Saad Ullah
In just a decade, the cryptocurrency sector has seen the rise of thousands of coins and tokens. Introduced to the world by Bitcoin and made accessible through Ethereum and other platforms that allowed anyone to create their custom tokens and run off their mainnet.
Each token represented a different ecosystem, with their respective platform offering services. The different level of services, use cases, the integrity of the platform and the team behind the project created values of the tokens. With so many tokens in the market, specific platforms started to rise that dealt in the sale and exchange of these coins. This resulted in crypto exchanges. These platforms allowed users to trade, buy and sell these tokens. Today, the crypto trading market is worth billions of dollars.
The Legality of Exchanges
Crypto markets have always been a point of friction for governments and financial regulatory authorities. Not falling under any specific rule or legal clause, cryptocurrencies have been warned by governments to be avoided. This means that institutional and private investors have been wary of investing in the market.
Traditional investment market is heavily regulated, with the interest and rights of investors greatly protected. This is completely the opposite in crypto market, where each launch of coins, even STOs is unregulated and if the money of investors sinks due to mismanagement, negligence or an outright ill will of the platform team, the regulations would not cover the investors. That is why investors are repeatedly warned that investment in crypto ventures is a high risk game and must be done at their own risk. The unregulated and unlicensed market has been the biggest blockade for crypto tokens as they do not offer the rights as traditional securities do. This is countered today by platforms that offer not utility tokens, but security ones. This, though seemingly a better option, is still unregulated and carries the same risks.
MERJ Offers a Licensed Market
A very crucial missing piece in the security tokens market, regulation is that there has never been a digital exchange that fulfilled the regulatory and licensing requirements to offer security tokens. MERJ is the first trading platform that has the necessary licenses to do so.
MERJis a global financial market exchange that offers its users a wide range of debts, equities and other market tradable derivatives to buy and sell. Its operations are reliable and approved by the Seychelles Financial Services Authority since 2012. MERJ saw the dearth of licensed operators in the security tokens market and decided to step in, bringing its years of practice and expertise to the untethered sector.
MERJ, with its different approvals and licenses of working in the financial trading market, brings in proper legal and regulatory framework that reduces the uncertainty and the risks involved in funding digital securities and their platforms. As a start, the MERJ platform will list tokenized versions of ordinary shares of listed public companies, allowing people to invest in real life securities in the digital form. As a show of faith, MERJ will be listing its own tokenized securities on its platform. The security tokens are expected to be on the platform before the first half of this year ends.
MERJ offers its users a complete package of end to end service using blockchain to improve speed, security and efficiency of security trading. The platform has a history of keeping its framework updated and securing any and all licenses that it deems necessary to work. This passion is what has led it to secure licensing and the technology to offer people digital securities’ trade.
Edmond Tuohy, the CEO of MERJ, explained the philosophy and the steps MERJ took for security tokens, “MERJ is proud to be building a new 21st-century global financial market ecosystem. We’re transcending global market silos and geographic boundaries, and pioneering secure market access for all, regardless of the size or origin of the investor. Until now, there has been no fully-fledged securities platforms open to the retail public where issuers can list security tokens and get secondary market liquidity. We’re breaking the mold to the benefit of issuers and investors the world over.”
CEO of Seychelles Financial Services Authority, Dr. Steve Fanny, reflected the cooperation of MERJ with authorities and said,
MERJ group companies have been licensed and regulated by the Financial Services Authority since 2012. MERJ has worked closely with the FSA since that time. The FSA continues to follow new promising financial and regulatory technologies and encourages innovation in the securities market and non-bank financial services that it regulates, such as those being put in place by MERJ.
MERJ will start offering tokenized securities from May. Users will be able to create online accounts on a new, dedicated portal. Traders will be offered flexible use of the platform through different interfaces on the web, Android and iOS.
Saad Ullah
