解鎖加密貨幣的全部潛力的骨架鑰匙

本週，在華盛頓郵政專業的羅比尼首席執行​​官弗拉德·特內夫（Vlad Tenev）呼籲在美國採取新的資本市場方法。

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev recently called for a new approach to capital markets in the United States in a Washington Post op-ed. He proposed a number of policies, including modernizing accredited investor standards, a long-standing favorite among finance enthusiasts, but one stood out: “[T]here needs to exist a security token registration regime, allowing companies to create token offerings that are open to U.S. investors.” Here, Tenev identifies the skeleton key to unlocking cryptocurrency’s full potential.

Robinhood首席執行官Vlad Tenev最近呼籲在華盛頓郵政一家專欄文章中採用新的資本市場方法。他提出了許多政策，包括現代化認可的投資者標準，這是財務愛好者長期以來的最愛，但其中一位脫穎而出：“這裡需要存在一個安全令牌註冊制度，允許公司創建開放的代幣產品給美國投資者。”在這裡，Tenev確定了骨骼鑰匙，以解鎖加密貨幣的全部潛力。

Here's a breakdown of how securities markets operate in the United States. By default, companies are largely prohibited from selling equity at all. The Securities Act of 1933 defines securities and outlines the conditions—and penalties—for selling them. If a company wants to raise money, it hires a lawyer like me and either registers or finds an exemption like Regulation D (Reg D).

這是證券市場在美國運作的細分。默認情況下，完全禁止公司出售股權。 1933年的《證券法》定義了證券並概述了出售這些證券和罰款。如果公司想籌集資金，它將聘請像我這樣的律師，並且要么註冊或發現諸如D條例D（REG D）之類的豁免。

Most choose an exemption and go private. And as Tenev points out, many of those choose to stay that way—OpenAI, SpaceX or Stripe. But exempt securities do not trade easily. They’re generally encumbered by contractual and regulatory restrictions that make them illiquid. For the richest few companies, this might be fine—or even the point. But not for most. Without a secondary market, investors can only realize profit through dividends. And where investors cannot realize gains, primary markets run correspondingly dry.

大多數選擇豁免並私下。正如Tenev指出的那樣，其中許多選擇保持這種方式 - Openai，SpaceX或Stripe。但是豁免證券並不容易交易。通常，它們受到使它們流動不足的合同和監管限制的影響。對於最富有的少數公司而言，這可能是可以的，甚至可以重點。但不是大多數人。沒有二級市場，投資者只能通過股息實現利潤。在投資者無法實現收益的地方，初級市場的運行相應乾燥。

Registered securities, on the other hand, are highly liquid on the secondary market. This typically ensures that investors will jump to participate in an initial public offering. But this process is also restricted to the richest companies by its massive price tag. According to PwC, even relatively small initial public offerings cost millions of dollars, with millions more in annual legal fees and compliance. This is before considering the onerous transparency and forfeiture of control that come with registration. For these reasons now even top firms “avoid going public,” says Tenev.

另一方面，註冊證券在二級市場上是高度流動性的。這通常可以確保投資者將跳入首次公開募股。但是，此過程也僅限於最富有的公司。普華永道的說法，即使是相對較小的首次公開產品，也耗資數百萬美元，每年的法律費用和合規性增加了數百萬美元。這是在考慮註冊帶來的繁重的透明度和沒收控制權之前。 Tenev說，由於這些原因，即使是頂級公司也“避免公開公開”。

It’s no secret that this is a problem. Recently, Washington D.C. tried to address it by creating Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF) in the 2012 JOBS Act. The idea was to make exempt securities more accessible to small and medium businesses (SMBs), but they just couldn’t help themselves. The program is hamstrung by the familiar restrictions on secondary liquidity. Combined with still-significant compliance costs, the result will never be a meaningful segment of U.S. capital markets.

這是一個問題，這不是什麼秘密。最近，華盛頓特區試圖通過在《 2012年喬布斯法案》中創建法規眾籌（REG CF）來解決它。這樣做的目的是使豁免證券更容易被中小型企業（SMB）獲得，但他們只是無能為力。熟悉的二級流動性限制陷入了障礙。再加上仍然顯著的合規成本，結果將永遠不會成為美國資本市場的有意義部分。

Instead, the solution came from outside. In 2015, Ethereum developers introduced the ERC-20 standard, allowing anyone to create an arbitrary number of tokens and sell them into instant liquidity. Project founders could restrict resale as they chose. But in practice, the best projects quickly developed deep, efficient markets. These fungible tokens took various names and functions, but practically, for a time, they were the internet’s capital market.

相反，解決方案來自外部。 2015年，以太坊開發人員介紹了ERC-20標準，使任何人都可以創建任意數量的令牌並將其出售為即時流動性。項目創始人可以在選擇時限制轉售。但是實際上，最好的項目迅速發展了深厚，高效的市場。這些可及的代幣採用了各種名稱和功能，但實際上，它們是互聯網的資本市場。

On top of secure, trustless blockchain technology, the crucial breakthrough was just letting people buy and sell tokens freely. It turns out this is a product people really want, and initial coin offerings grew 100X between Q1 and Q4 of 2017.

除了安全，無信任的區塊鏈技術之外，至關重要的突破只是讓人們自由買賣代幣。事實證明，這是人們真正想要的產品，在2017年第一季度至第四季度之間，初始硬幣產品的產品增長了100倍。

This halcyon moment couldn’t last—wholly unregulated markets were a sink for scams, and the subsequent SEC campaign to end cryptocurrency fundraising is well documented. These days, it is extremely difficult to make a legal primary token sale in the U.S. Projects are left to give tokens away for free. Even then, a single successful Hyperliquid airdrop created more value in a day than all Reg CF offerings from なんですが 2021 to 2023 combined.

這個太平時的時刻無法持續 - 騙局是一個不受管制的市場，而隨後結束加密貨幣籌款活動的SEC運動已得到充分記錄。如今，在美國項目中進行合法的主要代幣銷售是非常困難的。即使到那時，一個成功的超液體氣盤在一天中創造的價值比所有なんですが2021年至2023年的所有Reg CF組合都多。

But rather than gesture to the past, Tenev emphasizes the future:

但是，泰內夫沒有對過去的姿態，而是強調了未來：

“Tokenizing private-company stock would enable retail investors to invest in leading companies early in their life cycles…enabling them to draw additional capital by tapping into a global crypto retail market… [It] would [ ] provide an alternative path to the traditional IPO.”

“令牌化的私人公司股票將使零售投資者能夠在生命週期的早期投資領先的公司……使他們能夠通過利用全球加密零售市場來汲取額外的資金……[IT]將為傳統IPO提供替代途徑。”

He calls this “tokenized real-world assets.” I call it a regulatory third way. Sitting between exempt securities and public offerings, the SEC should promulgate rules that allow projects to sell securities in the form of cryptocurrency tokens with limited compliance and disclosures—combining the relative simplicity of a private placement with the secondary liquidity of a public offering.

他稱這是“令牌化的現實世界資產”。我稱其為監管第三種方式。 SEC坐在豁免證券和公共產品之間，應頒布規則，該規則允許項目以有限的合規性和披露形式以有限的合規性和披露形式出售證券，並將私人安置的相對簡單性與公眾發行的次要流動性相結合。

We already know the first-order effects of such a system. In 2017 and 2018 more than 2,000 projects sold tokens to raise over $13 billion. As Tenev points out, “the risks are highest where the opportunity for upside is greatest” and many of those early crypto companies failed. Many survived, though, and are still building today. Early investors grew rich, and their leaders remain faces of the industry.

我們已經知道這種系統的一階效果。在2017年和2018年，有2,000多個項目賣出了代幣，籌集了超過130億美元。正如Tenev指出的那樣，“風險是最大的上昇機會的最高風險”，許多早期加密公司失敗了。但是，許多人倖存下來，今天仍在建設。早期的投資者變得富有，他們的領導人仍然是該行業的面孔。

The second-order effects are where the real value

二階效果是實際值