BANKEX, a decentralized Bank-as-a-Service (BaaS) exchange service, aims to bridge the gap between the emerging blockchain sector and traditional finance, has raised $8 million USD in soft and hard commitments as part of its private presale, launched on October 5. Expected to raise 65,000 to 130,000 ETH, the public presale allows participants to use both Ethereum and Bitcoin to partake in the sale. The official date of the BANKEX public token sale will be announced on October 16th, 2017.
One prominent partner in the private presale includes Soramitsu, a blockchain technology company based in Japan that creates services to help governments and financial institutions manage digital identities, assets, and contracts. Soramitsu is a member of Hyperledger and the original developer and contributor of Hyperledger Iroha. Through collaboration with Soramitsu, BANKEX hopes to expand into new markets and be able to work with a larger variety of technologies.
With industry-wide support, BANKEX’S partners include Microsoft, Dostavista, a global crowdsourced delivery service that operates in nine countries, Symphony Foundation, a foundation consisting of leading US banks, and the Moscow Exchange, the largest exchange group in Russia. In May 2017, BANKEX was listed by Financial IT’s Pathfinder Ranking as one of the Top-50 fintech companies worldwide.
Deploying smart contracts and powered by tokenization of assets, the BANKEX’s platform enables off-balance sheet crowdfunding and chain finance atop extant infrastructure, creating novel and efficient solutions for banks and other financial institutions.
Despite the initial collaboration between the traditional banking sector and the emerging fintech players, financial markets are still plagued with issues, such as misleading financial market ratings, scores and audits which leads to distrust among participants. BANKEX aims to solve these problems through its Proof-of-Asset Protocol, a standard that enables a new generation of assets and contracts creating decentralized capital markets. BANKEX unites decentralized Bank-as-a-Service platforms with FinTech technologies and optimizes the liquidity of non-fungible and traditionally illiquid assets.
Target assets for tokenization are those assets classes that are able to generate cash flows with an approximate capitalization exceeding $100 million USD. However, Proof-of-asset protocol allows for the tokenization of almost any asset such as cars or real estate. Tokenization of assets powered by a Proof-of-asset protocol and integrated with Bank-as-Service provides undeniable advantages over archaic financial infrastructures. The BANKEX ecosystem helps reach a general consensus between asset owners, creates distributed smart assets, and uses tradable tokens as a means of payment for end products.
With compliance and security as top priorities, BANKEX is in close cooperation with Group-IB to help mitigate cybersecurity risks at all stages of the token sale. In addition to this, all participants must go through an in-depth registration process. Sensitive personal information is not collected. Once registered participants will receive an email with instructions on how to proceed in the presale, this email will include ETH/BTC address that presale contributions should be sent to.
All stages of the BANKEX pre-sale are now open for public participation, during this period, presale contributors will receive discounts at the following rates:
- Contributions of 500 ETH will receive 788 BKX = 1 ETH, this dis-count will expire once $20 million USD is raised.
- Contributions of 250 – 499 ETH will receive 700 BKX = 1 ETH, this discount will expire once $40 million USD is raised.
- Contributions of 100 – 249 ETH will receive 625 BKX = 1 ETH
- Contributions less than 99 ETH will be exempt from the presale and will be held in escrow until the token generation event commences
BANKEX’s board of advisors, consists of industry experts such as Sergey Sergienko, Founder of Chronobank, Sasha Ivanov, Founder of Waves, Nehemia Kramer, an early-stage investor in Ethereum, Chris Skinner, a leading financial markets strategist, and Gabriele Colombo, Executive Director of Symphony Foundation, as well as leaders in education Michael Ostrovsky of Stanford and Peter Cramton of Maryland University.
For more information read the BANKEX Whitepaper.
