The startup ecosystem in cryptocurrency has been developing this quarter by either raking in money or creating innovations that will help users ease into crypto adoption and investment. Some firms are offering attractive offers to attract the cautious investor.
According to Crunchbase, global venture funding for 2020 closed out at US$300 billion (up 4% year on year), mainly owing to the disruption brought on by the pandemic and the resulting shift of major sectors online. Global blockchain technology has seen and will continue to see steady growth, with the industry being valued at US$3 billion USD at the end of 2020.
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In November, crypto-exchange platform Coinbase acquired Indian AI-powered customer support platform Agara.
Recently, blockchain-based non-profit Endaoment surpassed US$7 million USD in total donations as it celebrated its first anniversary. The donations, given to Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs) created on Endaoment’s platform as cryptocurrencies, have been distributed to more than 100 non-profit organisations in service of social impact causes.
Also, Biconomy, a multi-chain relayer network that simplifies the Web 3.0 experience, announced the completion of the public sale of its native token $BICO on CoinList. The BICO sale added more than 12,000 new token holders to the Biconomy community, with US$11.5 million in BICO tokens purchased throughout the course of the sale.
The startup ecosystem in cryptocurrency has been developing this quarter by either raking in money or creating innovations that will help users ease into crypto adoption and investment
The sale was highly anticipated, as more than 850,000 enthusiasts waited to get the chance to become part of the Biconomy ecosystem, breaking the record of one of the highest number of registrations on CoinList, to date.
This month, UniFarm, a unique decentralised farming solution with a pool of DeFi’s top projects, has been listed on MEXC Global, a leading centralised exchange that employs high-performance mega-transaction matching technology. This comes after the successful listing of $UFARM, UniFarm’s native token, on various other global decentralized exchanges such as PancakeSwap, UniSwap, and Defyn Network and would be the protocol’s first Centralized Exchange listing.
New Launches & Innovations to Ease & Educate New Crypto Investors
Crypto adoption is on the rise, which brings in more investors, which in turn, encourages innovations to ease the processes in the sector.
In October, Y Combinator and Nexus VP-backed Mudrex, a global crypto asset management platform launched ‘Coin Sets’, which enables retail investors to invest in a variety of mutual-fund style crypto investment products, which were earlier only accessible to the HNIs and institutions.
Edul Patel, CEO and Co-founder of Mudrex, said, “The product is designed to expand retail participation in crypto investment, curated suitably for investors who look at crypto investments as long-term wealth creation.”
The product is designed to expand retail participation in crypto investment, curated suitably for investors who look at crypto investments as long-term wealth creation
Coin Sets are baskets of crypto tokens based on a theme and lets users invest in ideas that they believe in to grow their wealth in the long run. For example, a Coin Set called ‘DeFi 10’ is a basket of the top 10 DeFi tokens. Similarly, a Coin Set called ‘NFT’ is a basket of the top 6 NFT projects.
The coin sets are created and managed by experts from the Mudrex team. The firm also takes care of allocation, order execution, and periodic rebalancing to make the user experience seamless. The product will help investors manage potential risks by diversifying their portfolios in different cryptocurrencies.
Similarly, Kickflow, an alumni of the Tezos India Fellowship Program, launched its first decentralised, open-source crowdfunding and grants platform. Utilising the concepts of Capital-constrained Liberal Radicalism (CLR) and Quadratic Funding, the platform, along with its governance token, will allow projects to seek funds matched through the mathematically proven algorithm.
With the mechanisms of Liberal Radicalism and Quadratic Funding at hand, we wish to give the start to many overlooked but potential projects in need
“Kickflow has brought forth a solution that will not only enable our platform to help innovators and startups, but also ensure simultaneous social development. With the mechanisms of Liberal Radicalism and Quadratic Funding at hand, we wish to give the start to many overlooked but potential projects in need. We plan to decentralise our future and by giving this power to the public through Kickflow and its native governance token, we are one step ahead,” said Katherine Ng, Head of Marketing, TZ APAC.
Commonly used for Public Goods Funding, the algorithm matches community-backed projects to optimal sponsor grants amounts, based on the square of the sum of the square roots of the contributions, received during a stipulated period. In turn, this incentive structure pushes power to the edges and away from whales and central power brokers increasing democracy.
Attracting the Cautious Investor
There has been a global cryptocurrency crackdown as governments from Asia to the US are concerned about privately run highly volatile digital currencies that could destabilize their control of the finance, leading to higher systemic risk, increased financial crime, hurting investors.
In September, China’s top regulators ensued a ban on crypto trading and mining, sending bitcoin prices crashing. The country went after miners disguised as data researchers and storage facilities to stay in business.
There is an increasing awareness and interest in the crypto sector among Indian millennials
Due to cryptocurrencies’ volatility, many users are still wary about investing in the crypto market. While this hampers crypto adoption, some firms are offering features that make investment attractive.
For example, in October, CrossTower, a trading platform and digital asset investment firm, which launched in India in September, launched a feature that offered a free credit of INR5000 to each Indian user’s wallet for trading on cryptocurrency on its platform.
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The feature will allow Indian users to learn crypto trading comfortably without investing a single rupee.
Vikas Ahuja, CEO of CrossTower India, said, “There is an increasing awareness and interest in the crypto sector among Indian millennials. CrossTower is introducing this unique feature so that Indian users can experiment with their ability to engage in trading without spending. The idea is to allow Indians to fearlessly understand the world of crypto, start earning safely and rapidly to secure future savings.”
