Oracle is a traditional tech company that has been struggling to gain traction in the cloud, but it could see blockchain as a way to differentiate itself. At Oracle OpenWorld today it announced the Oracle Blockchain Applications Cloud, a series of four applications designed for transactions-based processing scenarios using Internet of Things as a data source.
“Customers struggle with how exactly to go from concepts like smart contracts, distributed ledger and cryptography to solving specific business problems,” Atul Mahamuni, VP of IoT and Blockchain at Oracle told TechCrunch.
The company actually introduced a more generalized blockchain as a service offering at OpenWorld last year, but this year they have decided to focus more on specific use cases, announcing four new applications. The blockchain comes into account because of its nature as an irrefutable and immutable record.
In cases where there is a dispute over the accuracy of a particular piece of data, the blockchain can provide incontrovertible proof. As for the Internet of Things, that provides data points you can use to provide that proof. Your sensor feeds the data and it (or some reference to it) gets added to the blockchain, leaving no room for doubt.
The four applications involve supply chain-transaction data including a track and trace capability to follow a product through its delivery from inception to market, proof of provenance for valuables like drugs, intelligent temperature tracking (what they are calling Intelligent Cold Chain) and warranty and usage tracking. Intelligent Cold chain ensures that a product that is supposed to be kept cold didn’t get exposed to higher than recommended temperatures, while warranty tracking ensures that a product was being used in a proscribed fashion and should be subject to warranty claims.
Each of these plays to the some of Oracle’s strengths as a company that builds databases and ERP software. It can draw on the information it tends to collect any way as part of the nature of its business processes and add it to a blockchain and other applications when it makes sense.
“So what we do is we we get events and insights from IoT systems, as well as from supply chain ERP data, and we get those insights and translation from all of this and then put them into the blockchain and then do the correlations and artificial intelligence machine learning algorithms on top of those transactions,” Mahamuni explained.
This year perhaps even more so than the last couple, Oracle is trying to differentiate itself from the rest of the cloud pack, as it tries to right its cloud business. By building applications on top of base technologies like blockchain, IoT and artificial intelligence, while taking advantage of their domain knowledge around databases and ERP, they are hoping to show customers they can offer something their cloud competitors can’t.
New platforms are all about the content, and Resolution Games is one of the rare game studios going all in on AR/VR gaming.
The Stockholm-based startup has swept up $7.5 million in Series B funding at an $87.5 million valuation. The round was led by MizMaa Ventures with participation from GV, GP Bullhound, Fly Forever, David Helgason, Partech, Bonnier Ventures, Creandum and Sisu Game Ventures. The company has raised $13.5 million to date.
The studio has been primarily building for headset based experiences and has been among the first adopters for a lot of the emerging platforms. Resolution Games has titles for Magic, Leap, Oculus Rift, Gear VR, Daydream and HTC Vive though most of their work has been focused on mobile VR systems.
The company is also working on a follow-up to their Bait! fishing title which brings the gameplay to mobile via ARKit.
We took a deep dive look at Angry Birds: First Person Slingshot a few weeks ago, a title Resolution Games partnered with Rovio to make happen. It’s one of Magic Leap’s first titles and it’s really a great example of how certain types of 2D gameplay on mobile can effectively migrate to 3D platforms like AR and VR headsets.
We chatted with Resolution Games CEO Tommy Palm during our demo who gave some of his thoughts on the immersive platforms his team of 35 is building for. “I’ve always been very fascinated at being able to do things at the forefront of technology, I definitely think that games are going to be trailblazing on these platforms when it comes to user interface and just coming up with what you can use it for.”
Chances are good you’ve seen one of Simone Giertz’s ridiculous creations, be it on the Colbert show or GIF’d into your newsfeed. As the “Queen of Shitty Robots” (her words!), she’s mastered the art of taking an idea for a “useless” machine and transforming it into hilarious, bite-sized, oh-so-shareable Internet gold.
Now she’s branching out. Dozens upon dozens of creations later, she’s building something that she hopes is less “useless”, and more “life improving”.
Called the Every Day Calendar, it encourages you to do one thing each and every day by pushing you to maintain a running streak. What that “thing” is, of course, is up to you. Maybe it’s playing guitar. Maybe it’s reading, or jogging, or calling your mom. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s something you want to do more often than not.
In Simone’s case, the inspiration was practicing yoga — or, more accurately, a bunch of false starts in trying to practice yoga.
“Most of us have a hunch of what we could do to make our lives better, or to make ourselves happier,” she told me earlier this week. “But how do you find the motivation to keep up with it, and to keep yourself accountable? I wanted a physical thing I could see every day. Sometimes when you put so much effort into self-care, it’s like it goes out into a void. But having this progress bar that shows the days you’ve put in, it really helps.”
Could the same thing be done with an app on your phone? Sure. Apps like that exist. But by making it big, and physical, and glowy, it becomes something harder to ignore — something you can’t just swipe away.
Simone’s calendar is sort of like one massive PCB. It’s an array of 365 capacitive touch sensors, each tied to an LED and wired back to a board that keeps track of everything that needs to stay lit. The gold tracing accents of the conductive sensors are pushed forward rather than hidden away, with the whole board then encased in a bamboo frame. It comes together into something that looks homebrew and bespoke, yet modern and pretty enough to fit right into in a lot of rooms.
Want the calendar to do something else? There’s a USB programming port on the back. And if you’re feeling super hacky (and don’t mind wiring up a few hundred LEDs on your own), they’re planning on open sourcing the schematics for all to tear into.
Simone started working on this project about a year ago, originally intending to build a one-off board for herself. After a non-malignant brain tumor led her to need brain surgery (and, as she notes with a laugh, caused her to miss a day on her yoga calendar), she focused on making the calendar something that others could have, too.
On building a product for others for the first time, Simone tells us:
“It’s.. crazy. The difference between making one prototype, for something that needs to work once on camera, vs doing something for manufacturing and building at scale. They’re not even related. Or they’re like distant cousins that don’t talk to each other. Fortunately, we have a team that has a ton of experience that helped flesh out the process.”
The calendar goes live on Kickstarter this morning, with a fundraising goal of $35,000. The early bird first batch will go for $250 each, after which the price bumps up to $300. They expect the calendar to ship by December of next year (or May, for early birds.)
And don’t worry: she’s not done making silly things for the Internet.
Lyft, the transportation on demand company that is heading to a $15 billion IPO in 2019, is racing ahead with its autonomous vehicle plans. TechCrunch has learned that it is acquiring the London-based augmented reality startup Blue Vision Labs and unveiling its first test vehicle with Ford to advance its vision for self-driving cars.
While the integration of Lyft’s autonomous technologies and Ford’s hardware is impressive, perhaps more meaningful is the company’s acquisition of Blue Vision Labs, a startup out of London that has developed a way of ingesting street-level imagery and is using it to build collaborative, interactive augmented reality layers — all by way of basic smartphone cameras.
Blue Vision will sit within Lyft’s Level 5 autonomous car division headed up by Luc Vincent (who joined the company last year as VP of engineering after creating and running Google Street View).
The startup and its staff of 39 (everyone is joining Lyft) will also become the anchor for a new R&D operation in London or the San Francisco-based company, focused on that autonomous driving effort. Level 5 is stepping up a gear in another way today, too: Lyft is unveiling a new vehicle that it will be using for testing.
Blue Vision has developed technology that provides both street level mapping and interactive augmented reality that lets two people see the same virtual objects. The company has already built highly detailed maps that developers can now use to develop collaborative AR experiences — it’s like the maps of these spaces become canvasses for virtual objects to be painted on. Over time, we may see various uses of it throughout the Lyft platform, but for now the main focus is Level 5.
“We are looking forward to focusing Blue Vision’s technology on building the best maps at scale to support our autonomous vehicles, and then localization to support our stacks,” Vincent said in an interview. “This is fundamental to our business. We need good maps and to understand where every passenger and vehicle is. To make our services more efficient and remove friction, we want their tech to drive improvements.”
People familiar with the acquisition tell us Blue Vision is being acquired for around $72 million with $30 million on top of that based on hitting certain milestones. Lyft has declined to comment on the valuation. Blue Vision had raised $17 million and had only come out of stealth last March, after working quietly on the product for two years. Investors included GV, Accel, Horizons Ventures, SV Angel and more.
This deal is notable in part because this is the first acquisition that Lyft has made to expand its autonomous car operation, which now has 300 people working on it. At a time when many larger companies are snapping up startups that have developed interesting applications or technologies around areas like AR, mapping, and autonomous driving, there may be more to come. “We are always evaluating build versus buy,” Vincent said when asked about more acquisitions. But he also acknowledged that it is a very crowded field today, even when considering just the most promising companies.
“I don’t have a crystal ball but arguably there are quite a few players today, including big tech, startups, OEMs and car makers. There are well over 100 [strong] companies in the space and there is bound to be some consolidation.” Lyft earlier this year also inked an investment and partnership with Magna to integrate its self-driving car system into components it supplies to car makers.
But it also might face other pressures. The company counts Didi and GM among its investors, and both of these companies are making their own big strides in self-driving technology and each has inked deals to have more partners using that tech, in part to justify some of their own hefty investment.
Lyft, of course, will hope that acquisitions like Blue Vision will give it more leverage, and make it one of the consolidators, rather than the consolidated.
Blue Vision’s use of smartphones to ingest data to create its street-level imagery and mapping is crucial to Lyft’s quest for scale. In effect, every Lyft vehicle in operation today, with a smartphone on the dashboard, could be commandeered to become a “camera” watching, surveying and mapping the roads that those cars drive on, and how humans behave on them, using that to help Lyft’s autonomous vehicle (AV) platform learn more about driving overall.
In the race for data to “teach” these AI systems, having that wide network of cameras deployed and picking up data so quickly is “game changing,” said Peter Ondruska, the co-founder and CEO of Blue Vision.
“The amount of data you have affects how much you can rely on your system,” Ondruska said in an interview. “What our tech allows us to do is to utilise Lyft’s fleet to train the cars. That is really game changing. I was working on this for eight years and you have to have a lot of data to get to the right level of safety. That is hard and we can get there faster using our technology.”
Lyft up to now has really concentrated its business presence in North America, and so this marks at least one kind of way that it is expanding on the other side of the pond. It opened its first European office in Munich earlier this year, a sign that it’s looking to this part of the world at least for R&D, if not to expand its business footprint to consumers, just yet. Vincent declined to comment on whether Lyft would get involved in autonomous trials in London, nor whether it would expand its transportation service there.
Another key area that is worth noting is that Blue Vision’s “collaborative” VR, which lets people look at the same spot in space and both see and create interactive, virtual figures in it, could be used by Lyft either to help drivers and would-be passengers better communicate, or even help passengers discover more services during a journey or at their destination.
When Ondruska first spoke to TechCrunch earlier this year as the company emerged from stealth, ride hailing applications, in fact, were one of the use cases that we pointed out could be helped by its tech.
Peter Ondruska, the startup’s co-founder and CEO, [said] that Blue Vision’s tech can pinpoint people and other moving objects in a space to within centimeters of their actual location — far more accurate than typical GPS — meaning that it could give better results in apps that require two parties to find each other, such as in a ride-hailing app. (Hands up if you and your Uber driver have ever lost each other before you’ve even stepped foot in the vehicle.)
Blue Vision isn’t the only company working to develop these virtual maps for the world. Startups like 6d.ai, Blippar and the incredibly well capitalized and wildly successful AR technology developer Niantic Labs are also building out these virtual maps on which developers can create applications. Indeed, Niantic’s Pokemon Go game is the most successful augmented reality application to date.
Large media companies have also been investing building content for these platforms, and investors have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into startups like 6d, Niantic, Blue Vision, and others that are building both software and hardware to usher in this new age of how we will, apparently, all soon be seeing the world.
The development of these new platforms will go a long way toward ensuring that more useful applications are just around the corner, waiting for users to pick them up.
“One of the reasons why AR hasn’t really reached mass market adoption is because of the tech that is on the market,” Ondruska told us earlier this year. “Single-user experiences are limiting. We are allowing the next step, letting people see the right place, for example. None of that was possible before in AR because the backend didn’t exist. But by filling in this piece, we are creating new AR use cases, ones that are important and will be used on a daily basis.”
The deal marks Lyft’s tenth acquisition, according to CrunchBase. In 2015, Lyft acquired the disappearing messaging company, Leo, to bring the company’s messaging expertise in house. Two years later, the ride-hailing company went on an acquisition tear, hoovering up FinitePaths, YesGraph, DataScore, and Kamcord. The first three seem like strategic acquisitions to bulk up mapping and marketing efforts internally; but Kamcord, a social media network for video sharing, seemed a little farther afield.
For more on Lyft’s bigger plans for AV, watch the video below of Vincent talking about the company’s roadmap (so to speak).
Nintendo’s Labo Kits are surprisingly fun — and complex. I say this as someone who spent the better part of a workday piecing together a small piano. Now the gaming giant is looking to bring its cardboard building sets into the classroom, as part of a broader STEAM curriculum.
The company says it plans to bring the kits to ~2,000 students between eight and 11 within the next school year. It will be assisted in the task by Institute of Play, a New York City-based non-profit whose mission statement involves education through play.
The program will begin in Institute of Play’s backyard, targeted schools in the New York region. Along with the kits, the organization will be handing out the Nintendo Labo Teacher Guide, featuring sample lesson plans that integrate the product into various STEAM courses.
After the NYC-based pilot, the program is set to extend to 100 schools all around the U.S. running through March of next year. Nintendo will provide kits and Switches to participating schools. The Teacher guide, meanwhile, is free to anyone (though the kits and Switches are decidedly less so).
There’s a sign up site for those interested in participating.
Private jet subscription service Surf Air is announcing a new membership package called Surf Air Express alongside Indiegogo, which allows for members to pay a smaller subscription for individual bookings on the company’s semi-private scheduled planes.
For a mere $2500 subscribers can get access to seats on the Surf Air planes or small jets for roughly $400 to $500 per seat.
That’s a discount from the company’s $4,000 all-you-can-fly monthly subscriptions.
When it launched five years ago, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based Surf Air pitched itself as a better way to fly for customers that were frequent travelers on routes throughout California and (eventually) Texas.
But Surf Air was a luxury problem for luxury people and was charging an (apparently unsustainable) luxury price.
Now to boost demand to the merely wealthy instead of the really rich, Surf Air is now offering tickets for individual flights rather than just at the all-you-can-fly rates. Seats will be offered up to subscribers to the company’s service at a flat rate of around $400 if flyers are willing to pay the annual fee of $2500.
Meanwhile, anyone will be able to book flights through Kayak and other services at what Surf Air chief executive Sudhin Shahani calls market rates (which can range anywhere from $600 to $1000).
Subscribers are also going to be eligible for other perks including no change or cancellation fees, access to member events, discounts at premium hotels and access to flights for special events, like music festivals games and conferences.
“Five years ago we cracked the code and changed aviation by offering a small group of monthly subscribers “all you can fly” memberships with a premium flight experiences to eliminate the hassles associated with commercial air travel,” said Shahani, in a statement. “Through Surf Air Express we’re continuing to upgrade the travel experience by opening up the Surf Air network to a completely new market of travelers who’ve long needed a more convenient and fun way to fly. It’s our vision that one day we’ll expand Surf Air to be accessible, with our flight operators, across the online travel booking websites and in every region around the globe where short-haul travel is broken, while still maintaining the quality and value of our membership-first business model.”
Surf Air has raised $92 million to date, according to CrunchBase from investors including Jared Leto, Sway Ventures, Mucker Capital and ff Venture Capital.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to endorse the idea of a “comprehensive federal privacy law” for the U.S. in a keynote speech tomorrow.
He will also back Europe’s approach to data protection and privacy — recently cemented in place via the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — essentially saying technology does not have to be creepy to be innovative. Nor should the tech itself be a cause of harm.
Cook will be addressing the 40th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners (ICDPPC), which is being held in Brussels this year to coincide with the introduction of GDPR.
Europe’s updated privacy framework came into timely force, this May, weeks after the Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal had erupted into a major global scandal — further raising the profile of data protection as a consumer need, and convincing governments to prioritize an oft overlooked area.
By contrast US lawmakers have found themselves on the back foot, increasingly viewed as laggards on the issue vs Europe.
California also recently passed a state-wide data protection law. So federal regulators now have clear impetus to draw up domestic privacy rules. Though it remains to be seen whether they will stand up to platform power at home and hold their own on the world stage. Or merely close down the risk of a state-by-state data protection patchwork springing up to create new compliance headaches for business.
Silicon Valley’s response to the prospect of an overarching US privacy law has been predictably disingenuous — with attempts to reframe the issue under broadbrush, malleable concepts like ‘control’ or ‘accountability’; and lobbying efforts aimed at steering regulators away from drafting rules anywhere near as robust as GDPR.
The usual soundbites are being trotted out about the need to ‘protect innovation‘ (aka the data-fuelled business models such companies use as revenue engines).
Cook’s intervention is a reminder that not every tech giant is hostile to privacy. And privacy does not have to be systematically violated for value to be derived from data.
For example, Apple has invested in pro-privacy technologies that enable it to leverage data-based insights while protecting individual privacy, such as its use of differential privacy to pull aggregate patterns of behaviour across its user-base; rather than pursuing a per-person profiling approach, as adtech giants Google and Facebook do, riding roughshod over individual privacy in the process.
In his speech to the audience of international privacy commissioners, Cook is expected to thank global regulators for the work they do, and reiterate that Apple views privacy as a “fundamental human right” — a position which aligns the company with the EU’s ethics-based perspective on big data.
He will also compliment GDPR, specifically — dubbing it an example of how “good policy and political will can come together to protect the rights of us all” — and focus on ethical underpinnings, saying that at Apple “we are optimistic about technology’s awesome potential for good. But we know that it won’t happen on its own. Every day, we work to infuse the devices we make with the humanity that makes us.”
In another remark, Cook will say: “We will never achieve technology’s true potential without the full faith and confidence of the people who use it” — which looks like a not-so-coded attack on big tech’s trust crisis, which continues to be fuelled by data breach after data breach, every passing week.
In the speech, Cook will also seek to push the conversation beyond talk of compliance and defence of rights — by laying out a broad, positive vision for technology and privacy in the 21st century.
He is expected to tell delegates “we need to keep making progress — now more than ever” on “humanity’s greatest common project”, citing challenges such as climate change, fighting disease, and education and economy inclusion.
Cook is the first tech CEO to give the keynote speech at the ICDPPC, accepting an invitation from the conference organizers to do so.
He is also perhaps the only big tech CEO who could comfortably take to such a stage in person.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai will also be heard at the conference, but remotely, via pre-recorded video messages. The companies are sending policy staffers to answer delegates’ questions in Q&A sessions.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to endorse the idea of a “comprehensive federal privacy law” for the U.S. in a keynote speech tomorrow.
He will also back Europe’s approach to data protection and privacy — recently cemented in place via the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — essentially saying technology does not have to be creepy to be innovative. Nor should the tech itself be a cause of harm.
Cook will be addressing the 40th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners (ICDPPC), which is being held in Brussels this year to coincide with the introduction of GDPR.
Europe’s updated privacy framework came into timely force, this May, weeks after the Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal had erupted into a major global scandal — further raising the profile of data protection as a consumer need, and convincing governments to prioritize an oft overlooked area.
By contrast US lawmakers have found themselves on the back foot, increasingly viewed as laggards on the issue vs Europe.
California also recently passed a state-wide data protection law. So federal regulators now have clear impetus to draw up domestic privacy rules. Though it remains to be seen whether they will stand up to platform power at home and hold their own on the world stage. Or merely close down the risk of a state-by-state data protection patchwork springing up to create new compliance headaches for business.
Silicon Valley’s response to the prospect of an overarching US privacy law has been predictably disingenuous — with attempts to reframe the issue under broadbrush, malleable concepts like ‘control’ or ‘accountability’; and lobbying efforts aimed at steering regulators away from drafting rules anywhere near as robust as GDPR.
The usual soundbites are being trotted out about the need to ‘protect innovation‘ (aka the data-fuelled business models such companies use as revenue engines).
Cook’s intervention is a reminder that not every tech giant is hostile to privacy. And privacy does not have to be systematically violated for value to be derived from data.
For example, Apple has invested in pro-privacy technologies that enable it to leverage data-based insights while protecting individual privacy, such as its use of differential privacy to pull aggregate patterns of behaviour across its user-base; rather than pursuing a per-person profiling approach, as adtech giants Google and Facebook do, riding roughshod over individual privacy in the process.
In his speech to the audience of international privacy commissioners, Cook is expected to thank global regulators for the work they do, and reiterate that Apple views privacy as a “fundamental human right” — a position which aligns the company with the EU’s ethics-based perspective on big data.
He will also compliment GDPR, specifically — dubbing it an example of how “good policy and political will can come together to protect the rights of us all” — and focus on ethical underpinnings, saying that at Apple “we are optimistic about technology’s awesome potential for good. But we know that it won’t happen on its own. Every day, we work to infuse the devices we make with the humanity that makes us.”
In another remark, Cook will say: “We will never achieve technology’s true potential without the full faith and confidence of the people who use it” — which looks like a not-so-coded attack on big tech’s trust crisis, which continues to be fuelled by data breach after data breach, every passing week.
In the speech, Cook will also seek to push the conversation beyond talk of compliance and defence of rights — by laying out a broad, positive vision for technology and privacy in the 21st century.
He is expected to tell delegates “we need to keep making progress — now more than ever” on “humanity’s greatest common project”, citing challenges such as climate change, fighting disease, and education and economy inclusion.
Cook is the first tech CEO to give the keynote speech at the ICDPPC, accepting an invitation from the conference organizers to do so.
He is also perhaps the only big tech CEO who could comfortably take to such a stage in person.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai will also be heard at the conference, but remotely, via pre-recorded video messages. The companies are sending policy staffers to answer delegates’ questions in Q&A sessions.
Now, the U.S. is striking back ahead of the midterm elections in an unconventionally gentle way.
U.S. Cyber Command, the military wing tasked with offensive cyberoperations, is directly reaching out to Russian trolls to warn the state-backed spreaders of false news that the U.S. is watching. It’s the command’s first cyberoperation since Obama-era rules governing offensive operations were relaxed, according to The New York Times which first broke the story, which now allows the U.S. government to strike back at foreign adversaries believed to be involved in conducting espionage or launching cyberattacks.
The plan involves reaching out to known Russian operatives and telling them that they know who they are and what they’re doing. The subtle message is, “we’re watching, so back off.”
Specific details of the plans aren’t known, like how the U.S. is contacting those on its watchlist — whether it’s a friendly email or sliding into their Twitter DMs. But the operation sends a strong enough message without sparking an escalation in what are already tense diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Russia.
A Cyber Command spokesperson wouldn’t comment on the operation, but noted that U.S. government leadership “has made it clear that it will not accept any foreign interference, or attempts to undermine or manipulate our elections in any way,” and this includes the government’s efforts “to protect election infrastructure and prevent malign, covert election influence operations.”
The operation, launched in the last few days, comes hot on the heels of a Justice Department “name and shame” indictment of a Russian national Elena Khusyaynova, charged Friday with interfering with the midterm elections. Khusyaynova, a St. Petersberg resident, is accused of serving as the chief accountant of “Project Lakhta,” a well-funded Russian effort — largely online — to meddle in elections by spreading misinformation and propaganda. Although there’s almost no chance that Russia would extradite Khusyaynova to face justice in the U.S., the indictment limits the ability of the accused to travel outside of Russia.
It’s not the first time U.S. Cyber Command has targeted its enemies overseas. The division launched offensive “cyber bombs” against operatives of the so-called Islamic State terrorist group in an effort to disrupt and freeze their infrastructure. The mission, however, was not seen as a success.
Crypto-anarchists may not like it, but money doesn’t buy everything. Sometimes, you just need the help of a traditional venture capitalist.
Binance is the fastest growing company in crypto — having risen to become the world’s largest crypto exchange based on trading volumes in under one year — but even it needs help from the old guard. Earlier today the exchange firm, which is officially headquartered in Malta, announced that it has landed an undisclosed investment from Vertex Ventures, a VC firm belonging to Singapore sovereign fund Temasek.
The deal is aimed at launching Binance’s fiat-to-crypto exchange in Singapore which is in beta right now but expected to launch fully, with regulatory compliance, before the end of this year.
VCs have long invested in crypto and crypto exchanges — $8 billion-valued Coinbase is the best example with phenomenal gains for backers — but Binance is not traditional. It is barely one year old, it operates in legal grey areas worldwide and it is seemingly not in need of money (even in this bear market) having made a $350 million profit in the last six months alone.
But this deal is about seeking legitimacy and the right partners.
Binance made its name offering fast crypto-to-crypto trades that make use of its BNB token to save on fees, but a big focus for this year is moving into fiat-based exchanges, as CEO Changpeng Zhao explained to TechCrunch in an interview last month. The company is aiming to open three crypto exchanges this year, with plans to raise the number to 10 next year. Aside from Singapore, it has announced a joint venture in Lichtenstein and gone public with plans to offer fiat in Malta, where it has been courted by the island nation’s pro-crypto administration.
(Left to right) Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao pictured announcing Binance’s acquisition of Trust Wallet with its founder Viktor Radchenko
Wei Zhou — the Binance executive leading the firm’s Singapore business — told TechCrunch that the deal is very much about opening doors.
“This partnership is not about capital but about finding a partner for Binance’s fiat exchange expansions. This partnership signifies the long-term commitment Binance has to build out the ecosystem in the [Southeast Asia] region,” Zhou said.
Vertex certainly brings a network and know-how. The firm was founded in 1988, it has five funds worldwide and offices in Southeast Asia, Silicon Valley, China, India, Israel, and Taiwan.
More importantly, as a fund under the Temasek banner — Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund — the deal gives Binance a very good seat at the table for working with authorities. The company has already shown its keenness in Singapore by taking slow steps and working with authorities to roll out its fiat exchange in Singapore slowly — small and slow rollouts are a departure from Binance’s usual ‘move fast and break things’ approach to business — so pairing up with Vertex mirrors that.
Zhao, the Binance CEO, has artfully dodged many questions about his company’s past — such as why it left Hong Kong, the reasons it declined to become regulated in Japan, why it runs to governments like Malta and Bermuda, and whether it has violated U.S. securities laws — but the newest, and perhaps best, response is to work with the establishment in recognized markets where it can be fully legally compliant.
Note: The author owns a small amount of cryptocurrency. Enough to gain an understanding, not enough to change a life
