Bittrex Global's CEO says the exchange company is exploring safe havens in light of regulatory tightening

The Scoop

On this episode of The Scoop, Bittrex Global CEO Stephen Stonberg joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on Bittrex’s US and global businesses, his outlook on security tokens, and how the company is tackling regulatory tightening in an effort to safely enter markets across the world.

In its global business, Stonberg said that Bittrex is testing out lending and staking products as well as dipping its toes into STOs or Security Token Offerings, such as in real estate, stocks, cars, etc. Bittrex test-launched a limited number of what Stonberg termed ‘unsolicited ETFs’ like "Google tokenized and Tesla tokenized" which they are currently only selling to a small subset of clients via their Bermuda license.

As the market matures and investors eventually look for yield in alternative products outside of utility tokens, Bittrex is positioning itself to capture that market share.

“I would expect that as utility tokens become a more mature market, that you won't see those types of returns," said Stonberg.

Stonberg views real estate on the blockchain as one of the use cases that will reshape the industry. In fact, Bittrex is exploring the potential of STO-based tokens, such as in real estate as well as possibly art and IPOs, as Stonberg suggested. “I really think that you're going to see everything being tokenized. Why should we not have real estate tokenized? Like, why should if you're IPOing a company, why does it have to be an IPO? Why can't it be in the venture stage?”

As for where competitors are in the adoption cycle, Stonberg added: "Right now, we're in the fund build phase where the regulators haven't caught on yet." However, he did not comment on whether Bittrex has plans at this time to fundraise or enter public markets.

Episode 56 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Stephen Stonberg, CEO at Bittrex Global.

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