🫢 38 Institutions are using Blockchain for Payments

🎣 w3.catch-of-the-week cw16

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Vicktoria Klich & Quinn Wilhelm
April 19, 2024

GMGM and welcome to the 🎣 w3.catch-of-the-week, the newsletter that plunges into the storm to catch use cases in Dubai at Token2049 🌊.

Our co-founder Henrik made his way to Dubai 3 days ago, when I asked him how it was, all I got back was this:

Well, as long as he doesn't miss Berlin Blockchain Week, it's all good, because that promises to be the biggest event of the year (“am I right?”).

Between May 20th and 30th, countless events will take place all over Berlin.

A significant portion of them will actually be hosted at w3.hub, which makes me extremely proud 🥹.

Even though we have more to be confirmed, I couldn't resist sharing with you the first partner highlights and multi-chain vibes.

To make sure you don't miss anything, you can subscribe to our event calendar.

👀 Swift is bullish on Blockchain
💰 How you continuously raise funds
🎾 Profit from your favorite athlete's success

Interoperable payment methods from banks - Swifts CBDC sandbox project 🏖️

More and more institutions are working on a blockchain solution for digital money.

The aim of the sandbox project is to develop and test interoperable solutions for CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) using Swift's Connector.

The first step: Connecting different CBDC networks and existing payment systems.

Through collaborative experiments, 38 institutions are working together on new use cases:

  1. Digital Trade: Integration of digital trading networks with CBDCs for the automated settlement of trade payments.

  2. Foreign Exchange (IFX): Exploration of new approaches for FX transactions and their settlement via CBDCs.

  3. Delivery-versus-Payment (DvP): Interoperability between tokenization platforms and CBDC networks to facilitate DvP.

  4. Liquidity Saving Mechanism (LSM): Models to reduce liquidity fragmentation across different currencies and platforms.

Over 125 users performed more than 750 transactions in the sandbox environment and successfully tested these use cases. This is confirmation that Swift's Connector can support various interoperable models.

Attitude towards the use of blockchain technology 

The document highlights that the use of blockchain technology offers CBDCs the opportunity to improve payment systems by increasing efficiency, security and cross-border compatibility.

It also makes it possible to reduce transaction costs and increase accessibility, which is particularly beneficial for international payments.

What are the next steps?

  • Further development of the Swift Connector to support additional use cases and technical capabilities.

  • Continue to collaborate with the global community for further innovation and product development in the area of CBDC.

🤔 w3.take? Regardless of public or private blockchains - this project is another example of how distributed ledger technologies can be used to overcome current problems in our industry.

The new standard for start up investments

If you are a founder or an investor, you must have had this thought before:

“There must be a way to make fundraising for start-ups easier, more accessible and more efficient…”

Christoph Jentzsch seemed to think about this a lot when he was advising large companies such as Siemens on how they could use blockchain technology.

Christoph became aware of Bitcoin during his studies in 2013; unlike others, it was not the financial value that fascinated him, but the technology behind it.

He became part of the Ethereum development team alongside Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood.

Back then, when smart contracts were just emerging, he decided to create the most decentralized way to fund money collaboratively.

Born was the first decentralized autonomous organization “The DAO”.

The aim of this was to democratically distribute the allocation of funding from which the Ethereum network would benefit... this worked out well until the famous "DAO Hack" happened.

The consequence: Ethereums Hard Fork and the split into Ethereum Classic.

Today, Christoph is known as the founder of Tokenize.it and uses his platform to provide a digital alternative to traditional investment in companies.

The so-called GmbH Token not only makes employee participation simple, but also accessible; investors can invest from as little as €200.

Founders and investors benefit from a simple digital investment process that is handled without a notary and under standardized contracts.

It also eliminates costly financing rounds by allowing money to be raised constantly, thanks to a simple "Invest Now" button. The company specifies the conditions and investors can invest independently.

Fundraising can therefore take place continuously (up to 8 million euros per year), but it can also be paused at any time. This means that only as much money is collected as is needed at any given time.

🤓 For the full story check out the latest podcast episode with Christoph!

Shared success between Athletes and Fans 🤝

We all have big dreams, but there is usually one thing that stops us from turning them into reality: a lack of resources.

However, there is a new solution that not only allows you to live your dream, but also allows your most loyal fans to have a share in your success.

Meet 19-year-old Patrick Brady. His life is characterized by his passion for tennis: “I was six/seven years old competing and having fun with 50-year-old’s and trying to beat them, I soon grew a lot of passion for the sport.”

But to make the leap to the top of tennis, Patrick lacked one thing above all - funding.

To play tennis professionally, you need the right training, the right diet and travel around the world - not the cheapest things to do as a 19-year-old.

For these reasons, Patrick has decided to raise funds with the help of FANtium. The platform offers young talents the opportunity to find investors.

But what's in it for the investors?

👉 Investors buy shares in the player in the form of a token and by holding the token, the investor receives a share of the athlete's future earnings.

Other benefits for token holders include video analysis and coaching of their own games and access to a private chat.

Why should investors take the risk when it is still unclear whether Patrick will ever make it into the 150 ATP?

Investors in Alexander Bublik, for example, were able to achieve a return of 32%. They invested in him at a valuation of $ 1.25 million at the beginning of 2023 and ended up with $ 1.65 million.

Achievements of Fantium

👉 14+ upcoming tennis athletes live

👉 Over $500k successfully raised from investors

👉 More than $160k in prize money has already been paid back to investors

👉 Players from 14 different countries

Have you ever met Nusha? She is one of our recent community members and has the mission to revolutionize the music industry.

Are you coming to Berlin Blockchain Week @w3.hub?

Vicky & Marvin are Web3-obsessed. That's why they host a weekly podcast featuring updates and cool stuff.

Don't miss out on any news, updates, & vibes anymore. Discord is so yesterday. Let's meet on Telegram.