Share Dispenser brings shares to blockchain

The Zug-based FinTech Alethena, the Zurich start-up Ledgy and legal services provider Lexr, also based in Zurich, are together developing the Share Dispenser solution. It allows companies to tokenize their shares, while investors can acquire them directly via the company website. Payment is initially completed using a cryptocurrency pegged to the Swiss franc by Swiss Crypto Token AG. The digital money is sent to a smart contract that in turn dispenses shares directly into the shareholder’s crypto wallet.

Alethena has already tokenized all of its shares and is using Share Dispenser to sell its own shares, as outlined in an article on startupticker.ch. Transactions are visible to the public but anonymous. Shareholder data is stored on a traditional share register from Ledgy. Lexr is responsible for the legal structure of Share Dispenser. In order to acquire shares via Share Dispenser, investors must install the browser add-on MetaMask. This allows them to establish contact via the majority of browsers to Share Dispenser’s blockchain platform. Share Dispenser is also aiming to add a share trading functionality soon, as announced by Alethena in a blog post.

Overall, the solution should make the share acquisition process easier. Markus Hartmann, CEO of Alethena, was quoted on startupticker.ch: “Out of the more than 600’000 companies in Switzerland, only a few hundred are publicly traded. Our vision is to change this." Hartmann explained to industry platform BTC ECHO that the Share Dispenser solution used by Alethena should initially serve as proof of concept before it is ready for mass implementation. The solution is currently a basic version, to which improvements will be gradually made.