The cryptocurrency trade is infamous for its volatility and unpredictability. Its unforgiving nature has led to a number of Singaporean cryptocurrency startups closing their doorways in only a few years since their inception.
Nonetheless, not all have bitten the mud. We delve into 4 cryptocurrency startups in Singapore that not solely stand strong, however proceed to thrive in the worldwide area amidst the ever-changing and unpredictable crypto panorama.
1. Zilliqa
Born out of peer-reviewed tutorial analysis performed on the Nationwide College of Singapore, Zilliqa was based in 2017 by a crew of lecturers, entrepreneurs, and engineers.
In 2018, Zilliqa concluded its preliminary coin providing (ICO) and efficiently raised US$22 million in ETH.
Following the ICO in 2018, the Zilliqa ecosystem and group has grown considerably, processing nearly 12 million transactions since its launch in 2019. Zilliqa now has a flourishing group of over 150,000 fanatics, greater than 780,000 wallets, and an increasing community of over 1,000 builders.
As one of the distinguished names inside Singapore’s blockchain ecosystem, upon its mainnet launch in January 2019, Zilliqa turned the world’s first public blockchain constructed on sharded structure. Sharding is a database administration method that breaks a database into smaller segments, permitting transactions to be processed in parallel and at scale.
In late 2019, Xfers — a Singapore-based FinTech platform — launched the primary SGD-pegged stablecoin ($XSGD) on the Zilliqa blockchain.
This MAS-approved initiative brings immense potential for the Singapore blockchain ecosystem, permitting SGD-denominated trades and transactions to happen on the blockchain. With $XSGD, the Singapore greenback successfully turned the third most tokenised foreign money in the world.
All through 2020, the proliferation of decentralised finance (DeFi) functions throughout the blockchain house caused unprecedented progress alternatives for the crew.
As a wise contract platform characterised by high-performance, low charges, and enterprise-grade safety, Zilliqa is designed for functions that deal with high-value transactions similar to DeFi merchandise.
Zilswap, the primary decentralised change on the Zilliqa blockchain, went dwell in 2020 and has since seen a 24-hour buying and selling quantity rising to over US$11 million.
As a part of Zilliqa’s DeFi ecosystem, a variety of decentralised functions additionally went dwell on the Zilliqa mainnet. These embrace the likes of NFT minting service and market Mintable.app, decentralised area service supplier Unstoppable Domains, and blockchain gaming software zilFighters.
To develop its ecosystem additional, Zilliqa additionally has its ZILHive initiative which appears to advertise blockchain via accelerator, incubator, schooling, and enterprise initiatives.
Zilliqa Capital, the mission’s central enterprise and funding hub, was just lately launched in March. Zilliqa Capital goals to take a position in decentralised and fintech options throughout investing, wealth administration, insurance coverage, lending, funds, and remittances, in addition to essential infrastructures that will allow Internet 3.0.
Shifting ahead, the promise of excessive yields and low gasoline charges ensures that Zilliqa is the perfect blockchain for brand spanking new initiatives and experiments to construct on and blossom, solidifying its place as a professional contender as a protocol of selection in the DeFi house.
2. Switcheo
Switcheo planted its roots in 2018 with the launch of the world’s first decentralised change (DEX) on China-based blockchain platform Neo in a time when DEXs have been comparatively remarkable.
The change enabled customers to commerce crypto belongings in a trustless method immediately from their very own wallets and with out the necessity for a central middleman.
Switcheo’s recognition was evident from the get-go. Underpinned by its progressive know-how and impressive plans to decentralise monetary markets, the startup raised over US$eight million in its ICO.
Three years on, Switcheo has gone above and past in launching new progressive merchandise and options in an increasingly-saturated trade similar to Demex, the open monetary platform constructed on the Switcheo TradeHub sidechain, which has surpassed $75 million in buying and selling quantity since its December launch.
Demex permits its customers to freely commerce crypto belongings throughout totally different blockchains similar to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Good Chain, or Neo. By staking the $SWTH token on Demex, customers also can earn a lower of all trades made on Demex.
The crypto natives additionally inked strategic partnerships with notable trade gamers DeFiance Capital, Three Arrows Capital, Zilliqa and NGC Ventures, whose backing will serve to additional propel the expansion of the corporate.
Shifting ahead, Switcheo plans to develop Demex into turning into the go-to cross-chain decentralised buying and selling change, permitting the mission to seize worth for its traders throughout all related blockchains.
3. Coinhako
Based in 2014, Coinhako began with a quite simple mission: to create a easy and hassle-free method to entry Bitcoin in Singapore.
Since then, the cryptocurrency centralised change (CEX) has scaled to providing its providers for different nations in Asia. It affords a number of cryptocurrency buying and selling pairs and has grown into one of the distinguished platforms in the house.
Coinhako can also be one of many longest-standing platforms, having survived via the 2014 and 2018 ‘crypto winters’, by conserving their heads down and persevering with to construct and deal with R&D.
In 2021, Coinhako has emerged as a key participant in Singapore’s cryptocurrency trade. It boasts assist for over 30 tokens together with $BTC, $ETH, $DAI, $LTC, $XRP and extra (in distinction, Binance.sg solely helps eight totally different tokens).
Coinhako additionally helps the shopping for and promoting of cryptocurrencies via Xfers, financial institution switch, or credit score and debit playing cards.
On account of its extensive assist for numerous crypto belongings and integration with a number of fiat gateways, Coinhako stays one of the simply accessible and beginner-friendly methods for brand spanking new traders in Singapore to achieve publicity to cryptocurrencies in Singapore.
Being one of many pioneers in the house and surviving the gruelling crypto winters, Coinhako has definitely earned its spot on this record. Shifting ahead, the crew will proceed to construct upon their product suite, with the purpose of providing a extra strong suite of cryptocurrency providers for its customers.
4. Kyber Community
Based in 2017, Kyber Community is a liquidity hub that aggregates liquidity from a variety of liquidity sources to energy instantaneous and safe crypto exchanges for any decentralised functions with out the necessity of an middleman.
As a hub of liquidity protocols, Kyber has constructed KyberPRO framework catered to skilled market makers and just lately launched a complicated AMM protocol, Kyber DMM.
Kyber DMM is the world’s first permissionless Dynamic Market Maker protocol with higher flexibility and intensely excessive capital effectivity. Extra use-case particular protocols shall be added to Kyber to allow totally different liquidity suppliers with their very own distinctive wants to supply liquidity for Kyber.
Kyber is being utilized by greater than 100 blockchain initiatives all over the world and have facilitated over $5 billion price of buying and selling quantity. Utilizing Kyber, builders can construct progressive functions, together with instantaneous token swap providers, ERC20 cost flows, and monetary DApps.
The community is open-sourced and ruled by the KyberDAO, decentralised group of KNC token holders who stake their tokens and collectively vote and resolve on the important thing parameters and get rewards in return.
Kyber Community is unquestionably one mission that all Ethereum customers ought to carry on their radar.
It’s not simple to not crash and burn
The cryptocurrency trade is quick and unforgiving. Tasks which fail to adapt will inevitably fail.
Solely initiatives which are backed by a strong and rising crew, in addition to an engaged and lively group will survive in the long term.
We’re comfortable to see many native startups continually studying and adapting to not simply maintain their groups afloat, but in addition blossom through the years. Each as soon as in some time, it’s good to look again at how far a few of these startups and communities have come.
This text is a contribution by Jack Yeu, the co-founder of Switcheo.
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Featured Picture Credit score: Ziliqa / Kyber Community / Coinhako / Switcheo