Following a few years of high seas, the ICOs seem to be stabilizing as a market, not least because of regulators’ concerns, the stagnated ship financing market, since banks refrain from lending any monies, turn to the new age of finance for resources.
After the Hadjipateras‘ announcement, now it seems that a startup in Germany is looking to introduce shipowners to the amazing world of crowdfunding your tokenized assets.
This is a pretty cool thing. Traditional financing is sourced through financial institutions and middle men who are now reluctant to take the risks. Non-traditional and even non-institutional investors nevertheless are more thirsty for risk. Opening up assets to ICOs and STOs allows for opportunity distribution, immediate financing and risk sharing. Sharing the risk of course does not make it go away but individual strategies can accommodate it. The technology is already here and the markets are open. Shipping grabbed the opportunity relatively early for the industry, but it makes sense: following more controlled and successful experiments such as YieldStreet, STOs are the next logical step.
What does this mean for Marine Startups?