Q4 2022 Friends of Provenance Blockchain Quarterly Update & Highlights

View the replay of our third Friends of Provenance Blockchain quarterly update held on December 9th, 2022:

Message from Morgan

Q4 has brought some unexpected twists with the bankruptcy of FTX and BlockFi, which adds to the summer’s list of CeFi exchanges and crypto-lending platforms. It’s time to turn the page on the narrative, and focus on the material value decentralized blockchain delivers and how it is transforming finance. In a recent thought leadership post, The End of Innocence in Crypto: Where We Go From Here and during a live interview on Bloomberg TV (segment begins at 1:08:30), I discuss where we go from here and how we can successfully move to the next chapter of this story — the more enduring and transformational one.

As a public blockchain and unique ecosystem focused on institutional and regulated finance, we’re well-positioned to help build that new future — collaboratively, thoughtfully, responsibly, and sustainably.

Recent to onboard Provenance Blockchain

This quarter we welcomed a number of new institutions and fintechs onto Provenance Blockchain, which included two new firsts for blockchain technology.

• Hamilton Lane announced three new digitally native share classes for their Private Assets Fund, a first for a 1940 Act registered fund.
• Movement Mortgage announced that it will begin offering HELOCs leveraging blockchain technology to reduce time to funding HELOCs from several weeks to fewer than five days.
• In another first for blockchain technology, Ready Life will offer home loan approvals in the U.S. without credit checks for current customers who leverage ReadyPay to pay their monthly rent.
• Apollo Global Management announces a digitally-native fund leveraging Provenance Blockchain.
• Welcome to NovaWulf, who has joined the ecosystem and aims to launch digitally-native assets on Provenance Blockchain.

With these new issuers, Provenance Blockchain ecosystem grows to now include 60 financial institutions and fintechs.

Increased visibility of Provenance Blockchain

Provenance Blockchain Foundation prioritized visibility in Q4. Morgan participated in a number of conference panels and podcasts, with a heavy focus on institutional adoption and the current active real-world use cases that are already on-chain. We also turned up our volume on social media, adding growth to our follower-base. The links below provide access to the available replays.

• At Money 20/20, Morgan, Peter Sterling of Neuberger Berman, and Asiff discussed institutional adoption of blockchain and the financial use cases occurring on-chain today.
• Bain & Company’s Deciphered podcast hosted Morgan to discuss the current state and future of financial institutional adoption of blockchain technology.
• GBBC hosted Morgan to discuss how financial services is leveraging digital assets and blockchain to create material business and customer value across lending. Private markets, payments and other real-world assets.
• Sr. Director of Onboarding, Valerie Wagner joined Leah Price of DART and Candace Dry of Figure at the National Mortgage News conference to share why lenders are using blockchain technology to originate mortgage assets.
• Morgan joined Nadav Zohar of LRC Group at Digital Asset Week in London to talk through real-world asset management use cases that are actively leveraging blockchain technology.
• Arca Lab’s Tokenization Talks Podcast with Annelise Osborne hosted Morgan to discuss how blockchain technology is being adopted by the financial industry to activate real-world use cases and enhance liquidity.
• Morgan also represented Provenance Blockchain on panels at large institutional investors and client events, including L1 Digital Forum in Zurich, at Goldman Sachs Winter Digital Asset Conference in London, and virtually at Oppenheimer’s 5th Blockchain & Digital Assets Summit.

Stay up-to-date on the latest, by following us on Twitter @provenancefdn and LinkedIn.

Gearing up developer community tools and engagement

New and existing initiatives to broaden the developer community and add to the Provenance Blockchain capabilities took hold in Q4.

• The revised grant program is in the process of being finalized with outside legal counsel. During the quarter, 35+ applications were received. Additionally, we’re in discussions with 20+ organizations and project teams to build on or offer solutions to the Provenance Blockchain ecosystem. These builders cover the full range of the financial digital asset lifecycle and offer solutions like KYC/AML, identity, security, analytics, on-chain AI, real estate and medical claims tokenization, collaborative data DAOs, stable coins, and investment pipeline.
• Developer Portal near complete and preparing for launch. For those interested in a sneak peak of the progress, please view here.
• The Web3hackaton concluded, which included two winners with contributions to the Provenance Blockchain.

Welcoming new Advisors and Foundation team-members

We welcomed two Advisors to the Provenance Blockchain Foundation, who are focused on supporting our growth by broadening institutional adoption and bringing new use-cases on-chain.

• Bill Papp has joined as an Advisor. Bill currently leads digital asset sales at BankProv, 10th oldest U.S. bank and a top 5 crypto bank. Prior to BankProv, Bill held senior roles at Pacific Premier Trust, Mizhuo, Prudential, and Lehman. Bill also served as Vice Chairman of the Board and Chairman of MEFA — $4.0 Billion 529 Plan by Governor Mitt Romney and Governor Deval Patrick, and is a member of the Bretton Woods Committee.
• Jeff Kleinops has joined as an Advisor. Jeff was previously lead trader at Galaxy Digital and is an experienced fintech exec with a demonstrated history of working across the derivative, mortgage, leveraged loan, marketplace lending, oil & gas and cryptocurrency markets.
• Also, Dan Garzia has now officially joined the Foundation as CMO. Dan will own our global marketing capabilities to drive awareness, growth, and broaden HASH usage. More on Dan and his role, here.

In other developments

Provenance Blockchain Foundation led initiatives to enhance visibility and access to participate with Provenance Blockchain.

• Added institutional staking through Anchorage Digital, which included an exclusive by Penny Crosman of the American Banker, who made the case for banks to spin up nodes and begin staking.
• FalconX will promote and host a Provenance Blockchain roadshow where key clients will have one-on-one access to explore Provenance Blockchain. FalconX is working to enable staking of HASH for their clients.
• Provenance Blockchain Foundation’s mission is to support and catalyze adoption of Provenance Blockchain for business value by a range of institutional financial services participants and developers, across asset classes. Key to enabling a healthy ecosystem is the active participation of fintechs, DeFi brands, traditional financial firms, service providers, enterprise solutions, developers, validators, and stakers. Our current use cases on Provenance Blockchain do not yet offer a meaningful way for retail owners to put their HASH to work and actively participate in the ecosystem. As such, we have discontinued trading on Okcoin, a retail-focused trading venue. While individuals are welcome to leave their HASH in their Okcoin wallet, they are also welcome to move their HASH to a Provenance wallet to be able to participate in staking, and dlob.io will remain a trading venue (which has higher volumes). As we broaden awareness and grow users and use cases, including opportunities for consumers to use our utility token on Provenance Blockchain, we will prioritize having HASH listed on large global exchanges for increased liquidity and access.
• Refined brand messaging and the brand’s visual identity. The evolution of the brand will be debuted during the 4Q update call.
• USDF will begin operating on a private permissioned zone (sidechain) of the Provenance Blockchain. We believe this will help accelerate the path for regulatory approvals. Also, USDF plans to formally roll out a new membership tier in the coming weeks and will announce several new bank members as part of this announcement. And lastly, USDF Consortium is excited to see the launch of the RLN proof of concept. While just an early proof-of-concept they believe this is a validation of the important role tokenized deposits contribute to the future of payments. USDF has been engaged in these conversations and believes they can play an important role by ensuring community, midsize, and regional bank participation in interoperable blockchain-based payments alongside the largest banks in the country.