DEEP DIVESExclusive to Strategy Plans
August 27, 2019
Cryptocurrencies and crypto-related technology have been one of the trending areas in terms of investments and entrepreneurial activity. However, the development of this technology has somehow been constrained to certain key hubs, namely New York, Malta, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Gibraltar, and Switzerland.
It’s the last country on this list that we’ll be exploring in this article: Switzerland. We have seen how Switzerland has come to be counted among the top locations in the world for blockchain companies in recent years. This, in turn, has led to different kinds of business models being explored in the country. Crypto Valley, which lies between Zurich and Zug in Switzerland, is now home to numerous companies and organizations in the blockchain sector. It stands to reason that startups choose to come to Switzerland mainly because of legal certainty, top-notch infrastructure, and of course, the Valley’s FinTech ecosystem that seems to be going from strength to strength. The cryptocurrency hub in Switzerland – Zug, which has been nicknamed Crypto Valley – has shown a significant amount of growth in recent years in terms of the number of companies it plays host to. As of 2019, Crypto Valley is home to 600 Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) companies.
In this week’s story, we take a closer look at the top 20 blockchain-based companies in Crypto Valley.
Bitmain Technologies Holding Company (“Bitmain”) is a semiconductor which offers products, including chips, servers, and cloud solutions for blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The product offerings of the company include:
Bitmain Technology has raised a total of $764.7 million in funding.
Hdac Technology leverages blockchain technology to provide an IoT contract platform which facilitates machine-to-machine transactions, authentication of IoT devices, and their mapping. The company uses public and private blockchain to provide speedy transactions without compromising the security of IoT devices. The company has developed IoT-based devices for home, office/college campuses, factories, cars, etc. The product offerings include:
Hdac Technology has raised a total of $258 million in funding.
Tezos is an open-source platform for assets and applications that are backed by a global community of validators, researchers, and builders. It leverages blockchain technology to provide the safety and code correctness required for assets and other high-value use cases. Its native smart contract language ‘Michelson’ facilitates formal verification, which is a methodology commonly used in mission-critical environments such as the aerospace, nuclear, and semiconductor industries. It's modular architecture and formal upgrade mechanism allows the network to propose and adopt new technological innovations smoothly as they emerge. Tezos has raised a total of $232 million in funding.
DFINITY is a blockchain-based cloud computing project for developing a decentralized internet computer protocol. The protocol makes it possible for independent data centers to combine the capacity of millions of standardized computers and add native, universal, secure, and seamless & serverless cloud functionality to the Internet. The main objective of the DFINITY project is to enable the Internet to natively host the next generation of software systems, mass-market Internet services, and data. The company was founded in March 2015. Dfinity has raised a total of $166.9 million in funding.
Bancor provides a smart-contract-based decentralized-exchange platform that allows users to hold any token and convert it to any other token in the network at an automatically calculated price using a simple web wallet. The platform has been built on Ethereum which allows any users to launch a token called ‘SmartTokens’ in the protocol. The platform helps users to interact with it using its online application, and to launch token by leveraging chatbots. The company was founded in 2016 and has raised a total of $152.3 million in funding.
Waves leverages distributed technology and allow users to transfer tokens of value over the blockchain, which are created by trusted gateways such as banks and financial organizations. The product offerings of the company include: 1. Waves Wallet that supports a range of fiat and cryptocurrencies, like USD, EURO, TRY, BTC, ETH, LTC, ZEC, BCH, BSV, DASH, and XMR, all of which can be deposited, stored, traded and withdrawn; 2. Waves DEX, which allows users to buy and sell tokens quickly and securely with all the advantages of a centralized exchange; 3. Waves Keeper, a browser extension that allows users to manage their private keys and interact securely and seamlessly with Waves-enabled web services and dApps; 4. Waves RIDE, a functional purpose-designed smart contract language inspired by Scala for dApp development, designed for applying scripts to assets and accounts on the Waves blockchain, as well as creating sophisticated programmable logic for the decentralized environment. Waves has raised a total of $142 million in funding.
Founded in 2018, SEBA provides cryptocurrency-based banking services. The company focuses on building a gateway that facilitates the movement of assets between the crypto and traditional financial markets for financial investors. It provides transaction banking services for accounts denominated in both crypto and fiat; custody services including military-grade secure storage of crypto-assets; trading & liquidity management for crypto-assets and fiat currency; asset & wealth management of crypto; and traditional equity products, crypto corporate finance services (e.g., ICO fundraising advice, token design, risk management); tools to help users build a portfolio in line with personal goals and risk profile; and X-Space locations where they can attend educational events and access professional advice. It further offers an online forum that provides education, gamification, and certification, which enables users to develop knowledge, safety, transparency & performance at the core of all aspects of the offering. The company was founded in 2018 and has raised a total of $104 million in funding. The company has been awarded a banking license by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), Switzerland on August 27, 2019.
Status is a multi-purpose communication tool that combines a peer-to-peer messenger, decentralized crypto-wallet, and Web3 browser. The company offers secure messenger facility with functions like public, private, and group chats; private messaging with Whisper; and forward Secrecy & E2E Encryption. The integrated Ethereum wallet is an application which supports for ERC20 and ERC721 tokens on the Ethereum network to send, store, and receive tokens confidently. The wallet also integrates with the messenger & browser and enables to interact with peers and DApps. The Web3 Browser provides access to decentralized applications with private & secure browsing. Status has raised a total of $100 million in funding.
Cardano is an open-sourced decentralized public blockchain and cryptocurrency project which can be used to send and receive digital funds. The company is developing a smart contract platform which will help users to send digital cash through the use of cryptography. The company is currently working on developing the following projects: 1. The Project: A blockchain platform evolved out of scientific philosophy; 2. Ouroboros: A secure proof of stake algorithm, peer-reviewed by academics; 3. Daedalus: A secure, HD wallet for the Ada cryptocurrency to send & receive Ada, and view a history of the transactions users have made. Cardano has raised a total of $100 million in funding.
Founded in 2017, Nexo offers an online crypto-backed loan platform. The company offers loans based on the market value of crypto-assets with an APR of 8%. The loan limit is based on the market value of the crypto-assets users keep in their Nexo Wallet. Users need to transfer their crypto-assets to the Nexo Wallet, provide their basic details, and receive funds in their account. So far, the platform uses BitGo for storage of crypto-assets and OnFido for KYC/AML compliance. It has processed $700 million for 200,000+ users. Nexo has raised a total of $62.2 million in funding.
ICON is a decentralized network of blockchain communities such as banks, securities firms, hospitals, and universities. The platform is scalable not only to public blockchains (e.g., bitcoin, Ethereum) but also private/permissioned, and other interchain blockchain networks. The product offering of the company includes: 1. ICONex: A wallet that supports ICX and various cryptocurrencies and also boasts of faster transactions, secure payments. 2. ICONick: A ‘wallet ID’ that is used in the ICON network and enables users to keep their own unique nickname instead of a long and complicated default wallet address. The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland. ICON has raised a total of $45 million in funding.
Xapo is a Hong Kong-based company that provides a bitcoin wallet and cold storage services for digital assets as well as a virtual bitcoin debit card. The Xapo wallet is available for both online & offline transactions and can be conducted without paying any fees. It offers the Xapo debit card that is connected to the user’s wallet. The wallet enables users to transfer and receive money anywhere in the world instantly. Users can further buy & store bitcoins, convert & store their money in any traditional currency. It has developed an alternative-banking platform that is supported by a global network of ultra-secure vaults. The company was founded in 2013 by Wenses Casares and Federico Murrone. Xapo has raised a total of $40 million in funding.
Monetha offers a modular distributed ledger powered platform that enables a person, entity, or service to exchange information directly with another person, entity, or service without any trust or privacy-related issue. The platform is developed for businesses and enables them to develop and launch their blockchain project successfully. Monetha has raised a total of $37 million in funding.
Jibrel Network is a blockchain development company that develops financial infrastructure with the help of distributed ledger technology. It provides currencies, equities, commodities, and other financial assets as standard ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. It works with various industry partners like governments, regulators, and industry leaders. The product offerings include a Jibrel Wallet and Jibrel Cash. Jibrel has raised a total of $33.22 million in funding.
Ambrosus is a blockchain-powered IoT network for food and pharmaceutical enterprises which enables secure and frictionless dialogue between sensors, distributed ledgers, and databases to optimize supply chain visibility and quality assurance. It combines blockchain and Internet of Things technology to measure and record information about every aspect of supply chains. The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Belize, the United States. Ambrosus has raised a total of $30 million in funding.
SagaCoin is an open-source, decentralized public blockchain, and cryptocurrency project. The platform offers features such as smart contracts that work such as lightning network, proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus voting system, proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus cross-chain atomic swaps, instant & on-demand settlement, and connectivity across payments networks. The company connects banks, payment providers, digital asset exchanges, and corporates via SagaCoin Wallet for providing facilities like sending money globally with connectivity across payments networks, instant, and on-demand settlement at low operational and liquidity costs. Sagacoin has raised a total of $30 million in funding.
Aragon is an Ethereum blockchain-based decentralized app (DApp) which allows users to create and manage a global, bureaucracy-free decentralized organization, company, or community. The company was founded in 2017 and offers its own ERC20 cryptocurrency token issued under the cryptocurrency symbol ANT. The company's platform is an open-source project created by the Aragon Foundation and was made to enable the creation of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). It is comprised of four core principles for managing DAOs, namely: 1. By laws that define permissions granted to users; 2. Decision-making governance system; 3. Issuance and control of tokens/capital; 4. Accounting system for managing funds within DAOs. Aragon has raised a total of $25 million in funding.
NovaDAX leverages blockchain technology and enables users to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrency assets like BTC and ETH in a secured manner. NovaDAX is headquartered in Switzerland and has over 600,000 customers in 6 continents. NovaDax was founded in 2018 and has raised a total of $20 million in funding.
Cosmos is a decentralized network of independent parallel blockchains, with blockchain being powered by BFT consensus algorithms. It provides a framework that enables users for building blockchains. It can be considered as an ecosystem of blockchains that has the ability to scale and interoperate with each other. Cosmos Network has raised a total of $17 million in funding.
Tangem offers a smart banknote for digital assets. It supports a wide range of digital assets, namely Bitcoin, Ethereum, tokens, litecoins, EOS, BCH, Binance, RSK, XRP, Cardano, and Stellar. It offers a mobile app that enables users to access Tangem note, create/erase wallet on a card, verify balance on a tangem note, verify the validity of assets on Tangem note, sign & send transactions to the blockchain, etc. Tangem has raised a total of $15 million in funding.
*ICO funding rounds have also been taken into account for this analysis.