1/ Here are the slides from my talk at #BH2018 Baltic Honey Badger by Hodl Hodl

My goal is to explain:
- why stocks/ securities are a foundation of global commerce
- how ledgers work now
- why Cypherpunks, Bitcoiners & free market economists should care

Past, Present & Future 2/ Understanding the problems and how ledgers currently work is key to addressing some major points people often ask about:

- the value of a blockchain or token
- why a database can’t be used

1/ Some data points: major and well funded exchanges including Coinbase, tZero, Gemini and Circle have announced or taken steps to trade securities tokens 2/ Existing securities firms and exchanges such as ICE have announced and taken steps to list digital assets

1/ Hey by the way, important point on securities tokens: While some people / companies talking about this topic think it’s about creating different blockchains for each security - I personally don’t think so & think that would be a bad idea 2/ securities tokens will almost almost be issued using another chain: Bitcoin (using tools like Omnilayer, Blockstream’s Liquid, or RSK which allows Solidty), Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum as ERC20 or with Polymath, Litecoin, Cardano, EOS, Ravencoin or another

Problems with securities tokens:

- if value exceeds the value of the native asset on the chain it creates a security incentive change

- user controlled bearer assets will likely be lost or hacked more than current system

- ease of use could create boom of low quality projects - while it will enable liquidity for small offerings, these thinly traded offerings will have some drawbacks for issuers due to low volume & difficultly communicating with shareholders

- tax and other legal implications will require investment

Things Americans are allowed to legally purchase:
- state sold lottery tickets
- diet pills
- timeshares
- casino gambling
- payday loans
- rent to own furniture

Illegal:
Hedge funds & venture capital funds which are reserved exclusively for Congress members & other rich people. Sorry Joe Sixpack, no KKR, Apollo, Blackstone or a16z for you! Too risky! Now get down to the state lotto office.

Trading is a difficult & specialized skill to learn.

I don’t get the logic of so many people choosing trading as a vocation within crypto: it adds a layer of risk to an already risky sector, takes time & skill and is very unlikely to generate Alpha over the broad sector or BTC. In other words, unless you genuinely want to have a long term profession as a full time trader, don’t waste time following experts on charts, instead follow the best minds and create a thesis for where the overall industry is going, make long term investments, not trades.

1/ Bitcoin maximalism in the sense of believing its the best or that it will be a global reserve currency makes a lot of sense. Maximalism in the sense of thinking that no other coin, token or project will EVER have value makes nearly zero sense. Here’s why: 2/ Science is meant to be moved forward by being built on: Satoshi built on ideas from Wei Dei, Nick Szabo, Adam Back and others - he or she chose an open source license, it’s meant to be copied and experimented with

1/ For a demo yesterday I tokenized a security using the Bitcoin blockchain on live video.

It took 10 minutes using a web browser, a pen and $10.

This token security is legal, complies with SEC regulations, is recognized by Delaware and represents a real operating business. 2/ For this demo I used the simplest method I could:

- company with one shareholder
- simple Counterparty token (a protocol using the Bitcoin network) to create asset A1514842398425338000
- corp resolution to recognize tokens as shares
- SEC exemption under section 4(a)(2)

A whitepaper for the Ravencoin project was released yesterday.

Here’s a summary:

1/ First: The paper isn’t asking anyone for a penny- it's actual technical paper not a marketing document for a centralized scam coin/ ICO. Ravencoin is a free & open source community project 2/ The paper is open for peer review, its not working to sell you something, its purpose is to discuss ideas and determine if this science can work, comments are welcome --

Make 1000 tokens.
Keep 700 & give 1 to the first 300 people who ask, then buy 10 tokens back at $10 each.
You’ve spent $100.
Token market cap is $10k & you made $7000 on paper...from a $100 investment.
Add money, hype, FOMO, greed, marketing, multiply by 10,000
That’s many ICOs. If only TWO buyers bid on the limited number that the 300 people will sell then your $7000 can easily 2-10x. Congrats, you now made $70,000 from your $100 investment.
Sound crazy? Same metric as a $10,000 coin investment turning to $7 mil. Insane. ;)