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The Emerging Trend of Security Token Offerings

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One of the advanced emerging technologies is blockchain. It supports crypto assets like Bitcoin, Ether, utility tokens, and security tokens. In the financial service marketplace, crypto-assets open a world of opportunities. Most of the people out there are familiar with utility tokens, but the concept of security tokens is relatively new.

A security token extracts its value from an external and tradable asset. The trend of security token offering development is emerging rapidly. To have a clear understanding, follow the article.

The Emerging Trend of Security Token Offerings

What is STO?

For the initiation of the projects, fundraising serves to be a crucial factor for the startup. In the past couple of years, several mechanisms of fundraising have assisted the startup. Several startups have implemented ICO (Initial Coin Offering) to fulfill their purpose of fundraising. But, currently, STO (Security Token Offering) has replaced ICO.

We need to understand that each fundraising version has its advantages and disadvantages. Those versions are used by competitors to bring out a necessary featureful device. The latest type of fundraising that is used by startups is STO. The other forms of fundraising offered by security token offering development companies are utility tokens given to the investors.

Differences between IPO, ICO, and STO?

IPOs are the common way for companies to opt for fundraising. Having an IPO (Initial Public Offerings), the company can sell shares with corporate rights like voting or dividend. Such shares are highly regulated securities.

ICO emerged in 2017. The startups or companies that deal with projects associated with blockchain make use of ICO. In exchange for the capital, it provides digital value to the investors. In the beginning, most of the investors were opting for ICOs to invest. But with time, the number of digital frauds increased over here.

This made ICOs ineffective, and STO solutions took over. The popular reason behind this is that STOs were able to provide security to their investors. Keep in mind that ICOs did not fail initially, as, at that time, the tokens they provided to the investors were based on the emerging technology of blockchain. The utility tokens help the investors to access any platform of products.

Because of their high liquidity, the investors of ICO got a new way to make use of the tokens. The token could be sold for higher charges. However, the companies could not finish with their products even after gathering money from the investors. Thus, it eventually led to the loss for the investors, and thus, ICOs failed.

Insight about STO:

An investor always ensures that there should be no loss that he or she needs to face during the process. ICO did not facilitate security, and that is why these security tokens were launched to ensure a secure environment. Having real value, security tokens are the tradable assets’ digital representation.

While trading money from the companies the investors invest in, they will receive security tokens. The investment can be made peacefully, and one does not need to be worried about ROI (Return on Investment), as it is well-recognized by the law. The investment remains transparent because of the tokenization of securities.

Just like an ICO, an STO development company builds a smart contract on a network like Ethereum. To be more particular, what a usual contractor can perform, can be performed with a smart contract. There is no need for a middleman. It is fully digital.

Advantages of Security Token Offering:

We have understood that it helps in fundraising for startups and companies. But, apart from these are some more benefits that make it favorable for the companies out there. The popular benefits are as follows:

  1. The automated system eliminates frauds: Human intervention is eliminated because most of the transactions are performed on an automatic system. This means that there are little or no possibilities of extra charges or any fraud in the case of STOs. It not only improves the investors’ profitability but also increases their security.

2. Customization: Cryptocurrency can be easily customized. Any functionalities can be put, like dividends and transaction limits. The flexibility of digital assets not just makes it profitable but offers you customizable features as well.

3. No involvement of extra costs: In STOs, there is no existence of any middleman. Thus, one will never have to come across any additional costs, like a transaction fee. It increases profitability and makes the investment process less complicated for the investors.

4. One will not ever lose tokens: When a bitcoin is sent to avoid address, there is the involvement of risk up to a particular level. But the STOs can be programmed properly by the programs so that they can be recovered if stolen or lost. The only thing an owner needs to do is pass the procedures of stringent verification to acquire the tokens.

The popular STOs:

Among all the popular STOs, Nexo is comparatively more popular. It provides loans instantly with competitive rates. During the time of token sale, it raised 52.5$M successfully. Most of the shareholders of Nexo are also the most of Credissimo’s shareholders. The credibility of Nexo goes to the fintech group that is operating for several years.

Another successful STO is tZERO, which became the US’ first regulated security token exchange. At the time of token sale, they had successfully raised 134$M. CEO of Overstock was the founder of the platform. Overstock gives much credibility to the project.

In Luneburg, Germany, recently, a real estate object was tokenized. The platform was sold successfully for 1.5$M.

The future scope of the STOs:

Experts are expecting that security token offering services will enable many companies to improve their business’s liquidity by converting their valuable elements into an asset, which is more tradable. It will further leverage the company’s profit with newer investments.

To increase the fundraising capability, some startups are going to use the hi-tech blockchain feature of the STOs. They will do it by attracting global investors to make investments in their startups or companies.

Conclusion:

Compared to the ICOs’ security tokens, the STOs are more reliable and secured. This is the primary reason why most companies and investors are looking to turn their assets into tokens in the future. Moreover, STOs are now considered to be one of the most demanding investment mechanisms. We can conclude that STO will keep expanding in the upcoming future and tempt the companies and investors more towards STO.

The Emerging Trend of Security Token Offerings

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DeFi’s money markets are finally luring in institutional investors

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Bitcoin’s bull run from last year has caused even some of its biggest skeptics to soften their stance. From economists to hedge fund managers, the world is opening itself up to technology, and at the center of this movement is decentralized finance, or DeFi. While the market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has hit $2 trillion, worth as much as Apple, it’s the promise of DeFi — a small corner of the blockchain industry today — that’s grabbing the attention of institutional investors.

As Bitcoin’s (BTC) bullish trend persists, interest-bearing crypto products have become all the rage. Some services offer up to 8% returns on Bitcoin holdings. For investors who are already expecting a rise in value, this can be incredibly useful for maintaining cash flow without selling any assets.

The three main factors solidifying institutional interest in Bitcoin are the current historically low interest rates, the inflation rate and geopolitical instability. With near-zero interest rates expected for the foreseeable future, investors are gearing up to move their funds into alternative locations for securing wealth.

The United States Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target has incited concern in investors fearing devaluation, and with tensions between the U.S. and China on a precarious edge, portfolios denominated in U.S. dollars are becoming riskier by the day.

A market for money

Buying, storing and using cryptocurrencies securely is still quite a complex ordeal — far more involved than setting up a bank account. However, according to Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock — a global investment management fund with nearly $9 trillion in assets under management — Bitcoin could evolve into a global market asset and achieve new highs in the upcoming years.

In the traditional financial system, money markets are parts of the economy that issue short-term funds. They usually deal with loans for periods of a year or less, and offer services like borrowing and lending, buying and selling, with wholesale trading taking place over the counter. Money markets are composed of short-term, highly liquid assets and are part of the broader financial markets system.

Money markets are traditionally very complicated, with expensive overheads and hidden fees pushing most investors to hire a fund manager. However, their existence is paramount to operating a modern financial economy. They incentivize people to lend money in the short term and allocate capital toward productive use. This improves the overall market’s efficiency while helping financial institutions meet their goals. Basically, anyone with extra cash on hand can earn interest on deposits.

Money markets are composed of different kinds of securities, such as short-term treasuries, certificates of deposits, repurchase agreements and mutual funds, among others. These funds generally consist of shares that cost $1.

On the other hand, capital markets are dedicated to the trade of long-term debt and equity instruments, and point to the entire stock and bond market. Using a computer, anyone can purchase or sell assets in mere seconds, but companies issuing the stock do so to raise funds for more long-term operations. These stocks fluctuate, and unlike money market products, they have no expiration date.

Since money market investments are virtually risk-free, they often come with meager interest rates as well. This means that they will not produce huge gains or display substantial growth, compared with riskier assets like stocks and bonds.

DeFi vs. the world?

To hedge against currency risk, institutions have started using Bitcoin, and retail investors are following their lead. More than 60% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply hasn’t moved since 2018, and BTC is predicted to push well above $100,000 in the next 24 months.

If the current trend carries forward, investors will continue to stockpile BTC. However, while much of the supply of the world’s first cryptocurrency remains in storage, the DeFi industry is constantly producing alternative platforms for interest-bearing payments through smart contracts, which increases transparency by allowing investors to view and track on-chain funds.

The average return for DeFi products is also much higher than in traditional money markets, with some platforms even offering double-digit annual percentage yields on deposits. From asset management to auditing smart contracts, the DeFi space is creating decentralized infrastructure for scalable money markets.

According to Stani Kulechov, co-founder of the Aave DeFi protocol, rates are high during bull markets because the funds are used to leverage more capital, with the cost of margin pushing up the yield. “New innovation in DeFi is consuming more stablecoins, which further increases the yield. Unless there is a new capital injection — these rates might stick for a while,” he said.

The Ethereum network currently hosts most of the DeFi applications, and this has barred tokens that aren’t available on the network from participating in decentralized finance. Bitcoin, for example, despite being the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has only recently found its way onto DeFi platforms.

Related: DeFi yield farming, explained

With Kava’s Hard Protocol, investors can yield farm using Bitcoin and other non-ERC-20 tokens like XRP and Binance Coin (BNB). Backed by some prominent names (Ripple, Arrington XRP Capital and Digital Asset Capital Management, among others), the platforms allow users to stake their cryptocurrencies into a pool of assets, which is lent out to borrowers to generate interest.

The team also plans to add support for Ethereum-based tokens in the near future. The network’s upgrade to Kava 5.1, which was postponed to April 8 after failing to reach the required quorum, will also introduce the Hard Protocol V2, bringing powerful incentivization schemes and enhancements to its governance model.

Most loans in DeFi are overcollateralized, meaning the pool always has more money than it lends out. In case the value of the issued token drops, funds in the pool are liquidated to compensate.

According to Anton Bukov, co-founder of decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch, blockchains are the first-ever unbiased executors in human history — very limited, but ultimately fair — and could deliver new services and new flows of interactions in future. “Developers are doing their best to solve potential dishonesty issues of existing flows and invent new flows by replacing intermediaries,” he said.

By creating an automated platform to borrow and lend assets, decentralized finance enables money markets without intermediaries, custodians or the high fees that stem from high infrastructural costs.

Honest work

Of the many trends DeFi has set into motion over the last few years, yield farming has attracted quite a lot of attention. Yield farming is when the network rewards liquidity providers with tokens that can be further invested into other platforms to generate more liquidity tokens.

Simple in concept, yield farmers are some of the most vigilant traders out there, constantly switching up their strategies to maximize their yield and tracking rates across all platforms to ensure they’re getting the sweetest deal. The potential rate of return can become obscenely high, but it’s still unclear whether yield farming is just a fad or a phenomenon in the making. Kulechov added:

“Yield farming is simply a way to distribute governance power to users and stakeholders. What actually matters is whether the product itself would find protocol market/fit. Most successful governance power distributions with yield farming have been with protocols that have found protocol market/fit before such programs.”

Yield farming has an incredibly positive feedback loop, with an increase in participation pushing the value of its governance token up, driving further growth. According to Kava CEO Brian Kerr, while this feedback loop can produce very positive results in bull markets, it can have entirely the opposite effects in falling markets:

“It will be up to the governance groups of the various projects to navigate bear markets effectively, by ratcheting back rewards before a full-on death spiral occurs. Regardless of bull or bear markets, yield farming will be a mainstay in blockchain projects for years to come.”

Money markets are the pillars of our global financial system, but most of its transactions occur between financial institutions like banks and other companies in time deposit markets. However, some of these transactions do find their way to consumers through money market mutual funds and other investment vehicles.

Decentralization is the next frontier for finance, and as prominent investors continue to engage with the DeFi space, a decentralized economy seems all but inevitable. Participating in the burgeoning environment may be a risky bet today, but what decentralized finance platforms learn now will be the foundation of the robust DeFi applications of the future. According to Bukov, the higher interest rates of DeFi platforms are “absolutely sustainable.” He added:

“Higher profits are usually involved with higher risks. So the risk-profit model of all these opportunities is always nearly balanced. Normalizing risks would decrease profits because more participants will join to share the rewards.”

From smart contract malfunctions to the unauthorized withdrawal of community funds, the DeFi space is a place of both miracles and nightmares. DeFi-based yield farming platforms are still in their very early stages, and while the numbers can be all too tempting at times, it’s crucial to do your own research before investing in any platform or asset.

DeFi’s money markets are finally luring in institutional investors

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Tokenomics From Myths to Reality

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Codezeros

Now that the world is transforming towards a more technologically enhanced environment, newer terms are occupying markets. Every day there is something new coming up and surprising us. The tech market has given us a brand-new term to ponder upon, Tokenomics!

So, what is it? Well, Tokenomics is widely defined as a system used for formatting pricing policy for tokens. Tokenomics is basically an amalgamation of two words: Token and Economics.

The driving concept of Tokenomics is none other than Blockchain and cryptocurrency development services. Here, we will have a look into how Tokenomics is becoming prevalent for tokenized transactions and what the challenges are waiting on its way.

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Tokens and Tokenomics:

Tokens are value units assigned by a specific organization and a part of an existing blockchain. Tokens can have value in the form of a certain service, ownership, or rights over any asset. The values are more of use cases than currency.

Tokens should also possess certain qualities to qualify as valid Tokens. The value assigned to a token must be scalable and be resilient to inflations. The basic Tokenomics is what helps a token to get funded, thus promoting a financially sustainable business model of tokenization blockchain service provider.

The future is digitized, and thus, improvising on the revenues in digital spaces can be richly aided with the involvement of Tokenomics. Digitization of assets is the very first step towards building a digitally stable and competent business system by virtue of tokenization security.

Why Tokenomics?

Tokenomics is fundamentally different from economics and has an important role to play in the growth of digitization. With the intervention of Blockchain and cryptocurrency, the security of transactions has increased manifolds, and it is strongly believed that the future is tokenized.

Let’s see some applications of Tokenomics.

Producer-Consumer Alignment:

Tokenized economies are helpful for consumers whose values are not aligned with big profit-centered enterprises. Bypassing such enterprises will bring you closer to token-based blockchain networks where consumers and producers join hands to meet each other’s specific needs and establish a healthy relationship.

Full Cost Accounting:

With the use of tokens, the prediction of both social and economic costs can be done effortlessly. This is a great benefit for multiple stakeholders, and thus, the involvement of Tokenomics is highly encouraged in such fields.

Investments:

Investors all around the globe are searching for opportunities that will let them analyze and look through the vulnerabilities and benefits of each investment made. This not only lets them build a reliable and robust model but also helps them to mobilize their business throughout the community. Token Development Services, along with Tokenomics, is an aid for the aforesaid plan and certainly is a factor that lets the business ecosystem grow to match the ongoing digitization standards.

Challenges about Tokenomics

Now there are four challenges that Tokenomics is facing while growing into a reliable business aid.

The first one is mental inertia. This is basically a stopping force that is raging among people who have never used such technologies in their business. Thus, fear and uncertainty creep in to form a rigid belief that may be; the outcome would not be as expected.

Tokenomics, being quite an infant technology, is still not preached globally, and many businesses resort to equip such newer technologies in their model. This is certainly because Tokenomics is either overly simplistic or cautious.

The next challenge about Tokenomics is associated with the inculcation of Artificial Intelligence. A lot of stakeholders believe that AI involvement might lead to False paths, and thus, the ultimate outcome will be that the business failed to reach where it headed to. The lost path might not be a good risk to take, and hence tokens are avoided by such businesses.

The third and one of the biggest challenges that token development services face is the existence of Government rules and restrictions. In many cases, these rules and regulations are contradicted by Tokenomics policies, and thus, they are unable to cross through the judicial barriers, to reach out to potential businesses.

The last Challenge to mention regarding Tokenomics is that people think differently about this new aspect of the digital business scheme. The dilemma to decide on whether to bring in Tokens or avail of cryptocurrency development services as part of a business is a confusing question, and the answer solely depends on one’s requirement.

How to overcome the challenges?

Now that these challenges are visible around, it is important to seek help from crypto security companies and systemize the entire process of bringing in Token services in a business.

  • Start with describing the expectations from the product of the project, along with customer characteristics. This will enable you to assign the value of each Token accurately.

Conclusion

The arrival of new technologies does face a bit of resistance in the first go, but with time and developments, the option available widens, and people start trusting the newcomer. Tokenomics has a long way to go, and it has already started the journey with little steps. Businesses that have equipped Tokenomics will serve as encouragement for others, and the growth will stabilize soon.

Tokenomics From Myths to Reality

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VORTECS Report: Storage coins rev up gains as Markets Pro rides the green wave

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It’s been another great week for altcoins as the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies moves within spitting distance of the $2 trillion mark.

And it’s been equally positive for the Cointelegraph Markets Pro platform, which tracks crypto market conditions and real-time headline news in the blockchain industry to deliver market intelligence for every investor.

Markets Pro offers two unique features: The VORTECS™ Score, an algorithmically-derived weighted score that compares current market conditions to historically-similar marketscapes, and NewsQuakes™ — the industry’s most rapid aggregator of market-moving news, analyzed and collated from over a thousand primary sources every minute.

In this weekly report we analyze the most important highlights from the week’s events on Markets Pro.

Top VORTECS™ Score gains this week

Between March 26 and April 1, the three best-performing assets identified by Cointelegraph Markets Pro were Storj (+121%), Filecoin (+115%), and Holochain (+111%). All three rode green waves powered by patterns of trading and social activity that the VORTECS™ model has seen before — as described in our description of how the algorithm works.

Analyzing STORJ

As the graph above demonstrates, the cloud storage token STORJ recorded a streak of high VORTECS™ scores, marked by the first red circle, roughly 60 hours before the price spike on April 1 (first and second red boxes).

This price increase could also be explained by the effect of Storj-USDT margin swaps being listed on Huobi Futures the same day, an announcement captured in a NewsQuake™. Those using Markets Pro intelligence in their market research had the advantage of this powerful dual-validation pointing to both historically auspicious market conditions and favorable news around the asset following its recent listing on Coinbase.

Analyzing Filecoin (FIL) and Holochain (HOT)

Indeed, this has been a good week for storage coins. The second-best performer, Filecoin, pulled off a rally that saw it appreciate from around $125 to $233 in two days.

As seen in the graph above, some 24 hours before the price took off Filecoin’s VORTECS™ Score ventured into the 80+ territory for a few hours, marked by the red circle.

The rise of another big winner of the week, Holochain (seen below), also unfolded following a sequence of strong VORTECS™ scores, ranging from high 60s to high 70s, with a peak of 82 (red circle in the graph) coming around 50 hours before the asset began its ascent from $0.010 to $0.019.

Understanding VORTECS™: The relationship between the score and Newsquakes™

Some users wondered whether NewsQuakes™ are a constituent part of the VORTECS™ score. The short answer is no. These are two completely different functionalities within Markets Pro that can complement each other but can also be used separately.

In fact, some of the NewsQuakes™ feature assets for which the score is not yet generated: One example is this week’s announcement of a partnership between DAFI and DIA saw the latter asset, not yet indexed by the VORTECS™ model, appreciate by almost 22%.

That said, oftentimes the two work in conjunction. The example of Filecoin already mentioned above showcases how a high VORTECS™ score and a subsequent NewsQuake™ can be used to boost users’ confidence that the conditions for a coin are favorable.

In other cases, a positive VORTECS™ score can follow the news: Once a favorable announcement is absorbed by market participants, trading and social conditions can align into a pattern that the model identifies as bullish. And sometimes, the two can be completely unrelated.

Analyzing 0x (ZRX)

The graph above shows the price of 0x starting to climb steadily after the news of the asset’s listing on OKEx went public — all while the VORTECS™ score remained neutral.

Testing results: Week’s top strategies

This week, 17 of the 42 VORTECS™ strategies currently tested outperformed both Bitcoin and an evenly weighted portfolio of all the top 100 altcoins. Of those strategies, 8 were score-based (Buy at VORTECS™ X  / Sell at VORTECS™ Y) and 9 were time-based (Buy at VORTECS™ X / Sell after Y hours).

The table below contains information on ROI that the top-5 strategies of the week have generated up to April 1st 2021. For more context, you can also see these strategies’ monthly and all-time returns (tracked since January 5th 2021). 

These strategies are designed to represent benchmarks for the VORTECS™ model’s aggregate performance. To discover how these tests are performed, consult the methodology help file.

Testing results: All-time leaders

The table below presents three best all-time strategies in each category (score-based and time-based) and their performance this week. As the table demonstrates, strategies that do well in the long run can have a downward blip in any given week: Buy at 90 / Sell after 168 hours is a particularly conspicuous example this time. At the same time, two of the all-time best have also had a solid showing this week.

New alerts system

A total of 107 VORTECS™ hit Markets Pro users this week, featuring 27 different coins.

One of the most frequent requests we’ve been getting from the community is to enable notifications at different levels of the VORTECS™ score. There are now 12 dedicated Discord channels designed to alert subscribers when an asset goes above or below a specific threshold.

Powerful NewsQuakes™

A total of 86 NewsQuake™ notifications went out to the Cointelegraph Markets Pro community this week, including 44 exchange listings, 25 partnerships, and 17 staking announcements.

Markets Pro also tracks the most consequential news identified by NewsQuakes™ and the price action of various crypto assets following the headline. This week the most consequential news items were followed by significant price gains over the course of the week:

· Storj listing on Coinbase: +161% peak return

· Ankr Network listing on Coinbase: +109% peak return

· Filecoin’s partnership with Chainlink: +48% peak return

Cointelegraph Markets Pro is available exclusively to subscribers on a monthly basis at $99 per month, or annually with two free months included. It carries a 14-day money-back policy to ensure that it fits the crypto trading and investing research needs of subscribers, and members can cancel anytime.

Important disclaimer

Cointelegraph is a publisher of financial information, not an investment adviser. We do not provide personalized or individualized investment advice. Cryptocurrencies are volatile investments and carry significant risk including the risk of permanent and total loss. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Figures and charts are correct at the time of writing. Consult your financial advisor before making financial decisions. Full terms and conditions.

VORTECS Report: Storage coins rev up gains as Markets Pro rides the green wave

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Draper Goren Holm adds Tezos startups to its $25M venture fund

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Blockchain venture studio Draper Gorem Holm has announced plans to incubate Tezos-based startups as part of its $25 million venture fund, highlighting its conviction in the smart contract platform.

The venture fund, called Fund 1, was launched in October 2020 as a way to incubate emerging blockchain companies. Fund 1 is set up as a traditional venture capital fund focusing on emerging fintech and blockchain startups.

The inclusion of Tezos-based projects into the fund is hardly surprising given the company’s growing support for the smart contract platform. Draper Goren Holm already backs Tezos Stable Technologies, the team behind the USDtez stablecoin. The company has also invested in Kalamint, a Tezos-based NFT marketplace.

Tim Draper, the company’s special limited partner, described Tezos as the “leading platform for smart contracts and low energy use” due to its reliance on proof-of-stake, or PoS, consensus.

Alon Goren, founding partner of Draper Goren Hold, said:

“We believe the differences in the Tezos blockchain, and how it is governed, are monumental to scaling blockchain verticals for the long-term.”

Tezos was one of the most promising smart contract platforms of late 2019 and early 2020 but has faded from the limelight amid the bull market. At $3.8 billion, XTZ is now ranked 32nd by market capitalization, according to CoinMarketCap.

Draper Goren Holm adds Tezos startups to its $25M venture fund

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Visa Testing Crypto-Based Transaction Settlement Systems

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The COVID-19 pandemic has done quite a number on the world’s economy, one many parts of society have yet to recover from. The blockchain industry, however, managed to get severely crippled by it and recover to brand new all-time highs directly after. One of the crypto space in general’s key wins, particularly Bitcoin’s was a new frenzy of positive sentiments regarding both companies and institutions, as both started to make heavy investments by the millions of USD into the space.

Visa Seeing Crypto Demand

Many nations tried to counteract the damage of the economic downfall by printing money. They did so by way of various stimulus packages. This, alongside the fears of inflation and the budding NFT space, has growth be the prime idea behind the crypto space at large. The industry itself is growing and people hold fears that the fiat space is weakening. Many a company has now incorporated crypto services into its offering, with Visa being one of the more prominent ones.

Guy Sheffield stands as the Head of Crypto at Visa, and gave a public statement to Reuters about the matter. He highlighted that the demand to hold, use, and otherwise access digital currencies have increased by the company’s customers. Thus, Visa’s clients are demanding products to help provide access to these things for the consumer.

crypto

Innovating With The Times

Visa is aiming big, making an announcement on Monday. This announcement revealed that it will allow for crypto-based payment settlements in the future, having partnered with the Anchorage crypto bank and the Crypto.com exchange platform for the pilot as a whole. Users of Crypto.com boasting a prepaid Visa card from said exchange will be capable of paying for goods through it. All they need to do is top it up with their respective crypto balances.

Prior to this move, any sort of settlement like this would involve Crypto.com wiring fiat currency to Visa at the end of each day in order to settle any processed transactions of that day. This pilot, however, will see Visa using USD Coin (USDC) in order to settle transactions. USDC is a stablecoin pegged 1:1 on the USD, making every USDC worth one USD proper.

Through this action, Visa has chosen the Ethereum blockchain to settle its various transactions and completely removing the fiat part of these crypto settlements. This, in turn, means that Crypto.com will now make use of USDC in order to settle transactions.

Plans To Expand

This new settlement service will allow Visa to significantly speed up the speed at which settlements are made, at the same time significantly decreasing its cost. As it stands now, the exact scope and volume of the pilot program between Visa and Crypto.com is unclear, but Visa made it clear that it plans to extend this offering to other partners, as well.

Visa Testing Crypto-Based Transaction Settlement Systems

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