DigiShares

DigiShares’ Newsletter 66

Eyethu Beverages Token: DigiShares White-Label Partner Afri-X Tokenizes African Beverages

As the highlight of the past week; Afri-X.com announced the launch of Eyethu Beverages Token, issued on the DigiShares tokenization platform, as Afri-X’s first token outside of the Real Estate market.

“This is one of the first real tokenization projects we are aware of in Africa and we hope it will see a good level of interest. We particular like the element of democratization which is so important both in Africa and elsewhere in order to give equal opportunity access to investments into assets that are normally out of reach for retail investors”, commented Claus Skaaning, CEO at DigiShares.

Read the Full Article here.

MIT Real Estate Forum 2021

Join DigiShares and our VP of Business Development Bjørn Holta at the 2-day MIT Real Estate Forum 2021 by the MIT Center for Real Estate this July 13-14.

Participants can expect:
– Engaging discussions: Lively and informative discussions between industry thought leaders on topics impacting global real estate – today and into the future.
– A look into the future: Join industry leaders, distinguished MIT faculty and researchers, developers and investors, technologists and founders, in a wide-ranging and far-reaching conversation about the future of global real estate.
– MIT Innovation Showcase: A unique opportunity to learn about MIT’s latest, most exciting research on real estate innovation, technology, and the future of global real estate.

More information about MIT Real Estate Forum and how to register can be found here.

DigiShares Monthly Community Calls: Real Estate Tokenization in Practice

DigiShares is excited to announce our incoming webinar series: Real Estate Tokenization in Practice. This series will consist of initially 4 monthly webinars, namely: Value Proposition of Tokenized Real Estate, Real Estate Tokenization & DeFi Lending, Real Estate Tokenization & Decentralized Trading and Real Estate Tokenization & Banks starting from August 18, 2021.

The webinar is of interest for anyone interested in staying on the leading edge of real estate tokenization with one of the leading players, DigiShares. On every community call there will be a status update from our management, an expert presentation on a topic of current interest in relation to tokenization (DeFi, banking, stablecoins, etc.) and there will also be presentations from one or more of our clients and partners.

More information on the Webinar series, dates and registration can be found here.

PropTech Switzerland Innovation Index 2021

DigiShares is honored to have our white paper “Tokenization of Real Estate -Best Practices” mentioned on PropTech Switzerland Innovation Index 2021. The index is a detailed study of Swiss PropTech ecosystem. It is based on research and development project of PropTech Academy Association and PropTech Switzerland Association.

“Real estate is the biggest single asset class where tokenization can provide value – $228 trillion in total assets. The real estate market shares the value proposition of the overall securities market.”

Check out this white paper from DigiShares to see in detail how and why you should tokenize real estate, and the DigiShares approach for this. In this paper, we covered:
1. Real Estate Tokenization – Why?
2. The DigiShares Platform
3. Real Estate Tokenization Processes

Read the Full Paper here.

PropTech Academy is a Switzerland-based regulatory institution for international standardization and evaluation of PropTech companies in the real estate, construction, and finance sectors. However, the standards relate to methods of testing, terminology and definitions, information requirements, or the compatibility of connections.
To learn more about PropTech Academy, click here.

Eyethu Beverages Token: DigiShares White-Label Partner Afri-X Tokenizes African Beverages

Afri-X today proudly announced the launch of Eyethu Beverages Token, issued on the DigiShares tokenization platform, as Afri-X’s first token outside of the Real Estate market.

Eyethu Beverages is a well-established South African business that produces both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. The funding required is to launch two already very well-known cider brands in the market. The total raise is ZAR60 million ($5 million) and there will be one million tokens on offer for 30% equity in the business.

Afri-X is a South African white label partner of DigiShares, providing tokenization services in the Sub-Saharan Africa for both crowdfunding and real assets. They are seeing a rising level of interest and engagement from both business owners and investors as the awareness and acceptance of tokenization increases.

“The opportunity to provide an alternative funding source to a South African Unicorn in the making while simultaneously providing everyday men and women from all over the world access to an exceptional business was one we simply could not afford to miss”, remarked Tsolo Makara, CEO at Afri-X.com.

Claus Skaaning, CEO of DigiShares, comments, “This is one of the first real tokenization projects we are aware of in Africa and we hope it will see a good level of interest. We particular like the element of democratization which is so important both in Africa and elsewhere in order to give equal opportunity access to investments into assets that are normally out of reach for retail investors”.

About Eyethu Beverages

Eyethu Beverages (“Eyethu”) is a South African majority Black owned beverages special purpose company founded by Mike Veysie and Ndumiso Madlala, created to invest in the alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages sectors in order to expedite transformation in the Liquor Industry in South Africa. The firm’s activities involve manufacturing of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages in South Africa and in other African countries on a toll-manufacturing basis as well as the manufacturing and marketing of own brands.

Eyethu acquired a Cider Plant from Diageo South Africa in August 2019 with a capacity of 40 million litres of Cider at 5% abv. and produced Cider Base for Heineken South Africa. Eyethu has expanded its business into ethanol and bio-ethanol and has entered into a purchase agreement to acquire a distillery with a capacity of 2,5 million litres of Extra Neutral Alcohol and 5 million litres of Bio-fuel annually.

About Afri-X

Afri-X sits at the intersection between transformational businesses and other entities needing growth capital and Investors who can participate by buying from as little as one token.

By positioning Afri-X as the premier tokenization platform in Sub-Saharan Africa, the opportunity exists to deliver significant value to all stakeholders while leaving a lasting positive impact in the territories that the platform operates in.

Website: www.afri-x.com

About DigiShares A/S

DigiShares is one of the leading providers of asset management and crowdfunding platforms for real assets, including real estate and private equity. Our solutions enable asset owners and fund managers to digitize and automate processes, to reduce administrative cost, to reduce the ticket size to fractionalize and democratize and enable retail investors to participate, and finally to provide a huge increase in liquidity through the built-in marketplace that enables shareholders to trade their assets.

Website: https://www.digishares.io

DigiShares’ Newsletter 65

Archax Exchange and DigiShares announce partnership agreement.

Real estate backed tokens issued on the DigiShares tokenisation platform now can be made available for trading on the Archax Exchange.

Key take-aways:
– The partnership ensures interoperability between the DigiShares and Archax platforms.
– The partnership is expected to deliver accessibility, predictability, and security for investors in digital securities.
– Admittance to Archax allows investors to buy, sell and trade security tokens with greater liquidity and trading volume, and a high rate of security.
– This partnership also sets a solid foundation for DigiShares to continually expand the availability of its product offerings on a larger number of global markets.

Read more about our partnership with Archax Exchange.

Webinar Recording: How to Tokenize an Asset by AREF

In this video, you can find the practical steps involved in tokenization of an asset; the pros and cons of tokenization vs a conventional deal; and a view from the fintech industry on their experience of adoption. Followed by a lively discussion session expanding on some of these aspects.

More information about the past Webinar: “How to Tokenise an asset” and speakers can be found here.

AREF Tokenisation webinar: How to Tokenise an Asset – Monday 14th June 2021

More information about the past Webinar: “How to Tokenize an asset” and speakers can be found here

The Association of Real Estate Funds (AREF) is the UK-based body that represents the interests of its member funds, those firms that advise and support them and the end-investors. Their membership includes over sixty-five funds spanning the leading real estate fund management houses in the industry, through to smaller, specialist boutiques, with a collective net asset value of over £72bn. They now have more than fifty Affiliate members, a number of Associate members and hundreds of Investor members.

To learn more about AREF, check out their brochure here.

Tokenization of Real Estate – Best Practices

DigiShares is honored to have our white paper “Tokenization of Real Estate – Best Practices” mentioned on PropTech Switzerland Innovation Index 2021. The index is a detailed study of Swiss PropTech ecosystem. It based on research and development project of PropTech Academy Association and PropTech Switzerland Association.

“Real estate is the biggest single asset class where tokenization can provide value – $228 trillion in total assets. The real estate market shares the value proposition of the overall securities market.”

Check out this white paper from DigiShares to see in details how and why you should tokenize real estate, and the DigiShares approach for this. In this paper, we covered:

1. Real Estate Tokenization – Why?
2. The DigiShares Platform
3. Real Estate Tokenization Processes

PropTech Academy is a Switzerland-based regulatory institution for international standardization and evaluation of PropTech companies in the real estate, construction, and finance sectors. However, the standards relate to methods of testing, terminology and definitions, information requirements, or the compatibility of connections.
To learn more about PropTech Academy, click here.

Archax Exchange and DigiShares Announce Partnership Agreement

DigiShares and Archax are proud to announce a new partnership where real estate backed tokens issued on the DigiShares tokenization platform can be made available for trading on Archax Exchange, the first FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) regulated digital securities exchange, based in London.

Key take-aways:

  • The partnership ensures interoperability between the DigiShares and Archax platforms
  • The partnership is expected to deliver accessibility, predictability, and security for investors in digital securities.
  • Admittance to Archax allows investors to buy, sell and trade security tokens with greater liquidity and trading volume, and a high rate of security.
  • This partnership also sets a solid foundation for DigiShares to continually expand the availability of its product offerings on a larger number of global markets.

This partnership signals the accelerating growth of both the Archax Exchange and DigiShares in the fast-growing security token and tokenization industry, as well as solidifying DigiShares’ position as a leading provider of white-label issuance platforms for real assets.

Claus Skaaning, CEO of DigiShares, “We view Archax as the leading regulated security token exchange in Europe and are proud of the partnership. We hope to provide Archax with a significant number of European-based high-end projects for admittance to their regulated exchange and look forward to the collaboration”.

Simon Barnby, CMO of Archax, “We view DigiShares as one of the leaders in the fast-growing tokenization industry and look forward to collaborate. We both share the same values and work together to further the quality, transparency, security and compliance of the digital assets and security token industry”.

About Archax Exchange

Archax is a global, regulated, digital asset exchange, brokerage and custodian based in London. Founded by experts from the financial markets world and backed by an accomplished advisory board, Archax offers a credible bridge between the blockchain-centric crypto community and the traditional investment space.

Archax is the first ever firm to receive FCA regulation as a digital securities exchange, custodian, and brokerage. It was also the first firm to be listed on the Crypto asset Register as a VASP (Virtual Asset Service Provider).

Archax has been designed specifically for institutional investors to trade in all types of digital assets, from cryptocurrencies to digital securities. It is built using existing, proven, resilient, scalable, high-performance exchange infrastructure, hosted in top-tier data centre space, and integrated into existing institutional trading workflow.

WebsiteTwitterLinkedInTelegramMedium

About DigiShares A/S

DigiShares is a leading provider of white-label tokenization solutions for real assets, including real estate. The company works with real estate developers, asset managers, and investment fund managers to digitize and automate processes, reduce administrative cost, get more control over the financing process, and achieve increased liquidity. The DigiShares platform has functionality for financing, corporate management, and trading.

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DigiShares’ Newsletter 64

As we slide into a new busy working week, set aside some time to brew yourself a good cup of coffee and read up on the weekly updates from DigiShares.

In this week’s issue, we cover an interview between our CEO – Claus Skaaning and Sarah Jenkins from BlockChainRealtor.com, an explainer video to help you learn more about our platform and solutions, and also a warm invitation to our Telegram community.

But first, have we connected?
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First Project on Ravencoin

Last week, our CEO Claus Skaaning sat down for an interview with Sarah Jenkins from BlockChainRealtor.com and discussed details about DigiShares’ white label real estate platform and how it will be implemented at RavenCoinTokens.com
In this video, Claus explains:
1:50 : How the process will look like for a customer.
3:56 : How somebody pays for tokens.
5:20 : How custody works and how one knows that their tokens are safe.
7:40 : How dividends work in the DigiShares system.

Sarah’s Interview with Claus Skaaning – CEO of DigiShares.io

Explainer Video

We made an explainer video! This is a great entry point for you to get to know DigiShares and our solutions for issuance and management of security tokens & tokenized securities. If you are one of our new subscribers, watch the video here.

DigiShares Telegram Community

We are rolling out a series of webinars in the upcoming months, in which our community members have the chance to connect and ask questions directly to our company’s specialists and sometimes our guest speakers in the field of tokenization.

We’d love to have you. Join us today.

A Value Proposition for Real Estate Tokenization

May 2021

Real Estate Tokenization

DigiShares recognizes that fees can be a function of the complexity in running your investments, especially in real estate. Loosening of regulatory limits on private placements worldwide allows companies to take fund raising, management and liquidity provision for their stakeholders into their own hands. Our mission is to help you minimize the administrative costs associated with this, particularly automation of the back-end processes with added benefits being customization and infinite scale. By combining cutting-edge fintech infrastructure and blockchain enabled software, you can now fundraise easier, cheaper within the confines of single or multiple legal jurisdictions. Competitor low-touch technology solutions only provide piece-meal solutions for this. Here is a compact overview of real estate use cases for security tokens and how using the DigiShares platform in particular can save you money.

Liquidity vs Cost matrix for real-estate backed security tokens

1. LIQUIDITY INFRASTRUCTURE

How can security tokens improve liquidity for long duration private investments like real estate, private equity and venture portfolios? Blockchain is international, stock exchanges are national. Substantial capital is being deployed worldwide to establish digital exchanges of security tokens to bridge the two. Real life use-cases from low-touch crowdfunding platforms have already validated how fractionalization enhances liquidity within a closed system. Real estate will be the single largest use case for liquidity pools and help close the illiquidity premium gap through better valuation for the best projects. Our platform makes sure all our client tokens are “inter-operable”, allows to comply with different regulatory frameworks and can be offered at these exchange venues or more decentralizes market venues in the future, accounting for all KYC/AML ownership (incl. automatic rejection of certain countries) and payment details. A less expensive alternative solution is also provided, in a bulletin-board for buyers and sellers to self-clear transactions using an atomic swap within single projects investments. Instantaneous settlement, zero counter-party risk and immediate verification of on-chain ownership are unique features that traditional platform venues cannot offer. For private securities in general, there is often no way for custodians to settle transactions between their institutional customers, limiting institutional ownership of private assets. The bridge that we provide to a digital custodian should accelerate this demand for those that require an extra layer of third-party verification.

2.CORPORATE FINANCE

One of the unique features as a protocol agnostic security token platform is the flexibility to represent various parts of the capital stack like preferred equity and mezzanine loans that can appeal to accredited investors and family offices looking for “equity-like returns” within real estate financings. Flexibility on protocols allows for different classes of shares and other representations of the capital stack in the corporate management system. Cost effective structured-finance solutions can be tailored on a project-by-project basis for property owners – together with other stakeholders such as their real estate, mortgage bank and broker counterparts. Private loans that exist as pdf files can be replaced by digital records containing structured data. Debt token representations of real assets that represent the collateral in the commercial retail property can be easily transferred between commercial buyers and sellers, avoiding expensive title transfer fees. Mortgage banks can make better decisions on their commercial loan books by extracting real time loan repayment delays, rental, vacancy data by integrating with property management software vendors. In the same way tokens can be re-issued for loss, they can be a burden to dissolve a transaction and can also serve a more transitory purpose for intermediaries focused on transactions.

3.FRACTIONALIZATION

The use case for smaller lot-sizes goes beyond individual investing, as accredited investors and family offices looking for diversification can also allocate to medium size projects where illiquidity premiums are more present. For example, in the U.S, most tokenization of equity is done using Reg D 506 or Reg S with accredited investors. In some case, LPs within projects can use our platform to conduct their own syndication or sales efforts. Particularly Private Equity, could be a big beneficiary of this. Private REITs may choose to sell down certain commercial properties, while maintaining some ownership to get the full carry in an eventual sale of single property, meanwhile freeing up funds to invest in new projects. Green field projects with construction loan financings can take off some pressure on pre-sale, allowing for carry through the full sales cycle. Brown field projects that require modification or upgrades can sell some ownership to help fund large capital outlays without over-leverage. Institutional investment funds can use fractionalization to raise capital from outside the jurisdiction of the local project itself. Local financial institutions in many of the most developed emerging markets often have their own criteria – International guarantees can come at a high cost.

4. PAYMENTS

Working with leading payment infrastructure companies, our platform allows for interoperability between major currencies and stablecoins for our users, arbitrating away bank transactional fees. Your end clients will not notice the blockchain layer, as median of exchange can remain regular currency, meanwhile near 0 bank deposit fees will allow for more frequent smaller dividend payments and distributions. This takes away the transactional fee impediment to fractionalization, allowing you to focus on marketing effort instead. Without diving into too much explanation, using our omnibus wallet (virtual wallet within one large custodied wallet) to pool all token holders into one aggregated transaction fee, saves substantial costs. Established stock transfer companies charge $25 per single dividend payment. 1,000 investors receiving quarterly dividends equates to $100,000 USD slippage.

5. AUTOMATED COMPLIANCE

Private placement offerings that fall under certain regulatory exemptions, allow for exclusion of long-form prospectus, legal filing and audit fees. The largest administrative cost saving is custodial from self-administration of ownership transfers. Transfer agent fees will cost your business far more than a software subscription. Traditional roles of a transfer agent – recording transactions, canceling and issuing of certificates, processing investor mails and dealing with lost or stolen certificates can all be automated within the platform. This ability to self-administer is a game changer, although one may choose to use a third-party provider in a plug-and-play fashion, if a regulator or institutional investor requires it. Ongoing regulatory compliance costs associated with annual token holder meetings and tax compliance that comes from automated record keeping and audit standards can be substantial. Post-issuance corporate action management processes are included and dividend distribution and shareholder voting can be done at near zero cost. With blockchain, shareholder conflicts are avoided as all records are indisputable, limiting related legal fees. Personnel costs for legal counsel, investor communications and compliance processes alone that get allocated as part of management fees can easily reach $100,000 a year. Even on-line trading platforms charge outgoing stock transfer fees of $25-50/ISIN.

6.INTANGIBLE BENEFITS

On-chain verification of your ownership can be done with full privacy in mind. A platform administrator can maintain the individual token holders in an omnibus wallet with their digital custodian of choice. The omnibus address is verifiable on the public ledger and together with a separate 2 factor authentification log in to the platform client portal is the closest one can come to on demand certainty of ownership. In the event the client wants to self-custody, that can easily be done. It has no influence on the ability to cancel and re-issue tokens in the event they are lost or stolen. Smart contract automation also means option for error, loss of data on things that require “attention to detail” minimized and certainty of transactions are enhanced. Clients can be notified instantaneously of pertinent changes that may require their attention.

There is no concrete published data on this, but security tokenization has been estimated to provide upwards of 200bps of synergies for private placements of secondary home mortgage loans in the US:

– 100bps reduction in administrative, origination costs

– 100bps in liquidity premium benefits.

For private investment entities where dividends, revenue-streams, back-office reporting needs to be done at least a few times a year, we can apply the same value proposition rationale.

7.FUTURE USECASES

Crypto itself is a property management system. But it has its best use cases on the back-end rather than the front-end. We hope our white-label can be gatewayed to help streamline the multiple categories of back-office functions by applying our customizable blockchain solutions to the best of fintech infrastructure that comes available. Areas of interests are ~ Registrar and transfer agency, fund accounting, middle office services, investor reporting, compliance services, front-office technology solution, financial statement preparation, management reporting, performance and attribution and risk reporting.

Contact DigiShares at [email protected]

Tokenize Your Real Estate

Many of our current projects are real estate tokenization projects, and for those of you who are specifically interested in real estate tokenization we have created a special page where you can learn about real estate tokenization and how to tokenize your project.

DigiShares’ Newsletter 63

DigiShares is thrilled to share with you this exciting milestone of having 1,000+ followers on LinkedIn. This is a great chance for us to say THANK YOU to all our followers for engaging with us and helping DigiShares to grow. We look forward to welcoming new followers and continue to expand our social media presence.

Let’s connect.
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White paper: Value Proposition for Real Estate Tokenization.

This white paper is a compact overview of Real Estate use cases for security tokens and five ways on how the DigiShares platform in particular can save you money:

1. Liquidity Infrastructure: “Real life use-cases from low-touch crowdfunding platforms have already validated how fractionalization enhances liquidity within a closed system. Real estate will be the single largest use case for liquidity pools and help close the illiquidity premium gap through better valuation for the best projects.”

2. Corporate Finance: “One of the unique features as a protocol agnostic security token platform is the flexibility to represent various parts of the capital stack like preferred equity and mezzanine loans that can appeal to accredited investors and family offices looking for “equity-like returns” within real estate financings.”

3. Payments: “Working with leading payment infrastructure companies, our platform allows for interoperability between major currencies and stablecoins for our users, arbitrating away bank transactional fees.”

4. Automated Compliance: “Traditional roles of a transfer agent -recording transactions, canceling and issuing of certificates, processing investor mails and dealing with lost or stolen certificates can all be automated within the platform.”

5. Intangible Benefits.

Read the Full Paper here.

Blockchain and Tokenization for Dummies with Practical Use Cases

Are you new to blockchain and tokenization? We got you covered.

Here is our CEO, Claus Skaaning, giving an explanation.

Blockchain and Tokenization for Dummies with Practical Use Cases Claus Skaaning

June 14th: ‘How to Tokenise an Asset’ Webinar by AREF

In case you missed our last newsletter, join DigiShares for this online AREF event for some insightful talks and discussions led by industry leaders and experts. Attendees can expect to:

– Take a look at how tokenization can be implemented within the Real Estate Industry.

– Hear from industry experts on the legal and regulatory issues applicable to tokenization and how this affects AREF’s members.

– Hear a walk through of the practical steps involved; a compare and contrast on regulation vs a conventional deal; and a view from the fintech industry on adoption.

The Association of Real Estate Funds (AREF) is the UK-based body that represents the interests of its member funds, those firms that advise and support them and the end-investors. Their membership includes over sixty-five funds spanning the leading real estate fund management houses in the industry, through to smaller, specialist boutiques, with a collective net asset value of over £72bn. They now have more than fifty Affiliate members, a number of Associate members and hundreds of Investor members.

To learn more about AREF, check out their website here.