TZERO to Offer Public Trading Starting Aug. 12, Expects Up To 50,000 Investors

Retail giant Overstock’s blockchain subsidiary company, tZERO, plans to allow the public to trade its security tokens in four days.

Saum Noursalehi, CEO of tZERO, shared the announcement with CoinDesk, per a report published on Aug. 8. According to the announcement, Aug. 12 marks the end of a one year lock period following the company’s 2018 token offering.

Noursalehi additionally commented that the company is expecting as many as 50,000 new investors, who have already bought Overstock shares, to begin trading their digital security tokens. Despite not seeing a large amount of registration by press time, Noursalehi said that investors are reaching out to learn more:

“We had a lot of broker-dealers, about 30 or 40, reach out to us that want to get involved in this ecosystem [...] We’re working on these requests. Investors have been sending questions as well. They are excited and they are trying to understand it.”

At press time, the report notes that two tokens are available for trading on tZERO’s platform. One is a private equity token dubbed TZEROP, which was issued to operate the company’s initial token offering. The other is Overstock’s digital voting series A-1 preferred stock.

The report also notes that tZERO has been offering token trading since January, but the option was only available to accredited investors. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, these investors were offered the option to trade security tokens through the broker-dealer Dinosaur Financial Group. Dinosaur had partnered with a subsidiary of tZERO — PRO Securities — which allowed for secondary trading of tZERO tokens. 

At the time, Noursalehi commented:

“The world of security tokens has lacked a regulated venue for secondary trading. The trading of our own security tokens is the crossing of the Rubicon for the new world of digital assets. This will create liquidity, democratize access, bring transparency and efficiency to global markets and accelerate the adoption of security tokens.”

Managerial movement

In July, tZERO announced that it had hired three new managers. CEO Noursalehi remarked at the time:

“On the issuance front, Brooke will drive strategic development of our security token ecosystem by focusing on the supply-side of the equation — working with issuers to bring more quality assets to the PRO Securities ATS. Mike and Alex will spearhead our efforts to continue to develop strategic market positioning for tZERO and engage with current and prospective investors, analysts, media and other tZERO stakeholders.”

These three managers have reportedly held their roles since July 15. Navarro in particular was previously a managing director at Barclays, where she headed the company’s technology, media and telecom equity capital markets team.