Blocktrade Closes $ 25.8 Million Series A Funding
The digital asset exchange Blocktrade SA, based in Luxembourg, has provided the largest crowdfunding investment in Luxembourg to date. More than 6000 investors are involved.
The crypto trading platform Blocktrade, which is based in Luxembourg, has made the largest crowdfunding investment in the history of the small nation-state to date. Under the leadership of Bernhard Blaha, who was only appointed CEO of Blocktrade in November 2020, the company raised approximately 25.8 million US dollars (22 million euros) from over 6,000 private investors. The crowdfunding participants come from over 30 countries. Before becoming CEO, Blaha worked for 5 months as a consultant at Cryptix AG, a Swiss start-up accelerator that bought Blocktrade in 2019. Cryptix AG also appointed Bernhard Blaha as CEO of Blocktrade.
Blaha, however, is not a newcomer to the crypto arena. In October 2017 he led the ICO of HEROcoin (PLAY) through, a utility token with the aim of revolutionizing the traditional betting system. The following year 2018 drew Forbes magazine named Blaha as one of the “30 under 30 Austria”. Now Blaha tries an STO. An STO is not to be equated with an ICO, because the STO is based on various assets that give the token a value. These tokens are regulated by the responsible financial supervisory authority in the country, i.e., in the case of block trade, they are certified by the CSSF, the Luxembourg counterpart to the German BaFin.
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First regulated STO in Luxembourg
Blocktrade has now carried out the first regulated STO in Luxembourg. The project aims to build an ecosystem around the topic of digital assets. The CEO himself says of his company: “Blocktrade is more than a classic crypto exchange: We are building a complete ecosystem around digital assets, which gives our users much more than just access to trading tools”.
How is the capital used being used? The money has so far been used to improve the company’s operations. The improvements mainly focused on security, fiat gateway and market making. A large B2C campaign is planned for the second half of 2021. Blocktrade also offers other companies a white label function. This functionality is intended to strengthen partnerships with other companies. But Blocktrade doesn’t just focus on that. The company also wants to address small start-ups and supports them in raising regulated capital. In this way, the Schweizer AG is building a basis to be attractive as a partner for both end customers and other companies.
STOs are rated as highly interesting by participants. For start-ups that want to collect money quickly without observing a lot of regulations, STOs are a good way to go. However, it remains to be seen to what extent security token offerings will fight for a place in the crypto market.
author of the article is Elias H.
