Brief:

On the April 16th, DRC and WB Fleming hosted a talk at The Bridge, Singapore, to discuss about the future trend of IEO/STO, and the tax/accounting issues that every cryptocurrency start-up faces. 

Starting the event with CEO of DRC, Selina Lin presented a talk on the overview and focus of DRC towards the development of Regtech ecosystem and DRC’s current progress with ecosystem partners.

Selina mentioned the importance of Regtech in the blockchain ecosystem and why it is necessary that professionals on the blockchain space needs a distributed professional service platform like DRC to build on the future of blockchain innovation. The DRC Regtech ecosystem plays a crucial part in the actualisation of blockchain space so that everyone around the globe can share professional services and resources on a safe and governed platform. 

DRC successfully signed the MOU with strategic partners HashFuture, DMC, WB Flaming, Onchain custodian, and Moores Rowland to reach an understanding of the sustainable, collaboration and co-create in this blockchain ecosystem.

DRC also invited two well-known speakers in the blockchain field: Anthony Lai, from WB Fleming to talk about STO/IEO trend, and Aly Madhavji, from Blockchain Founders Fund,talked about the security token landscape. The speech was then followed by panel discussion with Anthony Lai, Wayne Tan, Jack Myo, Lisa Tan, and Boon Yip Yee on the discussion in blockchain ecosystem and regulation policies.

Anthony talked on the DSO/ STO Smart contracts issuance for digital securities/ security tokens, making comparisons between the different modes of fund raising from the traditional debt raising, private offering to funds, to the digital ICO and STO raising.  STO stands out among them all because of lower cost, higher operational savings, higher liquidity, multiple geography, and low to mid regulatory uncertainty. Anthony highlights that people are switching from ICO to STO as less people are inclining to invest in an ICO due to too many fraudulent cases of pumps and dumps. 

Aly Madhavji talked on the benefits and challenges of tokenization. Aly explained how we could tokenize these tradition securitizations to allow companies to have better automated compliance, more transparency, greater liquidity, faster transactions, and lower operating cost. At the same time, overcoming the challenges from people, market and process where there are still lack of involvement, poor liquidity on exchanges, lack of reporting, due diligence, audits on these instruments, and inflated security token valuations. Furthermore, the process is complex and expensive to launch and fundraise. 

During the panel speaking discussion, Lisa Tan was invited to speak on token economics and to share her view on how we would be able to tokenise these securities better and more efficient. On the other hand, the two panellists Jack Hua and Wayne Tan discussed more on the blockchain trending topics on blockchain education and regulatory procedures which provides audiences valuable insights and further understanding of the digitalisation in businesses. 

Panel speakers:

Anthony Lai is currently the director of the Carrington RHT Wealth. Anthony has been in banking and financial services industry for more than 23 years specialising in investment banking, financial services and corporate advisory. Graduating from Harvard University in Data Science, he now advocates for AI, DLT/ Blockchain, IoT & sustainable energy. 

Boon Yip Yee is a CA Singapore Director at the MRI Moores Rowland LLP, chartered accountant and public accountant approved by the governing body ISCA. Boon Yip is the partner in charge of assurance and financial risk management services in DRC. He has over 15 years of audit experience which 5 years are in internal audit and risk management services.

Jack Myo is currently a business development director at Block On Capital while still remained as CEO at AlphaXLab. Jack is a serial entrepreneur that created and built multiple startups. He led his previous startup to achieving half a million in revenue in its 1st year.

Lisa Tan is currently a token economics researcher at economics design. She is currently researching to define and develop robust token ecosystem through efficient market design and sound economics architecture and design. 

Wayne Tan is currently a senior associate at the Selvam LLC. Wayne is experienced lawyer working in the law practice industry in Singapore and overseas. He specialised in Commercial/ Corporate law with a specialization in intellectual property commercialization, cryptocurrency and fintech.

To conclude, the event ran smoothly and finished up with a networking session after. DRC looks forward to working closely with our partners and continue to grow and develop in the blockchain ecosystem. We would like to see you at our next meetup!