OpenCrowd at CryptoNouveau 2019
The sentiment of CryptoNouveau event in Manhattan’s West Village during New York Blockchain Week was vibrant in the wake of the latest surge in crypto prices. It appears that many members of the blockchain community buckled down to build product and stayed under the radar while marketing was kept to a minimum. The results speak for themselves; the foundation of decentralized ledger technology has evolved in tremendous strides since last year’s event, and we cannot wait to see how the technology continues to mature in the coming months.
Below is a small sample of the companies that presented their incredible progress at CryptoNouveau. It was a pleasure to be among such a prestigious group of forward-thinking companies. We learned an enormous amount in our brief time there, and we hope this article will serve as a launchpad for you to engage with these companies during this exciting time.
We want to thank the main speakers, Jules Miller (IBM Blockchain Ventures) and David Chaum (Elixxir), as well as the numerous partner speakers: Tomer Sofinzon (20|30), Ryan Feit (SeedInvest), Sebastian Serrano (Ripio), Alex Mashinsky (Celsius Network), and Antonio Brasse (BlockQuake). A special thanks goes to Ana Carolina Coelho, Daren McKelvey, and R1 Labs for organizing this incredible event. We have included additional details and each organization’s contact info for your convenience:
20|30 is a unique market-driven DLT venture studio and holding company that built The Pillar Project (universal wallet). They made history by becoming the first UK company to successfully tokenize and issue its own equity as part of the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Sandbox 4 in collaboration with the London Stock Exchange Group. Their mission is to build the decentralized tools and infrastructure that will be mainstream by the year 2030. They acquire promising projects in full and build their own market-driven solutions in-house. To chat or collaborate, contact: Tomer Sofinzon (Tomer@2030.io), Rob Gaskell (Rob@2030.io), and Andra Nicolau (andra@2030.io)
SeedInvest is a leading equity crowdfunding platform, opening up access to venture capital and angel investment to everyone. Recently acquired by cryptocurrency startup Circle, SeedInvest is the first equity crowdfunding platform to receive FINRA approval to operate a secondary trading marketplace by being granted an alternative trading system (ATS) license. To chat or collaborate, contact: Ryan Feit (Ryan@seedinvest.com), Tai Nicolopoulos (tai@seedinvest.com), and Wyatt Lonergan (wyatt@seedinvest.com).
Celsius Network is a cryptocurrency platform that allows its users to lend and receive cryptocurrency-based loans. Their platform offers interest rates of up to 7.5%, and allows users to loan, earn, borrow and pay using cryptocurrencies and blockchain. The platform utilizes proceedings from the loans to buy BTC, ETH, and other promising cryptocurrencies to pay interest to lenders. To chat or collaborate, contact: Alex Mashinsky (alex@celsius.network), Daniel Leon (daniel@celsius.network), and Aliza Landes (aliza@celsius.network).
BuildCoin Foundation is bridging the $2T gap in infrastructure spending (power plants, Smart Cities, clean water) by bringing early stage capital, liquidity, and financial transparency to transformational projects. With an experienced team, a world class advisory board, and a multi-billion pipeline of infrastructure projects, BuildCoin is building a better world. To chat or collaborate, contact: John Cronin (John@buildcoinfoundation.org).
BlockQuake, whose debut project is a first of its kind exchange going live in a few weeks, will scale to a true one stop shop regulatory-oriented trading experience with multiple fiat onramps including credit card processing globally and hundreds of digital assets. The team believes there are many opportunities for improvement within the blockchain and distributed ledger technology space, from addressing speed of transactions, to the validation and verification of data, as well as decentralized data storage, to name just a few. BlockQuake’s first role in this space as a centralized digital asset exchange helps to ensure the safe storage of digital assets that support these networks via the use of qualified custodians, as well as ensuring efficient trading or transferring of these assets through the use of battle-tested trading technology. To chat or collaborate, contact: Antonio Brasse (antonio.brasse@blockquake.com), Bernie Gonzalez (bernie.gonzalez@blockquake.com), Kyle Driscoll (kyle.driscoll@blockquake.com), and Samuel Hyun (sam.hyun@blockquake.com).
Ripio, founded in 2013, is the largest crypto company in Argentina and the one of the most promising fintech brands in Latin America. With over 300,000 users in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico (and in current expansion to Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Colombia), the company is one of the main promoters of the new digital economy in the region. Tim Draper and Digital Currency Group are among its main investors. To chat or collaborate, contact: Sebastian Serrano (sebastian@ripio.com).
Shakti is a high-performance data processing system and a programming language merging the worlds of high-speed and high-volume. It has a unified architecture of streaming, real-time, and historical (capture, mining, and historical analysis), as well as capturing tens of millions of messages per second (gigabytes per minute) in real-time. Shakti is able to analyze and store trillions of records/petabytes of historical data and comes with native hashing, encryption, and digital signature capabilities for public/private blockchains. Their footprint is very low, which is perfect for both scalable and distributed cloud deployments, in addition to distributed ledgers, with no dependencies. To chat or collaborate, contact: Paola Origel (Paola@shakti.com) and Arthur Whitney (a@shakti.com)
dLab was founded in 2018 to provide capital and resources to startups who are making an impact in blockchain and other decentralized technologies. Their New York-based program is a collaborative venture between SOSV, The Accelerator VC, and EMURGO, the commercial venture builder for the Cardano ecosystem. dLab’s team is made up of investors, product builders, and tech experts from both organizations. Selected companies spend fourteen weeks working closely with their team on-site in their New York-based studio. To chat or connect with their cohort startups, contact: Nick Plante (nap@sosv.com) and Paul Saint-Donat (paul.saint-donat@sosv.com)
Xena Exchange is a trusted digital assets exchange for investment banking professionals. Its platform offers unique features for professional traders, including Positions and P&L calculation, high rebates for market makers, low latency trading, and trend analytics. To chat or collaborate, contact: Anton Kravchenko (anton @xena.exchange), Konstantin Plavnik (konstantin@xena.exchange), and Julie Plavnik (julie@xena.exchange).
Latham and Watkins helps key market participants address a myriad of legal issues surrounding cryptocurrency and the application of distributed ledger technology. The firm provides sophisticated regulatory, enforcement, finance, corporate, tax, and intellectual property counsel to support innovation in highly regulated industries. To chat or collaborate, contact: Cameron Kates (Cameron.Kates@lw.com) and Teddy Ellison (Teddy.ellison@lw.com).
PVLSE is a social experiences marketplace that connects people through their interests and allows anyone to freely join and create activities in their area. To chat or collaborate, contact: Maria Rybak (maria@thepvlse.com).
