Security tokens are regulated variants of ICOs.  Symbiont will develop a new platform for NASDAQ.  This trading platform will be dedicated to enabling startups or new projects to offers regulated Security Token Offering in compliance with US law. 

Since the demand level of ICOs have gone out of trend and the utility tokens being considered as not belonging to the security class, several projects in the US are having to seek resort to STO.

Adena Friedman of NASDAQ stated that their firm was not interested in ICOs. She called ICOs as “Bleeding Edge.” She further stated, “I have real concerns about the lack of process, oversight, transparency, and accountability in these companies or individuals trying to raise capital with ICO.” she said speaking at an industry conference in June 2018.

When it is about cryptocurrencies or Bitcoin, Friedman is not a complete believer or skeptic.

NASDAQ is in talks with Symbiont to create its platform to enable listing, trading and issuance of the tokenized securities.

People who are familiar with the overall situation have to state that NASDAQ might gatecrash the crypto market with its new platform.

The symbiont is well known for working on the technology empowering Facebook and Tesla.  Now, Symbiont is exploring the security token platform.  This platform will help issue tokens that tend to fit into the security norms laid down by the US Securities Law.

The popularity of ICO explored in popularity; however, there were scam and fraud stories too.  Since it helped startup companies raise millions in funds in just a few seconds, the situation did draw the attention of regulators like SEC.

If NASDAQ succeeds in its attempts, it will join several firms offering such services like Polymath, TrustToken, and tZero.

Leaseum Partners based in will be offering Security Tokens on Real Estate Properties.

A recent research by The Block has to state that Security tokens will solve several issues related to US stocks.  Rather than a single institution doing the job of settling transactions and controlling the shares, distributed nodes and miners who operate on the blockchain build the tokens which will be managed in the open platform. Since there will be no centralized technology, the transactions can be far reliable.  Lack of centralization is said to ward off several other risks.  Though many are not convinced that the blockchain will contribute to a difference in the trading process there are leaders who are of opinion that blockchain is not already influencing most of the liquid assets that we are trading.