Andreessen Horowitz Raises $515M for New Crypto Fund; Checkout.com Joins Facebook's Libra Association; Tencent Launches Blockchain Accelerator

Last week (27 April - 2 May) in the Blockchain & Crypto world was super interesting one - Switzerland’s Crypto Valley, a FinTech friendly region near Zurich, is struggling and thus seeking a $102.7 million fund from the federal government; leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance launched its mining pool Binance Pool; British payment startup Checkout.com has joined the Libra Association, becoming the 24th member, and much more!

About this and more, in the newest issue of Weekly Blockchain & Crypto Digest. Enjoy!

Struggling Crypto Valley Seeks Government Aid

Switzerland’s crypto valley, a FinTech friendly region near Zurich, is seeking a 100 million Swiss franc ($102.7 million) fund from the federal government. This fund is allocated to bail out the troubled FinTech companies, according to a Bloomberg April 26 report. 

Cantonal Finance Director, Heinz Taennler, said that the fund would consist of private investments, contributions from local governments, and federal guarantees. 

Favorable legislation and innovation has made Switzerland an attractive place for blockchain startups. Currently however, the majority of these Bitcoin and blockchain firms are not expected to survive the pandemic, as private equity investors pull out funding. The report added that: 

Of the biggest 50 companies operating in the region, only half said in a survey that they will make it through the next 12 months under current conditions.

The Swiss government announced earlier this week that it will provide 154 million francs in credit guarantees for startups, but this will prove insufficient, Taennler said. 

Many startups don’t generate enough revenue to qualify for bank loans under the federal government’s COVID-19 aid package. 

China Launches Blockchain-Based Service Network for Global Commercial Use

Six months after the beta test launch, China’s Blockchain-based Service Network — or BSN — is now officially available for global commercial use. 

Various Chinese government officials and heads of organizations gathered for a meeting in Beijing on April 25 where they announced the public launch of the BSN.

The BSN is a global infrastructure to help blockchain projects create and run new blockchain applications for a lower cost. It also aims to accelerate the development of smart cities and the digital economy. 

China Mobile, China UnionPay, and Huobi China together worked towards the creation of the BSN.

Both corporate and individual developers have shown interest in the Blockchain-based Service Network. According to the report, more than 2,000 developers tried BSN in the six months since its beta release on October 15, 2019. The developers on BSN created applications to aid public welfare charity, item traceability, and electronic invoices.

During the Beijing meeting, Shan Zhiguang, chairman of the Blockchain Service Network Development Alliance, stated that the network currently has 128 public nodes. 76 of these nodes are in China, 44 are under construction, and the remaining 8 are overseas city nodes, which cover six continents. By the end of 2020, Zhiguang revealed, they plan to have at least 200 nodes in the network.

With the official launch of the BSN, the network will no longer have any restrictions on the development or deployment of applications and accounting that were applicable during the beta period. Developers on the network will also have the freedom to upgrade their applications at any time.

This is yet another achievement for China in terms of bringing wider blockchain adoption and leveraging blockchain to advance its technological development. Additionally, China has been actively working on its digital central bank currency.

Binance Launches Crypto Mining Pool Amid Centralization Concerns

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance launched its mining pool "Binance Pool" on April 27. 

The pool will operate with zero fees until May 31, after which the rate will be set at 2.5%. The press release for the pool states that large miners can contact Binance to negotiate an extension of the fee-free period.

Approximately 15 of Binance’s more than 1,000 employees work full-time towards the pool’s operation.

Binance Pool supports both Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mining mechanisms. 

The pool is integrated with the rest of Binance’s platform — allowing miners to easily transfer funds between Binance Pool and the company’s various platforms, including trading, lending, and staking. 

Head of Binance Pool Lisa He stated, “We aim to establish a comprehensive platform for miners that will bring more possibilities to the mining industry by bridging traditional mining to financial services.”

Binance founder and chief executive Changpeng Zhao said, “As an integral part of the global crypto market, empowering miners will therein enable significant growth and scale in the larger industry.”

On April 24, Zhao tweeted that Binance Pool had mined its first block.

Binance Pool has received mixed responses from the crypto community, with some commentators expressing concerns that Binance's pool will result in a further centralization of Bitcoin hash rate among a small number of pools.

British Payment Firm Checkout.com Joins the Libra Association

In a fresh move to revive Facebook-backed digital currency project Libra, the Libra Association has onboarded another member.

British payment startup Checkout.com has joined the Libra Association, becoming the 24th member engaged with the mission of building a better global payment network, Libra tweeted on April 28.

Guillaume Pousaz, Checkout.com founder and CEO, officially announced the news in a company statement on Tuesday. The executive outlined that Checkout.com joins Libra’s efforts to not only promote technological advancement but contribute to the formation of necessary regulatory framework to drive mass adoption of better payment solutions.

Pousaz argued that without such regulation framework, the technological breakthrough is not possible:

Regulation should form an integral part of any resulting framework, given its unique ability to protect the ecosystem from systemic abuses. Absent of such regulation, it is our fundamental belief that the technological advancements alone would fail to provide the secure and stable payments infrastructure required to drive mass adoption, impeding its progress.

The Checkout.com CEO continued to say that the firm has joined the Libra Association because the digital currency project can open finance to billions of unbanked people. Pousaz added that Libra’s principles come in line with Checkout.com’s mission to change the way that businesses interact with financial services for the better.

Binance Trading Volume Reaches All-Time High Amid Bitcoin’s Price Surge

As the Bitcoin price skyrocketed close to $9,000 on April 29, Changpeng Zhao, or CZ, announced that Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has hit $11 billion in trading volume over the past 24 hours. This number is considered an all-time high for the exchange.

According to CZ’s post, the last time the exchange came near $11 billion was in early 2018. Today they reached a new record in terms of trading volume.

Crypto traders responded positively about the exchange’s ATH volume. Some believe that the trading volume will increase even more in the days to come. 

Other major exchanges were reportedly having issues handling the high trading volumes during the Bitcoim pump. Some members of the crypto community have praised Binance for operating without any such problems.

Chinese Internet Giant Tencent Launches Blockchain Accelerator

Tencent, the operator of Chinese social media app WeChat, is launching a blockchain accelerator. 

Announced on the company’s website on April 29, the “Tencent Industrial Accelerator” is open to both early-stage and mature blockchain startups, with a total of 30 places available. To qualify, projects must have at least one financing round behind them. Applications are being accepted until June 6.

Tencent’s blockchain accelerator will focus on a variety of recruitment areas including industrial blockchain solutions and blockchain applications for data sharing, supply chain financing and digital asset transactions. 

Other recruitment areas will focus on blockchain for sectors such as government affairs, energy, education, logistics, manufacturing, agriculture and public welfare.  

Successful applicants will be given four mentoring meetings throughout the year, a host of industry networking and business opportunities, and access to Tencent’s blockchain-as-a-service platform. They will also have a chance to make an overseas visit connected to their blockchain industry area of interest.

Development areas of interest isolated in Tencent’s announcement include smart contract security, trusted identity and computing solutions, multi-party governance mechanisms and consensus algorithms. 

Shortlisted projects will be announced for a second round of judging at the end of June. The cost per person for participation in the accelerator will be 100,000 RMB — just over $14,000.

Andreessen Horowitz Raises $515M for New Crypto Fund, Surpassing Initial Goal

Top venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is expanding its presence in the crypto sector. The United States-based company has raised $515 million for its second crypto-focused fund, according to an April 14 article on Fortune. 

Earlier reports suggested that Andreessen Horowitz, also called a16z, was hoping to accumulate $450 million in capital for the new vehicle, meaning that the firm has surpassed the initial goal by $65 million.

Similarly to Andreessen Horowitz’s first crypto-oriented fund, which raised $300 million in 2018, the new endeavor will reportedly focus on blockchain projects, although the Fortune report does not mention startups working with digital assets.

Chris Dixon, general partner at the venture capital juggernaut, said of blockchain: 

It's very rare that major, new computing paradigms come along, and we think this is on the scale of cloud and mobile for the Internet.

Dixon added that he expects to see many new blockchains being launched in 2020. That includes Dfinity, a blockchain-based cloud computing project that a16z has already backed via its first crypto fund. 

Being one of the first venture capital firms to enter the space, Andreessen Horowitz has invested in a variety of crypto projects so far, including Libra, Maker DAO, and Coinbase, among others. 

The company’s involvement with the crypto industry isn’t limited to investments. In December 2019, a16z announced a free, seven-week crypto startup school, scheduled to launch in February 2020, although there has been no update on that since. 

Nasdaq Partners With R3 to Help Build Institutional-Grade Digital Assets

The world’s second-largest stock exchange and capital markets technology company, Nasdaq, has entered a partnership with enterprise blockchain solutions platform, R3. 

R3 announced the partnership on April 29, 2020, stating that Nasdaq will use its blockchain software, Corda, among other services. Their intention is to help financial institutions easily build and deploy institutional-grade digital assets.

This is a long-term, non-exclusive partnership between the two firms, which means Nasdaq can still collaborate with other blockchain solution providers to work on new projects.

Johan Toll, the head of digital assets at Nasdaq, said that they entered into a partnership discussion with R3 due to the platform’s compatibility with highly regulated environments that have a high threshold for the quality of services. 

Their platform fits well into Nasdaq’s technology ecosystem and by connecting to the platform, we can harness the power of a scalable design that delivers a new level of interoperability and ease of integration to any current legacy technology system.

Nasdaq, along with R3, plans to bridge the gap between financial institutes and blockchain-based digital asset solutions. They will help organizations issue tokens and build digital asset marketplaces. They will also support these organizations through various processes such as issuance, trading, settlement, and custody.

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About: I am a business developer, sales professional, FinTech strategist, as well as Cryptocurrency and Blockchain enthusiast. I'm highly passionate about Financial Technology and Digital Innovation, and strongly believe that it will change the world for the better. Apart from my daily job at a global payments startup where I'm leading company's expansion into Europe , I'm an active member of FinTech community and a TechFin evangelist.

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