From crowdfunding to crowdtrading?

Seedrs has announced a new platform to let crowdfunders trade their investments, which is already being dubbed a crowdfunding stock market.

The company hopes that giving people more flexibility in the way they invest in new companies will overcome the concerns some would-be investors have about locking in their money for years or even decades.

But, in order to ensure that trading in shares of companies doesn’t overtake the long-term value of actually investing in them, Seedrs plans on placing strict controls on this ‘secondary market.’

For example, investors will only be able to trade shares with other people who have invested in the same company, at a price and time fixed by Seedrs.

These limits may seem prohibitively restrictive when considered in comparison with the real stock market, but given this is a brand new proposition, taking a number of small steps towards an open trading environment seems more prudent than a single, large, unproven one.