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UAE minister of economy: Crypto & tokenization “key” to doubling GDP

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At a panel for the World Economic Forum’s Global Technology Governance Summit today, United Arab Emirates minister of economy Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri said that cryptocurrency and asset tokenization will be key to the country’s plans to double its economy — currently estimated to be the 34th largest in the world — in ten years. 

Al Marri was joined on the panel, titled the “Arrival of the token economy, from art to real estate,” by artist Harry Yeff and WEF executive Sheila Warren. While much of the conversation centered on the current NFT craze, Al Marri’s comments centered largely on forthcoming tokenization use cases and their regulation.

According to Al Marri, the country has ambitions to grow its GDP by 7% yearly, which would put it on track to double the size of its economy by 2030. Tokenization will be a key cog in this effort, as “tokenization compliments information-based economies.”

Perhaps most exciting from an adoption standpoint, the minister said that the country has several ambitious projects underway, including a study underway being conducted along with the WEF on funding small and medium sized enterprises with a government-run token platform, possibly as part of a “regional token exchange” which is “in our agenda,” Al Marri said.

When asked about how the government — which by nature is deeply embedded in a pre-token economy — will interact with these new models and the need to regulate them Al Marri said the goal is to protect investors as well as the larger financial system without stifling innovation.

“We’re a government, we’re good at regulation,” he joked.

He highlighted two pain points in particular: Lack of “harmonized regulation,” and lack of sufficient regulation. He noted that jurisdiction and regional regulations need to work together in order to prevent cloistered bubbles of innovation, and to ensure that new asset models, such as fractionalized ownership, benefit all.

“How can we bring fractionalization to a level where everyone can benefit?” He asked.

He also noted that fractionalized ownership can lead to real world-meets-blockchain bugaboos: if an apartment has fractionalized ownership, who pays the upkeep fees? If there’s a fractionalized painting, what happens when the painting gets stolen?

Ultimately, the country is eager to lead the world in facing these questions head-on.

“We understand the challenges as such, but we are experimenting, and allowing the UAE to be a site of experimentation.” 

UAE minister of economy: Crypto & tokenization “key” to doubling GDP

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Crypto-collateralized loans may soon bring new investors to space

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Institutional investors will soon be able to receive Bitcoin-collateralized U.S. dollar loans through Silvergate Capital Corporation — the holding company of pro-crypto institution, Silvergate Bank.

According to an announcement from Silvergate, Coinbase Custody will be the custodian for loans funded through the bank’s Silvergate Exchange Network, or SEN. The network will provide access to capital through U.S. dollar loans collateralized by Bitcoin (BTC) while Coinbase holds the crypto in cold storage.

“Traditional lending services generally do not exist in the digital currency industry, which means there aren’t many lenders for investors to choose from,” said Jon Melton, Silvergate director of digital asset lending. “Our relationship with Coinbase Custody offers institutional investors increased access to capital efficiency so they can take advantage of market opportunities in the digital currency industry.”

Silvergate will offer loans starting at $5 million with an initial 12-month term. Such loans could augment or replace traditional funding rounds for firms looking to enter the crypto space.

Since first announcing it would explore offering crypto-collateralized loans in 2019, Silvergate’s annual revenue has more than tripled, from $30 million to $91.5 million. The bank said at the time that its clients had significant interest for Silvergate “to be involved in the custody and transfer of digital assets between customers.”

In the fourth quarter of 2020, CEO Alan Lane said the bank would be expecting “increased demand” for these loans in 2021. Though the number of digital currency deposits grew by $2.9 billion over the same period, the price of Silvergate Capital Corporation stock has been volatile in the first quarter of 2021, reaching an all-time high of $176.27 on Feb. 16 but falling 40% within three weeks. At the time of publication, NYSE:SI is valued at $148.90.

Crypto-collateralized loans may soon bring new investors to space

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Unmarshal raises $2.6M to build user-friendly blockchain data indexing protocol

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Unmarshal, a new project building a blockchain data indexing solution, has announced on Friday a $2.6 million seed funding round from a number of crypto industry investors.

Venture funds that participated in Unmarshal’s round include Woodstock, Black Edge Capital, Genesis Block Ventures or GBV, NGC Ventures, AU21, Spark Ventures, BitMax, and some others. The round was also joined by individual investors like Ravindra Kumar and Philip Arthur Moore from Frontier, Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, Aniketh Jindal, Danish Chaudhari and others.

Unmarshal is building a multi-chain data indexing network that would help offer structured blockchain data for industry participants. The network supports Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Elrond, Polkadot and Substrate-based chains. The team expects to roll-out support for layer-two networks through Polygon, formerly known as Matic.

Data infrastructure projects have achieved a significant level of popularity and usage, spearheaded by The Graph protocol. Unmarshal is in a similar niche, Manohara Kolagondanahalli, its co-founder, told Cointelegraph:

“Unmarshal is a complete end to end data network. We serve customised data needs for clients without asking them to code. Where The Graph needs developers to build subgraphs, we can provide more generic data such as wallet balance, transaction history for any address etc.”

Though some of the data can be obtained from free APIs, Kolagondanahalli believes that the data is insufficient. “APIs provided by blockchain are block specific or state specific. It will be difficult to answer questions like what are the tokens owned by an address and what is their worth,” he said.

Unmarshal will also feature a token that will be embedded in the ecosystem. “We will have a decentralized network where we onboard indexers, decoders, validators and delegators,” Kolagondanahalli explained.

Potential users of the Unmarshal data include all industry participants, from DApp projects to exchanges and trading firms. The data can be delivered through a variety of mediums like push notifications, WebSocket, or specific dashboards. Using this data in a blockchain context is harder, Kolagondanahalli said, as it requires a reliable oracle solution. “We can work with oracles or build our own oracles to provide the data for smart contracts,” he added.

Unmarshal seems to be aiming to be a data solution working out of the box for certain data needs, with Kolagondanahalli saying that “you can build a block explorer with Unmarshal.” Compared to competitors like The Graph or DuneAnalytics, which require using elaborate query languages to structure data, this may be an attractive proposition for certain uses.

Unmarshal raises $2.6M to build user-friendly blockchain data indexing protocol

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Andreessen Horowitz leads $23M round for NFT marketplace OpenSea

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OpenSea, one of the largest digital collectible marketplaces, has secured backing from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, and others in a new funding round.

According to Andreessen Horowitz, the firm is leading a $23 million Series A round for OpenSea alongside a16z’s Cultural Leadership Fund, as well as angel investors Ron Conway, Mark Cuban, Tim Ferriss, Belinda Johnson, Naval Ravikant, Ben Silberman, and others.

“OpenSea makes NFTs searchable, usable, and organized,” said a16z general partner Katie Haun. “But it goes further and provides a marketplace that brings all platforms together and eases transactions among all parties, the way eBay and Amazon do.”

The venture capital firm cited OpenSea’s growth in its decision to back the non-fungible token, or NFT, marketplace, saying it had been “off the charts” in the last six months, with transaction volume having grown 100-fold. In addition, a16z praised the marketplace’s leadership, including CEO Devin Finzer and CTO Alex Atallah.

As one of the first venture capital firms to enter the space, Andreessen Horowitz has invested in a variety of crypto projects so far, including Libra, Maker DAO, and Coinbase. Last month the firm backed Optimism’s L2 scaling solution.

This story is developing and will be updated.

Andreessen Horowitz leads $23M round for NFT marketplace OpenSea

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Here’s How You Can do STO Marketing More Effectively!

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Codezeros

The passage of time has witnessed ICOs shifting from a simple funding mechanism to being a controversial tool. Security Token Offering, also known as STO, is stealing all the news, especially when it comes to digital fundraising. By triumphing successfully over the predecessor, the STO is a much more trustable, regulated, and profitable strategy of the current times.

Overview of Security Token Offering:

STO is referred to as a cryptocurrency generating income in the form of profits, shares, dividends, interest, and more. Thus, an STO is a submission of security tokens and is mostly sold to the general public.

Unlike its predecessor, the STOs are primarily backed by negotiable assets where one has invested upon. These tokens are commonly referred to as financial instruments with real value in terms of money. The secondary nature of the STOs allows for upliftment in blockchain technology while generating opportunities for funding from eminent VCs.

Tips to market STO more effectively:

Similar to any other PR or Marketing Plan, you need to define the marketing goals sharp and clear. The step is a lengthy one that begins months prior to your marketing practices. However, if you create a healthy research-driven plan, you can market STO with the right strategy and effect.

Here is a detailed list of the prominent STO marketing plans:

Create an ideal website:

Remember, a robust online presence is one of the best decisions you can take for efficient STO development marketing. Irrespective of where the token security investor hails from, the website will undoubtedly be the first interaction. You can alter things in the long run, and however, if you mess up, it can result in experiencing failure.

The homepage serves as the most crucial page and is the face of the STO. It is about time to make an informative and professional homepage citing an executive summary of the business plan.

  • Make sure the website answers the critical questions.
  • It must be structured and formatted in the right manner
  • It should be engaged, rich in media, and ideally relevant
  • It must have a transparent whitepaper that can be easily accessed
  • The platform needs to offer ample information about all the individuals involved in the STO

Attaining the right website is clearly the basis for attaining the right marketing strategies. With the right STO solutions, you can have the rest of the structure ready in no time.

Perform a comprehensive market study:

If you want to market anything, you must start with performing the right market study. With distinctive parameters involved, the market study needs to be as extensive as possible. This process will help create a strong base and compel the buyers to purchase security tokens.

The research performed needs to be presented in an executive deck or using the best of videos or infographics. The engaging presentations of the market study are primarily helpful in grabbing a team of investors who do not have the patience to go through the white paper.

Know how to target:

At times, it is essential to grab a better reach. The buyers of security tokens are fewer, which is why it is essential to ensure that the investment in marketing takes place in the ideal channels with individuals present.

Prepare for an STO:

This is the stage where you need to prepare for an STO and ensure that you make your STO an enticing proposition for the investors. A campaign emerges as a great way of generating publicity around the token. At the same time, you also must use authorized media outlets for broadcasting news of your token sale. It can also help you retain PR firm services when you need to prioritize other issues vividly.

This is when you can also utilize link building, a Search Engine Optimization technique, to create backlinks effectively. With high-quality links, prominence, search engine ranking, and website standing tend to grow significantly. Security Token Offering Development Company will help you prepare an STO and set off the base for you.

Launch stage:

Investors will need assistance during the STO, and this is when you must be available to answer the queries about your token. Therefore, the investors must have a way of reaching out to you or your team. Moreover, networking is an established manner to develop the buzz while generating respect and trust. You can do so by allowing investors to partner through partnership.

Post STO:

It would help if you attained the STO listed in exchanges. This is also where the investors can trade it for cryptocurrencies and money. Attaining reputable cryptocurrency exchanges can be strenuous to get listed; however, a good marketer can help you attain good listings.

Conclusion:

A good STO marketing plan with STO Development services will help you attain the pinnacle of success. Hence, make sure you have a well-evaluated plan and an organized STO strategy in place.

Here’s How You Can do STO Marketing More Effectively!

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Bitpanda Hits $1.2 Billion Valuation After Raising $170 Million Funds

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Crypto-broker BitPanda is now officially Australia’s first fintech unicorn after raising $170 million from a Series B round, reports reveal.

The funding was headed by Valar Ventures and is coming barely six months after the firm raised $52 million from its first funding. With the latest funding, BitPanda is now valued at $1.2 billion.

The funding round also featured partners from investment firm DST Global, founded by Yuri Milner. DST Global has also invested in other ventures, including in American-based crypto-friendly stock trading app Robinhood. Although this is the first time DST is investing in Bitpanda, the other company Valar was involved in the company’s first funding round last year

The growth recorded in several areas

After concluding its Series A funding, the crypto broker has gained in several areas, including in the area of profits. Its revenue in the first two months of the year has already surpassed its revenue for the whole of 2020. Besides, the company’s user base has grown to 2 million registered users from 1.3 million within the past six months.

BitPanda’s mobile and desktop app offer access to over 50 investment assets, including precious metals and cryptocurrencies.

The firm is also planning to a new asset class such as ETFs and stocks within the year. Additionally, it has started taking price orders for a new Visa card that will be combining all assets such as precious metals, fiat, as well as crypto assets.

Co-founder and chief executive officer of Bitpanda Eric Demuth commented on the development. He said in a short time, retail investors will have access to a wide range of investments. “We already have plans in place to bring our offer to several new markets,” he added.

More expansion on the horizon

Bitpanda has been expanding its operations to several countries in recent months. Presently, the firm has a presence in Poland, Italy, Turkey, Spain, as well as France.

Last December, the company set up a tech innovation hub in Krakov with hopes of doubling its workforce. Bitpanda revealed there are plans to add more tech hubs and offices in Berlin, Paris, London, Barcelona, and London.

Demuth said the company wants to expand globally and has put plans in place for such expansion. It also wants to expand its financial products and bring them close to new audiences.

In the future, Bitpanda hopes to introduce the trading of exchange-traded funds as well as fractional shares on its platform.

Bitpanda Hits $1.2 Billion Valuation After Raising $170 Million Funds

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