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Stripe is All Set to Explore the Possibility of a Public Offering

Posted on by Subh Rath

According to reports, Stripe, a company that processes online payments, is considering going public within the next 12 months.

According to an article published by The Wall Street Journal on January 26th, Stripe has retained the services of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase to advise on the viability and timing of a public-market launch. If Stripe doesn’t go public or enable employees to sell shares in a private deal, an insider told the Journal, the company’s executives will.

Since Stripe doesn’t require additional funding, the company’s management is reportedly not interested in a typical initial public offering. Instead, the business is likely to go the direct listing route. Assuming this were to happen, Stripe would list its current stock on a public exchange and let the market determine the price.

Stripes Journey in the Crypto World: 

Stripe is a payment processing solution provider established in 2009 by Irish businessmen John and Patric Collison. Stripe’s clients include several of the most prominent internet companies, such as Shopify and Instacart. In 2021, the business successfully raised $600 million at a valuation of $95.00 billion. Investors in the company included the National Treasury Management Agency of Ireland, Fidelity Investments, and the insurance companies Allianz and AXA.

Since at least 2014, Stripe’s relationship with digital assets has been a roller coaster ride full of ups and downs. In 2015, the business announced it would support Bitcoin, enabling customers to transfer and receive digital currency like traditional currencies. After three years of operation, the Bitcoin payment services offered by Stripe will be discontinued in 2018. The company’s founders have stated that they believe bitcoin is better suited as an asset than a method of exchange.

During the cryptocurrency boom of 2021, the company returned to the market with a fresh concentration on developing blockchain-based payment systems. The year after, Stripe announced that it would enable fiat currency payments for cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens. Thanks to new application programming interfaces, businesses can now utilize Stripe to accept payments in fiat currency for cryptocurrencies.

Previously in 2021, Stripe also launched a new payout program that would allow selecting content providers to withdraw earnings denominated in USD Coin.

Now with its consistent efforts to make a prominent place in the Web3 world by becoming the next generation of payments, as stated by Cointelegraph in a tweet, Stripe has certainly come a long way.

Why Haven’t Porsche NFTs Taken Off?

Posted on by Subh Rath

Porsche recently made its Web3 debut with the release of its first Non-Fungible Token [NFT] collection. The collection included 7500 NFTs depicting the popular Porsche 911 sports car, each with a mint price of 0.911 Ether [ETH] or $1490.

However, the minting did not cause Porsche to rise in value. Instead, the floor price of the NFTs fell shortly after the mint. Let’s dig deeper into the decline in Porsche NFT value.

Porsche Mint Price Falling Below Floor Price: 

These non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were distributed by the allow list mint in four separate waves. Following that, there was a public mint where purchasers could mint a maximum of three 911 NFTs for themselves. The rollout will occur throughout three stages, with the first stage currently in progress.

It appeared that Phase 3 would be based on rarity, but Porsche has not disclosed much information regarding the upcoming Phase 2. The 911 NFT reportedly has over 150,000 configurations that can be customized, as stated on the official website. Because brand devotees had such high hopes for the collection, there was a lot of speculation and excitement surrounding it.

Despite this, it seemed that sales of NFT coins stabilized within a few hours of the mint opening. Until recently, only 1371 of the 7500 NFTs had been purchased, which means that more than 82% were still available. The collection fared poorly when evaluated using the metrics of the secondary market.

According to data from the OpenSea NFT marketplace, the price at which 911 NFTs could be purchased had fallen to a level lower than their original mint price of 0.911 ETH. On January 23, the floor price reached a high of three ETH at one point, but it has since returned to its initial mint level. The price of the floor has since returned to its original level. The best price for NFT found recently was 0.86 wrapped Ether (wETH), equivalent to $1410.

What are your views on this?

Cosmos-Based DeFi Protocol Quasar Raises $5.4M

Posted on by Subh Rath

In the wake of the multibillion-dollar FTX crypto exchange’s demise, the potential of decentralized financial systems has once again come under scrutiny. Despite efforts to solve the issue of fragmentation across different blockchains, decentralized finance (DeFi) is still in its early stages of development.

With a $70 million valuation, Shima Capital led a $5.4 million investment round for Quasar Finance, a decentralized asset management protocol that employs the Inter Blockchain Communication (IBC) technology published by the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem. To facilitate token and data transfers between chains, the protocol enables users to construct and join vaults.

Additional Investments: 

In addition to CIB and Osmosis’s co-founder Sunny Aggarwal, the round featured investments from Polychain Capital, Blockchain Capital, HASH Capital, and CIB.

According to a press statement given to CoinDesk, the funds would be used for “product development and scaling out the team.”

What’s More? 

Quasar intends to provide structured investment solutions for DeFi customers, and they will begin with an automatic rebalancing index of the Cosmos network that allows for the streaming of assets. On February 10, following several months of internal testing, Quasar will launch its public testnet.

Quasar’s innovative approach to creating an approachable DeFi experience while still adhering to industry best practices around security and usability standards set forth by leading blockchain projects like Cosmos Network itself has been validated by a recent investment from Pantera Capital, making it an attractive proposition not only for institutional investors but also for individual users who are interested in exploring the new possibilities offered by this rapidly evolving space. With this team’s dedication to developing novel solutions, the future may bring about a dramatic shift in the way people engage with digital assets.

Quasar Overview:

Quasar is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol developed on top of the Cosmos Network, an open-source blockchain project meant to allow multiple blockchains within a single ecosystem to communicate with one another. The platform provides users with access to a variety of financial services, including lending, borrowing, asset management, and tokenization, all through a single unified interface powered by smart contracts operating on Cosmos’ Tendermint consensus engine. It also offers liquidity mining opportunities via staking rewards paid out in QSR tokens, which can then be used to access additional features such as yield farming or trading against other cryptocurrencies listed on exchanges linked via IBC cross-chain bridges with the Ethereum or Binance Smart Chain networks.

Metaverse to Reach a $5T Value by 2030

Posted on by Subh Rath

Even while the 2022 bear market dampened enthusiasm for new crypto sub-ecosystems like NFTs, the metaverse is still set up for sustainable long-term disruption. According to research by McKinsey & Company, the metaverse could create up to $5 trillion in value by 2030 due to the wide variety of consumer and business-centric use cases it serves.

According to the findings, four types of technologies are necessary for the metaverse to reach its full potential: devices (augmented reality/virtual reality, sensors, haptics, and peripherals); interoperability and open standards; facilitating platforms; and development tools. On the other side, the success of the metaverse is evaluated by how well it creates exceptional experiences for its customers, end-users, and citizens.

Metaverse programs centered on marketing, learning, and virtual meetings have seen the most widespread adoption across industries. According to a McKinsey poll of senior executives conducted in April, most efforts centered on the metaverse have received low to medium uptake.

Metaverse Overview: 

Neal Stephenson, a science-fiction writer, created the phrase “metaverse” in 1992. It is defined as “the concept of a fully immersive virtual environment where people assemble to socialize, play, and work.” It is a simulated digital environment that blends the ideas of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), blockchain, and social media to create places for rich user interaction that mimic the real world. The concept of the metaverse, recently made public by Facebook’s rebranding as Meta will transform how we interact with the universe. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, declared that “the next generation of the internet is metaverse,” and that existing social media will be included in this next wave.

Because the metaverse is based on blockchain technology, any goods you own or create are one-of-a-kind and cannot be duplicated or stolen. Blockchain technology, like art, ensures that different digital items sold in the metaverse are one-of-a-kind. Furthermore, cryptocurrencies power the metaverse; everything is bought and sold using various types of cryptocurrency. NFTs are one of the most commonly used terms in the metaverse. Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are cryptographic tokens that are one-of-a-kind and cannot be reproduced on a blockchain.

Goldman Sachs Ready to Launch The Tokenization Platform GS DA

Posted on by Subh Rath

Goldman Sachs announced the introduction of its new Digital Asset Platform one year into its relationship with Digital Assets (GS DAPTM).

GS DAPTM is based on Digital Asset’s Canton privacy-enabled blockchain and Daml smart contract language. Tokenization systems based on the Distributed Asset Model (Daml), such as GS DAPTM, may capture an asset’s rights, responsibilities, and cash flows throughout time. Furthermore, they can make the digital representation and method open to all players in a decentralized, networked ecosystem and totally automatable. 

Furthermore, the privacy safeguards incorporated into Digital Asset ensure that sensitive information is only shared with the appropriate parties while also providing the scalability needed to connect assets globally.

In November, the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced that a digital bond with a face value of 100 million euros and a maturity of two years was the first fully digitally native bond with same-day settlement. Additionally, it became the first syndicated digital bond that a public institution issued, further being admitted to the Securities Official List of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. Both of these accomplishments occurred in November.

Brief Overview of Digital Assets:

Digital Asset, a software company, uses tools like Canton, a privacy-enabled blockchain platform, and Daml, a smart contract language, to update antiquated banking systems for the modern day. Thanks to the platform’s integrated capabilities, which include cutting-edge fuel solutions like smart contracts and blockchain technology, customers can release new value networks with sophisticated applications. Several major banking, insurance, and healthcare players have formed strategic partnerships with Digital Asset to create cutting-edge multi-party solutions to harmonize disparate systems.

Brief Overview of Goldman Sachs:

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a major international banking and financial services firm that serves a broad range of customers worldwide. These services include investment banking, securities, investment management, and consumer banking. The company was established in 1869 and currently has offices in all of the major financial capitals throughout the world, including New York, where it has its headquarters.