Introduction to tZERO
tZERO is a majority-owned subsidiary of Overstock.com. Their blockchain technologies have a goal to improve the built-in inefficiencies of Wall Street so that the investors and financial processes don’t have to be bound anymore to traditional and institutional market structures.
tZERO security token looks to improve the regulatory concerns and shortcomings of the standard ICO model. Furthermore, token holders have the benefit of traditional security which isn’t that common in the crypto community.
While there are multiple tZERO’s products, the following two products are especially noteworthy.
- Digital Locate Receipt (DLR) is a software that allows broker-dealer licensees with stock inventory to both load and manages their inventory via front end system.
- tZERO’s trading platform which makes the trading of tZERO tokens possible.
Since the end of the ICO, tZERO successfully built partnerships with several companies.
- Dinosaur Financial Group, LLC
- BOX Digital Markets, LLC
- Polymath
- Boston Stock Exchange
- GSR Capital
As for the products, on January 24th, the security token platform has officially begun to live trade. All accredited investors can trade tZERO tokens through Dinosaur Financial Group which is acting as a broker-dealer.
You can find out more in their whitepaper.
Use Case Analysis
The token’s main use case is fundraising, with holders being entitled to 10% of revenues in dividends distributed quarterly with potential additional “utility benefits” down the line at the discretion of management.
The primary use case of the token sale was to monetize the platform, and the proceeds to be used for developing the platform. The team confirmed this in their whitepaper, where they write that the primary goal of the token sale is “to raise capital to support tZERO’s business”.
Team Behind tZero
Here is the team behind tZERO.
- Patrick M. Byrne is the chairman of tZERO and he also launched Overstock in 1999.
- Saum Noursalehi is the CEO of tZERO, who prior to this role served as president of Overstock’s retail business.
- Ralph Daiuto, Jr. is currently the Chief Operating Officer of tZERO. He is an accomplished attorney and business leader with over two decades of experience in the securities industry
You can check out the rest of the team on their website.
Q&A
The team hasn’t responded to our Q&A inquiries yet.
Community Supporting tZero
- Telegram: 1.734 members
- Twitter: 9.949 followers
- Facebook: 9.674 followers
- Reddit: 598 subscribers
You can find regular updates for any new information regarding the service on their social media accounts. They also have an Instagram account.
- tZero security token begins live trading.
- Overstock’s tZERO to Trade Tokens During Wall Street Hours Only
Tokenomics
The ICO took place from Dec 18th, 2017 until Aug 6th, 2018 raising a total of $134,000,000 USD from over 1,000 global investors. tZERO is an ERC-20 compliant token.
As already mentioned, they can currently be traded via tZERO’s trading platform, although that only available to accredited investors. All others will have to wait a bit more, probably around August.
Tug-of-War (tZero vs. GBX)
tZERO is a rather unique platform, but there are other companies out there that offer security token exchange services, such as Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX).
Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX) is one of the exchanges that is about to shake the already dynamic world of blockchain. It is the subsidiary of Gibraltar-based stock exchange that has a long history, a lot longer than tZero, as it was fully operational as early as Q1 2015.
Last year they went through revamping to accommodate the exchange’s growing interest in blockchain. Their ultimate goal is to be the world’s first-ever regulated security token exchange.
tZero security platform live-trading started in January 2019, while the GBX Digital Asset Exchange opened to the public in July 2018 and became licensed by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC). Both tZero and GBX are currently among the hottest new blockchain exchanges.
Conclusion
Backed up by a strong team, tZERO offers a refreshing change to the current ICO market. Their partnerships with several companies only reinforce their already good credibility.
The goal of the tZERO security token offering was to raise the capital to support tZERO’s business, which was probably accomplished seeing how much was raised.
Generally speaking, tZERO’s also has several products that will serve traders, brokers, and investors well and we are looking forward to seeing more of them as they are considered as one of the best new decentralized exchanges.
