Latin America’s largest investment bank, Brazil’s Banco BTG Pactual S.A., has announced plans to launch Security Token Offerings (STOs) on the Tezos blockchain. The news marks a major step for the Tezos Foundation.
Banco BTG Pactual will work in collaboration with Dubai’s Dalma Capital “to host a deal pipeline of $1bn for existing and future prospective token issuances”. They plan to utilize the Tezos blockchain for the issuances, which will include a range of tokenized traditional and alternative investments.
The news was announced by the Tezos Foundation on their website . The Tim Draper backed project is a self-amending blockchain and smart contract platform. It is a booming project, having risen in price substantially in the first half of 2019. And social media buzz doesn’t appear to be the reason.
The deal with BTG marks a welcome reward for a once-controversial ICO, marred by lawsuits among founders and faced a class action lawsuit filed in February. BTG Pactual was an early adopter of blockchain technology and security tokens, having launched a real estate based STO called ReiBZ on Ethereum.
On the bank’s decision to use Tezos for its new slate of offerings, partner Andre Portilho explained:
“While the bank remains protocol and technology agnostic, and will continue to utilize the Ethereum protocol, we see Tezos as a global player with a robust blockchain for asset tokenization.”
Zachary Cefaratti, CEO of Dalma Capital, added:
“We see Tezos as one of the critical protocols for the burgeoning STO market, and look forward to securing future deal flow on the Tezos blockchain.”
Tezos’ self-updating blockchain makes it a stand-out technological project. It is also an advocate of on-chain governance, with stakeholders able to vote on amendments to the protocol. It uses Proof-of-Stake as its consensus mechanism.
Tim Draper was not so blockchain agnostic as BTG Pactual. The seasoned VC investor is bullish on the sophisticated platform’s future:
“We are excited to see BTG Pactual and Dalma Capital making use of the Tezos blockchain – we are believers in the Tezos project and see a strong use case for security tokens.”
If all investable financial assets are tokenized, according to Zachary Cefaratti, CEO of Dalma Capital, the market for securities tokens is a whopping $268 trillion. If derivatives are tokenized on blockchains, they represent $595 trillion in value .
For Tezos to have attracted the attention of financial services players that have been active in the blockchain space, the future appears to bode well for the once-troubled foundation.