Delaware Governor Signs Blockchain Legislation Into Law

 

The governor of the US state best known as the home

to a majority of the country's incorporated businesses has officially signed a bill making it explicitly legal for those entities to use blockchain for stock trading and record-keeping. After weeks of anticipation, Delaware governor John C. Carney Jr. signed the bill on Friday, effectively bringing closure to an effort that began in May 2016 when his predecessor, Jack Markell, launched an initiative to promote blockchain efficiencies in government.

First publicized in March this year and introduced formally in May, the bill, which amends Delaware's General Corporation Law, saw a swift passage by state lawmakers. The move further comes weeks after it passed a key vote in the state legislature, a milestone advocates sought to label as "historic" given the state's history and the increase in experimentation that could result from legal certainty. Just how impactful could the law be? Industry analysts suggest that by giving the greenlight to experimentation, the law could make it possible for the custodianship, issuance, redemption and trading to take place on a distributed ledger.

Equity Markets on a Blockchain: Delaware's Potential Impact

Noelle Acheson is a 10-year veteran of company analysis and the author of CoinDesk Weekly, a custom-curated newsletter delivered every Sunday, exclusively to CoinDesk subscribers.Last week, Delaware passed amendments to state legislation that, once signed into law by the end of July, will give corporations registered in the state the right to issue and trade shares on a blockchain platform.While this may on the surface sound like a small modification, it is a big deal. Companies and exchanges around the world have been investigating how distributed ledgers could help with issuance, execution and settlement (some have even issued shares on a blockchain). However, they have been doing so under a cloud of regulatory uncertainty, unsure of whether the stakeholders – including the relevant governing bodies – would allow the innovations to take hold.

For the first time, businesses will be able to experiment with new processes knowing they have the protection of the law. This is likely to pave the way for the entire life cycle of a share – the issuance, custodianship, trading, shareholder communication and redemption – to be enacted on a blockchain. The result could be a reframing of the global securities network, one of the cornerstones of our modern capitalist economy. The equity infrastructure used in most markets today evolved around paper-based issuance, and essentially has the same conceptual backbone as in the 17th century. Processes are complex, involving several steps, each with fees. Centralized clearing creates systemic risk by presenting a single point of failure, and since in most jurisdictions legal ownership rests with the transfer agents, true ownership can be obfuscated – in turn, this can violate rules that limit shareholdings. Furthermore, a paper-based system – even a digitized one – is vulnerable to fraud, and centralized databases can suffer security breaches.

Settle for less

With a blockchain system, investors and issuers can interact directly with each other, in theory cutting out brokers, custodians and clearing houses, thus reducing transaction costs. Settlement can happen within hours instead of days, releasing funds and lowering carrying fees. Legal ownership would be restored to investors and companies, and would be more transparent. Dividends and stock splits could be automated, reducing cost and error.

Also, a distributed ledger platform would remove the single point of failure risk, help make proxy voting more transparent and accurate and make it easier to manage cap tables as well as collateralisation. There are disadvantages. Transparency, for one: not all investors want their positions to be visible. Error resolution is another: mistakes happen, and on an immutable ledger, how do you fix them? What’s more, counterparty risk doesn’t go away, it just shifts. But as work on services and solutions picks up in the light of regulatory approval, so will the development of solutions.

Share the benefits

That this milestone was reached in Delaware is significant. The state is 49th in the nation in terms of size and 45th in population, but it boasts two-thirds of US listed companies and 85% of IPOs. It has more registered legal entities than it has residents. This is due to its relatively flexible business legislation and tax framework, and to its reputation for being a standards bearer in corporate law. What’s more, the recent amendment is part of a larger initiative to streamline corporate and governmental processes. The Delaware Blockchain Initiative, launched over a year ago, commits the state’s government to incorporating blockchain technology in the handling of official documents such as land titles, birth and death certificates, professional licenses, collateral claims and company filings.

So, here we have the US state with the largest concentration of registered corporations, and a reputation for supporting innovation, offering businesses the chance to test a new form of financing and governance. While adoption will probably be slow, at least at first, the pace is likely to pick up as the benefits become even more apparent. Other jurisdictions could follow suit to avoid losing a chunk of their domiciled businesses. And the structure of financial markets could start to gradually, but fundamentally, change. While the Delaware amendment won’t create a market revolution overnight, it does raise a question which highlights the systemic importance of the move: Will traditional equity markets still exist 10 years from now?

Chuck Reynolds


Marketing Dept
Contributor

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Ripple has risen by almost 3,000% this year

Ripple has risen by almost 3,000% this year

Ripple has risen by almost 3,000% this year

It’s not just Bitcoin and Ethereum posting astonishing gains. Ripple, a cryptocurrency based out of San Francisco, has risen in value by almost 3,000% this year.

 

One Ripple token, known as XRP, is currently valued at just below US20 cents. XRP started the year at the fractional value 0.0065, but experienced rapid growth in the June quarter as transaction volumes increased.

 

According to a report by CNBC, that growth was primarily driven by plans to set up a platform for the sale of XRP tokens.

 

XRP tokens differ from Bitcoin and Ethereum in that most of them are owned by the Ripple network itself and can’t be mined.

 

Ripple rose as high as US26 cents in June taking its annual gain to almost 4,000%, before falling back in July.

Ripple’s total value of $US7.6 billion makes it the third biggest cryptocurrency in the world by market capitalisation.

 

Bitcoin has a market cap of $US44.8 billion, while Ethereum is valued at around $US21 billion.

 

Ripple’s head of XRP markets, Miguel Vias, told CNBC that Ripple had a specific strategy focused on international payments and had already partnered with large global banks.

 

“With respect to XRP, we are incredibly focused on international payments, I think we are probably the only digital asset that has a clear use case with respect to what we are trying to do with the asset,” Vias said.

 

Ripple has partnered with around 30 digital asset exchanges, and is positioning itself in the market as a faster faciliation network for international transactions.

 

CNBC reported that the Ripple network processed over $US11 billion worth of transactions in the June quarter.

 

The company’s CEO, Brad Garlinhouse, said Ripple has a processing speed of around 70,000 transactions per second.

 

That compares to Bitcoin’s current volume capacity of around 7 transactions per second. The Bitcoin developer community is in the process of setting up a new platform which is expected to double transaction speeds.

 

Last year, Ripple announced the setup of its first interbank global payments group, which included Westpac, Bank of America Merril Lynch and the Royal Bank of Canada.

 

“With respect to growth and outreach, we will continue to partner with digital asset exchanges for listings and mostly importantly … it is really all about payments and in this quarter, you will see some very interesting developments with respect to our partnership in payments, with respect to XRP in particular,” Vias told CNBC.

 

Time will tell whether the value of the XRP tokens traded on the Ripple network will continue to maintain their recent rate of growth.

 

David Ogden
Entrpreneur

cryptocurrency entrepreneuer

 

Author: Sam Jacobs

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member