LawCast Host Attorney Laura Anthony Talks Digital Currencies with Jeff Ramson of PCG Advisory Group- Jeff: I am Jeff Ransom CEO of PCG Advisory. We are a full service investor relations firm specializing in emerging growth companies and blockchain projects. Today I have the pleasure of sitting with Laura Anthony the founder of Anthony PLLC, a top notch securities and business transactions law firm based in Palm Beach, Florida. Laura, it’s great to have you here.
Laura: Thank you Jeff. I’m glad to be here.
Jeff: Tell us a bit about your practice. I know you’ve built just a really phenomenal reputation and a great client base.
Laura: So, we’re a full service corporate securities and business transaction law firm. We represent public companies, and that is everything that a public company needs, including their SEC filings their mergers and acquisitions, their general corporate work, their follow-on things. We represent private companies in all forms of corporate finance transactions, including private offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and of course we do private and public transactions which is a full-on IPO, a direct listing, a reverse merger, we a lot of regulation A+ and a lot in the exciting new space of securities.
Jeff: Right, which is certainly the topic we’d like to cover with you today. So if you would just tell us a bit about what is happening, this in the security token world and in a digital security space in general.
Laura: Well, I think that securities tokens they represent a fractional ownership interest in a company the same as a common stock does. But it’s a different technology used to record and keep records and to trade and to settle and clear that fractional ownership interest and because of its decentralized nature, it can eliminate middle people and middlemen and the way that securities settle and trade in the United States, it is going to change it is track changing the proverbial train that has left the station. Recently t-zero launched this week. They started their trading which is the first actual marketplace it’s tradings digital securities and it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens.
Jeff: So that opens up the pathway for others to start trading security tokens?
Laura: That’s correct. So it’s a new technology. If you think about it, it was only back in the 70s that stock certificates were still in paper form and trading in the United States was in paper form, and things became digitized and DTC became such an important part of the trading of securities in the United States. Now you move forward to this new methodology of trading and t-zero uses that new methodology which is on the blockchain is moving very quickly. There are several companies out there in the branch of NASDAQ just did another round of investment in a technology company is working on building back end. It’s coming, right? There’s no stopping. It is coming.
Jeff: Right. Agreed. So let’s go back a step to like the problems that we have that we certainly see in terms of clearing traditional securities, especially that are for smaller companies. My thinking is that as the clearing process changes, it’s going to make it a much easier and the compliance issues will be eliminated or diminished.
Laura: If you can program smart contracts within the law for example, way is to trace ownership. That could help eliminate misbehavior and bad actors that set up accounts under other people’s names and we can help the SEC and other regulatory bodies do their job and eliminate fraud or reduce it.
Jeff: So one of the things I find fascinating about at least some of the opportunities when it comes to digital securities are really customizing the nature of the securities, right? So we know that you can do common stock like offerings but I’m seeing some things that are maybe are more preferred stock that have some features that may not be available to common stockholders. Are you seeing that as well?
Laura: Absolutely. Not only can you have any type of security that can represent a fractional ownership interest or write a right to royalties a right to revenues, a right any sort of right a fractional right to a subsidiary or to a certain business sector, but you can drill down into smaller fractions of that ownership using digitized securities.
Jeff: Right. Exactly. And by eliminating middle people by disintermediating, it cuts down costs so you can get a larger number of small investors throughout.
Laura: Correct.
Jeff: Eventually when again I know at this time it’s accredited investors only in these offerings, bu eventually they’ll be secondary markets where I would say the average investor can participate….