in areas like ...
Read More
Read More
Gowling WLG | Tara Amiri-Khaledi | Nov 24, 2020 As an entrepreneur trying to get your business off the ground, there are many factors to think about and the legal "stuff" may easily be forgotten. In this article, we touch on the top 5 considerations entrepreneurs need to think about when starting out. Term Sheets Once you have structured your business, you will have your idea tested (hopefully) and you will need capital. One typical way is to look for parties that will invest in start-ups such as angel or venture capital investors ("VC"). At this point, you will hear the term "Term Sheet" a lot. See: Debt vs. Equity Financing: Pros And Cons For Entrepreneurs 7 Types of Investors to Avoid Like The Plague When Trying To Raise Capital For Your Startup Convertible Debt vs. Equity: Which Is Right for Your Startup? At its simplest form a term sheet is a summary big picture document of key terms agreed upon between the entrepreneur and the VC in contemplation of a financing and will cover, at a minimum, "economics issues" (valuation of the company, i.e. how much money for what percentage of the company) and "control issues" (who will run ...
Read More
Read More
Bloomberg | Katie Roof and Scott Deveau | Nov 24, 2020 Private financial technology business Stripe Inc. is in talks to raise a new funding round valuing it higher than its last private valuation of $36 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The valuation being discussed could be more than $70 billion or significantly higher, at as much as $100 billion, said one of the people, who asked not be identified because the matter is private. That would make it currently the most valuable venture-backed startup in the U.S., according to CB Insights. Stripe’s software, which competes with Square Inc. and Paypal Holdings Inc., is used by businesses to accept payments. According to its website, Stripe’s customers include Amazon.com Inc., Salesforce.com Inc., Lyft Inc. and Instacart Inc. See: Lightspeed and Stripe Partner to Launch New Payments Feature Stripe, the world’s most valuable private fintech company, is getting into lending The company has benefited during the pandemic with more shoppers turning to e-commerce. It’s gone on offense during the downturn this year, starting a card-issuing service for U.S. clients and agreeing to acquire a Nigerian startup to expand in Africa. Brother Founders Irish brothers John and Patrick Collison founded Stripe ...
Read More
Read More
Mayer Brown | Paul Forrester | Nov 18, 2020 In its recent report “Holistic Review of the March Market Turmoil” (Report), the Financial Stability Board (FSB) notes that “[t]he March [2020] turmoil has reinforced the need to better understand interconnections and amplification channels in the financial system and to consider the nature of vulnerabilities in non-bank financial intermediation (NBFI) in relation to the liquidity stress and the implications of central bank liquidity support, and draw lessons about overall resilience of the NBFI sector.”1 The Report also notes the need “for further work to increase the resilience of NBFI.”2 The Report also notes that “non-bank financial entities – comprising investment funds, insurance companies, pension funds and other financial intermediaries – have different structures and are subject to distinct regulatory frameworks within and across jurisdictions. Their asset share has increased to almost half of global financial assets, compared to 42% in 2008, due to both inflows and valuation increases. One factor behind this increase has been the growth of investment funds, whose assets have expanded from roughly US$21 trillion in 2008 to US$53 trillion in 2018.”3 See: OSFI launches consultation on technology risks in the financial sector (Deadline: Dec 15) The Report ...
Read More
Read More
GSMA | Nov 25, 2020 GROWING AND GLOBALISING 2019 marked a major milestone for the mobile money industry: the number of registered mobile money accounts surpassed one billion. Reaching the one billion mark is a tremendous achievement for an industry that is just over a decade old. The mobile money industry of today has a host of seasoned providers with a broad set of operational capabilities, a full suite of products and a global reach. With 290 live services in 95 countries and 372 million active accounts, mobile money is entering the mainstream and becoming the path to financial inclusion in most low-income countries. See: Task Force Analyzes Role of Fintech in Accelerating SDGs Mobile money services are available in 96 per cent of countries where less than a third of the population have an account at a formal financial institution. INCREASING USER TRUST AND RELEVANCE Overall growth in transaction values has been impressive in the past 12 months. Total transaction values grew by 20 per cent, reaching $690 billion in 2019, which means the industry is now processing close to $2 billion a day (over $1.9 billion). This growth and scale is a positive signal for the industry as ...
Read More
Read More
Silicon Public | Lisa Ardill | Nov 24, 2020 Learn how to kickstart your career in fintech and what to expect of the field from people working in it, from software developers to blockchain engineers. Wondering what it takes to carve out a career in fintech? It’s an industry going from strength to strength with plenty of choice. You can opt to work for a specialised firm, such as Revolut or Stripe, or in-house at wider companies like Accenture or Aon. And there are plenty of jobs up for grabs in the sector. Recent announcements across the island of Ireland include Transact’s 110 jobs for Limerick, Overstock’s plans for a new tech team in Sligo and Lightyear’s expansion in Belfast. If you’re hoping to take your own career down a fintech route, read on to learn from others in the industry. Who can pursue a career in fintech? As with any field today, it takes a village to make fintech work – and a diverse one, at that. Danny Buckley of EY, for example, started out in law before switching paths. See: AI Will Transform 500 Million White-Collar Jobs In 5 Years; Silicon Valley Must Help He’s now the company’s ...
Read More
Read More
Financial News | Will Hadfield and Emily Nicolle | Nov 20, 2020 There is now 'a greater urgency by institutional investors to not miss out — to invest some of their assets in bitcoin, because this time looks different' It may be hedge funds, rather than retail investors, that are driving this autumn’s rally in the price of bitcoin. And this time round, the institutional investors are buying exchange-traded products as well as the underlying cryptocurrency. A bitcoin ETP managed by Swiss issuer 21Shares is receiving creations — the equivalent of inflows — of as much as $3 million a day. In November last year, it took all month to attract the same amount of new money. See: Canada’s first public Bitcoin fund hits $100M mark Investors in bitcoin ETPs are overwhelmingly institutions, rather than individuals. “This is purely us targeting institutional investors,” Laurent Kssis, managing director at 21Shares, told Financial News. “Our business is focused solely on institutional investors’ mandate to add crypto to their portfolio strategies and we have not really touched the retail market yet.” Many institutional investors sat on the sidelines when bitcoin experienced its first dramatic rally in 2017 — the cryptocurrency surged to $19,783 before collapsing ...
Read More
Read More
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