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Hi All. The promised tweet storm on INX. Coming up for air after a busy week. Wanted to give some background on the genesis of INX, why we built the token the way we did, and give some answers to your questions. 1/n
INX was built at the height of the 2017 ICO cash grabs and scams. We knew that flimsy ICOs hanging on legal opinion letters as “utilities” and simple business plans alone (1) were wrong and on the line of legal/illegal and (2) weren’t giving investors what they deserved. 2/n
We wanted to be the pioneers in paving a way for security tokens in the correct way, even if that meant a painfully-tedious regulated route. And we wanted to give the general public the chance to be a part of the INX community and be our brand supporters and front lines. 3/n
Security tokens are superior to equity because it unlocks p2p, borderless, compliant transfers governed by onchain mechanisms that allow real time cap table management. 4/n
The path we pioneered didn’t exist before then. Security tokens were barely a thing. The 2017 ICO wave showed that the general public yearned for investment opportunities - opportunities where they could be part of a company’s community and thrive in its growth. 5/n
INX wanted to bring to the market something similar, but in a regulated framework that would protect investors with the level of transparency and protections they deserved. 6/n
We built INX like none other in the industry. Publicly reporting. Audited financials. Historic transparency (all material agreements are public). Our Board has an independent majority, with prominent legacy market figures like David Weild, Tom Lewis, and Nick Thadaney. 7/n
We brought together a senior team and Board with extensive experience in both the legacy and cryptocurrency worlds. Bringing the best of both worlds to build a world-class trading platform. 8/n
We tried to align all interests in many ways. All senior management, Board members, and advisors are tokenholders, aligning us with the community. Our Articles have language that independent Board members have certain obligations to look out for the tokenholders. 9/n
All senior management, Directors, and advisors are subject to lock-up agreements on their token grants. Senior management and Directors are locked up for 2 years. This is quite unique in the industry. Insiders can’t dump on the market upon IPO. 10/n
We see our tokenholder community as VERY important to our success. Which is why they have benefits like the 40% profit share, trading fee discounts, and liquidation preference on our cash fund. It only makes sense for INX to embrace our tokenholders in every way possible. 11/n
Additionally, we wanted to build a professional trading platform ourselves to give traders the features and trading tools that we thought fell short on other regulated platforms in the space. Work on both the regulatory front and technology front started in late 2017. 12/n
There are many questions about our choice of ERC-20 as the rails to run our token on. Answer is simple - in late 2017 there was no other viable option that would meet all of our regulatory needs, house our whitelisting smart contract, and be compatible across the ecosystem. 13/n
It took us three years to get regulators comfortable with this path. There was simply no other viable option. We always have the ability to migrate to a different protocol. We have redundant records both on chain and with our regulated transfer agent @Tokensoftinc 14/n
Others have questioned advisor token grants. Simple - they were granted at fair market value (as per independent audit) when the company had a much lower valuation. They were near worthless at the time, and advisors granted their time vs. the potential of no reward. 15/n
Advisors were brought in for their expertise in various fields - security, wallets, trading platform experience, marketing, and other specialties. We have never believed in retaining advisors for their “face on the website”. 16/n
What we hope is that all of this comes together into creating a vibrant community of INX tokenholders that use the platform and believe in our vision. We are providing a unique opportunity to the public to get it on the ground floor of a regulated U.S. trading platform. 17/n
We have birthed a new asset class which is groundbreaking and we hope to help others follow our path. Thanks for listening! 18/fin
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