IMF Launches Crypto
Another Great Week in Crypto
A great week in the blockchain industry feels like a long year compared to traditional industries. Three very significant events happened in just the last 7 days that could perhaps put the breakneck speed of innovation in the silicon valley to shame.
First, Coinbase launched a new Visa debit card offering for its UK and EU customers. Coinbase Card customers will be able to spend their bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), litecoin (LTC) and other cryptocurrencies “as effortlessly as the money in their bank.” The exchange said it will “instantly” convert cryptocurrency to fiat currency, such as the British pound (GBP), when customers complete a transaction using the debit card. While Coinbase hogs all the attention, it is not alone — 2gether also announced a similar offering in partnership with Visa, something that they have been working on for a major part of the last year.
To date, there has been no consumer owned tangible application that connects crypto and the mainstream market. 2gether is developing the bank of the future where consumers can take full ownership and control of the services they use.
— Ramon Ferraz, CEO, 2gether
Second, Blockstack filed with the SEC in the US to raise $50M in a Reg A+ crypto token offering. Blockstack will undergo a thorough regulatory review, and a thumbs up from the the SEC will enable enable Blockstack to raise capital through the U.S. securities markets by selling a token called Blockstack Stacks (STX) in a securities offering that could be more cost effective and flexible than an IPO.
This can potentially set a precedent for others in the industry, not just for public offerings, but also as a path to launch new public blockchains and establish a path to bootstrapping decentralized ecosystems.
— Muneeb Ali, CEO, Blockstack
Third, London Stock Exchange, founded in 1571, will now trade in security tokens. The exchange approved trading in tokenized equity shares of 20|30, a fintech startup. At Proteum, we have been big advocates of equity tokens and have actively worked on creating a streamlined ecosystem to accommodate for various players that need to be a part of the equity ecosystem. As issuers think about tokenizing equity, very interesting challenges emerge, some of which have been taken for granted in traditional equity issuances. Beyond the apparent need to onboard traders and custodians of these equity tokens, corporates need to bake in corporate governance and treasury management functions into the definition of a token itself.
Fundamentally, most opportunities in this space seem to trend along major financial rearrangement, whether it is a new means of empowering consumer spending or bypassing investment banks and large institutions to access capital. It is therefore surprising to see that blockchain adoption is not a priority for financial executives. A recent KPMG survey of 450 tax and finance executives found that the hurdles to adopt include from lack of knowledge, lack of resources and unsurprisingly, lack of technical decision makers. As a result, CFOs, while seeking different solutions, are not placing a high priority on blockchain adoption. The risk for both small and large companies lies in being blindsided to the leverage afforded by uncorrelated opportunities to create highly asymmetric return profiles. The fatal error executives must avoid is in trying to force fit older concepts into new ideas. Companies that understand these new concepts will continue to enjoy competitive advantages.
At the end of the day blockchain makes multipart collaboration more efficient, whether it’s having a consortium to track data on counterfeit getting into supply chains, or how much inventory you need to create a better forecast. There is tangible ROI in the blockchain.
— Ted Kim, VP, Samsung SDS
In some other significant news form the world this week:
IMF & World Bank | IMF Launches Private Blockchain-Based ‘Crypto’ After Bashing Bitcoin: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank are purportedly joining the bandwagon with a newfangled venture. The project is called Learning Coin. For now Learning Coin will only be available within the walls of the IMF and the World Bank. In a statement, the IMF explained that this crypto asset, will give its staff a better understanding of the goods, smart contracts and transparency, and bads, such as money laundering, of this technology. Thus, it could be postulated that the IMF’s Learning Coin is a way in which the entity can look into how to restrict distributed digital assets and centralize blockchain, rather than giving consumers freedom through Bitcoin. As Lagarde said in regards to fintech companies: “they will have to be held accountable so that they can be fully trusted.” [… Read More on NewsBTC]
Originally published at https://proteum.substack.com.
