What In This Month's Edition?

1. Top News Stories From The Last Month

   • 👎 A Jukebox Zero

   • 🎣 Lofty Users Become Phishing Victims

   • 🎖️FranShares Has A Victory Lap

2. All Our News Coverage From September

3. Site News And Commentary

‼️ TOP STORIES
👎 A Jukebox Zero

A new music royalty investment platform launched with a decent amount of buzz, including being featured in Billboard. The platform, JKBX (pronounced like "Jukebox") is focused on investments in big name songs and artists.

Unfortunately, the company used a third-party to price their initial set of offerings. Those big name assets apparently come at a premium as all of them have a trailing 12 month yield of only 3.34%.

In short, that's pretty terrible. To make matters worse, there's no information on how the songs' royalties have changed over time. So that 3.34% could be very stable and reliable, or it could be from the best year the song has ever had.

There's also no information we can easily find about things like JKBX's fees. So we also don't know if we'll be paying a portion of that 3.34% to JKBX.

This launch is especially disappointing because it would have been nice to have another platform with SEC-qualified fractional offerings. For now, SongVest remains the only player that checks those boxes.

🎣 Lofty Users Become Phishing Victims

In a cautionary tale for the downsides of crypto-based and "on-chain" investments, Lofty continues to struggle with security incidents.

On August 25th, Lofty sent an email notifying users that some users had their accounts compromised through phishing.

While phishing is a problem that all websites face, there are some unique challenges for crypto-based platforms like this. Since properties and funds are stored in a Lofty crypto wallet, these can also be sent to other wallets that support the Algorand blockchain.

In other words, a malicious user can gain access to a victim's account and just send away their property shares and funds to someone else.

To make matters worse, the malicious users were able to exploit an issue with Lofty's platform to steal $15K from a wallet owned by the company.

In response, Lofty is beefing up security. Here’s a brief overview of the changes that have been implemented:

• Mandatory password resets for all users.

• Added brute force protections. Expected to be locked out of your account for 45 minutes if you miss-type your password. The company suggests this will become less strict over time.

• The use of app-based two factor authentication is now mandatory.

• Two factor authentication will be required for buy/sell orders and fund transfers.

• If you place an order on the marketplace with fiat currency and then cancel it after funds are settled, you will no longer have access to your USDC. You’ll have to ask Lofty for a manual refund to access your funds.

🎖️FranShares Has A Victory Lap

When a company goes to launch an investment platform for a new type of investment or asset class, it's not always clear how people will respond.

In the case of FranShares, it seems like the company is being both welcomed and celebrated by the franchising industry.

The company shared news about two key recognitions and achievements.

First, they announced they had joined the International Franchise Association (IFA). This should further legitimize the company as a viable partner for aspiring franchise brands and operators.

Second, they also announced that their CEO, Kenny Rose, received the “Certified Franchise Executive” designation. That is the "the gold standard for professional development in franchising" according to the IFA.

This should position the company well for being able to create future offerings with the top franchise brands.

FranShares inaugural offering the TNT Franchise Fund is now open for another round of investment that allows non-accredited investors to participate.

Since the fund first started with accredited investors, their first Teriyaki Madness (TM) location has already opened. The Mooresville, North Carolina location totaled more than $62K in the first two weeks of business and its success caught the attention of TM's CEO as well.

📰 LATEST NEWS ARTICLES
Roundups

Week Of September 10th

Week Of September 3rd

The End Of August

🌐 SITE

As we mentioned in last month's newsletter, we also have planned time off from the end of September into early October. That is why we are sending this month's newsletter out a bit earlier.

We'll see you all in October!