GSX opens its door to Gibraltarians

With more than $13 billion raised in global initial coin offerings (ICOs) in the first seven months of the year, GBX’s enthusiastic urgency to get its token sales up and moving is understandable.

But – along with some 37 other applicants for licences under Gibraltar’s DLT regime – the blockchain subsidiary of the Rock’s boutique bourse Gibraltar Stock Exchange – still awaits regulatory approval.

Nevertheless, the world’s ground-breaking institutional grade token sale platform and Digital Asset Exchange was officially launched on Monday and ‘hosts’ six tokens with a combined global market capitalisation of more than $170 billion. These include the two oldest and best-known of the crypto-currencies, bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH), as well as Gibraltar’s own Rock Token (RTK).[ Regrettably, a plethora of acronyms come with any journey into the Cyber-world.] The launch marked ‘the most exciting development on the GBX journey thus far and is a significant indication that Gibraltar is open for business,’ according to Nick Cowan, CEO of GBX and its GSX bourse parent. Open to the public, it would enable customers who have passed the KYC (know your customer) test to use fiat currency (in this case US dollars) to enter the crypto exchange market (onboarding) and buy any of three Cyberworld tokens (BTC, ETH and RKT) with dollars. A greater number of fiat currencies real money) is planned to be incorporated onto the exchange in the future, Cowan tells me..

For instance, a customer could open an account with $1,000 and use this to buy tokens or ‘cryptos’ – though should he or she opt for BTC they would receive less than a sixth of a token whose ‘Cyber value’ is the equivalent of £6,241.5 as I write. RTK*, the primary medium of exchange for trades and whose initial price was set at 10 US cents would give them a lot more – and less volatile – tokens.

‘We are excited to enter this pivotal stage in our development at such an important time for the industry,’ says Cowan. ‘The fact that we can launch with fiat onboarding is a huge added bonus for our community.’ So, how can GBX launch and start carrying on business before it has been fully licensed by the Financial Services Commission? ‘GBX has a transitionary provision whilst the Commission reviews our application under the DLT regulatory framework,’ Cowan explains. ‘The transitionary provision was that if an exchange (storing or transmitting assets using DLT) was operating before December 31 last year, it could continue into this year if it applied, as we did, for a license by March 31. And as we had tech, we were storing and transmitting assets using DLT, we are able to open!’ A trial run of the new operation and involving 300 potential customers as well as the network’s 15 Sponsor Firms world wide, proved successful and ‘a significant number are already signed up to the GBX GRID, the exchange’s token sale platform, which recently completed its first successful ICO,’ Cowan adds.

‘These individuals have already received KYC and AML clearance to participate on the exchange and present an enthusiastic pool of potential future customers.’ RKT comply to the ERC-20 technical standard used for smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. They are utility tokens and can be used to pay trading fees; listing and sponsor fees; and for issuer staking on the GBX. They will also grant holders early access to token sales hosted on the GBX GRID and reduced trading fees on the Digital Asset Exchange.

Source: Gibraltar Chronicle