I think it is safe to say, that Europe missed the Blockchain technology trends of the last 30 years. Moreover, all the big and noteworthy internet companies are being located in the United States and Asia.
But now, as a new era of the internet knocks on the door, there is a new room for Europe to really break through in the tech sector.
Having said that, let’s look at the most promising European Startups, working on Blockchain technology.
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1. Seba Crypto – Blockchain Technology
This Blockchain technology startup is located in Switzerland and is creating a legitimate Cryptocurrency-bank.
Switzerland is well-known for being a secure place to store your wealth and their Banks’s are some of the most trusted in the world.
Now they do not want the Cryptocurrency-revolution to destroy their financial power by any means. That’s why they do everything to become a big “Crypto-Nation”. They embrace the technology and encourage startups to develop it further.
Seba Crypto is located in Zug, in Switzerland, which is considered the “Crypto-valley” in Switzerland.
As mentioned above this Startup develops a reliable, trusted and legitimate Cryptocurrency-based bank. It allows for easy buying and selling of Cryptocurrencies. Moreover, you can do so with traditional FIAT money such as the US Dollar or the Euro.
Seba already has a significant number of funds, as they have recently raised over 100 Million US Dollars.
Many institute investors invested in Seba Crypto, as they believe too, that Cryptocurrencies are here to stay, and are only getting bigger.
Their ultimate vision is to merge your both bank and cryptocurrency account in one place. So, you have access to your normal account, as well as your Cryptocurrency-account when you log in.
Seba does something, that most traditional banks are very afraid of. Many traditional financial institutions fear to offer cryptocurrency services, because of concerns regarding regulations.
This exact same thing is already happening in India, as its government refuses traditional financial institutions to offer Cryptocurrency-related services.
2. ResonanceX
ResonanceX is a startup, located in England and Wales, which focuses on creating a product, which manages people’s wealth very efficiently and cheaply using Blockchain technology.
With its platform, individual investors like us can invest in structured investments across the whole world.
It specifically addresses the needs of financial advisors, family offices, external asset managers, and educated retail investors. It allows them to have an independent and distribution channel.
Additionally, ResonanceX offers access to investment solutions, that are normally only accessible by the ultra-rich.
To sum it up, ResonanceX is a Blockchain technology-based platform, that allows you to manage your portfolios in real-time. It provides you access to secondary markets and always gives you the right price for every investment.
3. RobotCache
RobotCache is a video game company, similar to Steam, and is located in Spain.
It specializes in selling games by using a decentralized encrypted Blockchain. So they do not have to operate a centralized server.
RobotCache chose to operate their platform with a decentralized Blockchain. So Valve, the parent company of RobotCache, does not have to spend cost on keeping their decentralized servers up-and-running all the time. Instead, it has delegated this activity to distributed miners all over the world.
This also has a benefit for the game publishers, that choose to sell their games on the RobotCache platform. It is because they get a greater percentage of the game’s price.
The Cryptocurrency through which all transaction will take place is IRON. Every-time a seller sells a game through RobotCache, they will get a certain amount of IRON.
They can then decide if they would like to buy other games with the IRON Cryptocurrency. They can even exchange their IRON for real-world FIAT-Money like the US-Dollar or the Euro.
4. Blockchain Studio
Blockchain Studio is a Blockchain technology-based startup focused on creating products that accelerate the blockchain adoption and is located in Paris, France.
Their ultimate goal is to create products, that educate people on Blockchain. Moreover, it lets the usage of Blockchain easier, and to push the implementation of DApps for businesses forward.
So let‘s look at some of the products that Blockchain Studio already developed:
Rockside enables people to easily join existing Blockchain or even create their own Blockchain.
You can also easily manage your keys, and review the different versions. This is made possible by the intuitive and user-friendly interface.
Dojo is another product made by Blockchain Studio. It educates you on how to develop your own Smart Contracts and run it on Ethereum.
It also helps you to build a proof of concept and trains you on everything around making a successful Blockchain-based application yourself.
5. Gigzi
Gigzi allows you to secure and protect your wealth on the Blockchain. It rewards and empowers you to manage their wealth independently on a decentralized, and secure Blockchain.
Gigzi offers a range of different Cryptocurrency-Assets, from which individual investors like us can choose from.
First, they offer Gigzi Black which is a finite Cryptocurrency. It’s actually a Token because it is built on top of the Ethereum Blockchain which is completely decentralized.
Every 90 days a HODLer of Gigzi Black has rewarded some Gigzi Gold. It is a person who leaves their Gigzi Black on his wallet and doesn’t move it.
This should serve the purpose of encouraging the HODLers to develop a healthy amount of risk-friendliness and promote trading a little bit.
Apart from Gigzi Black, there are also 3 additional Coins, which are the Gigzi Metal coins.
Gigzi Metal Coins
These are 3 different tokens: Gigzi Gold, Gigzi Silver, and GigziPlatinum.
These Gigzi Coins are fully pegged by the original price of the respective metals in the real world.
They are backed by these precious metals from a highly reputable company.
What’s awesome is, that you can exchange your Gigzi Metals to real metals at any time. Custom metals will be then shipped to your house.
There are also no storage fees for all Gigzi Metal Cryptocurrencies. However, you can rapidly be converted to Gigzi Black, at any time.
Now that you know what you can buy at Gigzi, I will present you the ecosystem they offer.
Gigzi Ecosystem
There are 3 important parts: the exchange, the treasury, and the wallet.
With the exchange, it is possible for you to make buy or sell. You can trade with any of the 40+ supported Crypto-assets, and many different FIAT currencies, like the US Dollar or the Euro.
All the FIAT transfers on the Gigzi Exchange are handled by local partners around the globe. The platform gives you a secure escrow service for all the transactions, which makes it way more trustworthy.
The Gigzi wallet is a specially designed web application, that provides anonymous access to the decentralized networks.
Some of the most notable features of the Gigzi Wallet are the price charts, payer management, and a reward’s indicator. It lets you manage your Cryptocurrencies better.
Also, you can instantly convert Gigzi Black Tokens, to Gigizi Metal Tokens and the other way around. All the prices are shown in real-time and all the accounts are kept in sync 24/7.
The treasury of Gigzi is a very cool and interesting feature of the ecosystem.
For every Gigzi Metal Token, there is exactly a certain gram of the respective Metal like gold, silver, platinum in the treasury.
You can exchange your Gigzi Metal Tokens at any time for real metals, which will be carefully packaged and shipped to your location.
And if you decide to sell a Gigzi Metal, the Token will be completely removed from circulation.
That way there is always the same number of Gigzi Metal Tokens available, as there are real pieces of metal in the treasury.
What more?
This process is the same, that was used by the United States and the United Kingdom not so long ago.
But a few decades ago the US removed the gold standard. Now they can print as many US Dollars as they want, without backing them up with anything.
Gigzi creates a great artificial value by handling it the same way, the US Dollar previously did.
Last, I would like to talk about the actual Blockchain on which Gigzi is built on, Ethereum.
They use Ethereum because it offers a great infrastructure, in terms of Smart Contracts. It is a great platform for businesses to build their Tokens upon.
6. H-FARM
H-FARM is more a service-based company, that works with big companies and financial institutions to help other Startups succeed.
They are specialized in funding Startups working with Blockchain technology.
But they do not just throw some money into these Startups. They also help them develop in several crucial areas.
First of all, they offer to connect Startups with industry leaders and create long-lasting partnerships for both parties. These established industry leaders are often willing to cooperate with a very innovative and eager Startup.
H-FARM also offers Workshops and Mentorship for Startups in several areas. It helps to build Business Strategy and Development, Communication and Marketing, Coding and Development, User Interface & Design, and Legal & Fundraising.
With these workshops, the Startups are well-educated and have some important knowledge to grow their business and succeed in the Blockchain technology-industry.
They also give Startups a dedicated team, consisting of a Director, a Manager, Program Assistants, and Operations Manager. These people hold your Startup together, as good as possible, and organize weekly meetings, where they discuss and develop the progress being made in the Startup.
H-FARM also offers rooms, fully equipped with WIFI, and meeting rooms. As a Startups, you can work and develop your idea in an ideal environment.
Food is also cared for at H-FARM, as the Startups will get access to a restaurant, which is open all day long. That means, that each team member is accommodated throughout the whole campus.
What else?
For the actual fundraising, H-FARM offers 20.000 Euro to each team, with possible further investments down the road.
After 4 months of running your Startup, you are invited to pitch your idea publicly. The audience may consist of investors, business angels, and international journalists.
Because of all the great Connections, H-FARM has, it provides each Startup with access to hundreds of free, or low-cost services. That would cost 450.000 US Dollars if you bought them on your own.
And last, H-FARM also provides a lot of international opportunities for Startups. It is because they provide access to GAN, which is a global network. It gives each Startup’s remote mentorship, tech partners, and the visibility to many international investors.
That’s H-FARM and it is a great service for other Blockchain-Startups that would like to get funding and grow successfully.
7. ArQit
The last innovative European Blockchain Startup I am going to present today is ArQit. It is a Startup working with Quantum computers, located in the United Kingdom.
ArQit is developing a quantum-resistant ecosystem on the public Blockchain.
What they are basically doing is protecting the Blockchain as we know it today.
Many people think that the Blockchain technology and its encryption (often a 256-bit encryption) is impossible to be hacked or tampered with.
While that is true, and no computer in the world has ever achieved to hack the 256-bit encryption Bitcoin uses, this can change very soon.
How?
With the power of Quantum computers. These computers can perform specific tasks extremely fast and might be able to hack Bitcoin one day.
ArQit is developing a way to make their Blockchain technology as “unhackable” by Quantum computers as possible.
Let’s look at ArQit in detail:
At the heart of ArQit is the Blockchain Corda, which provides a record of all the transactions, similar to the Bitcoin Blockchain.
In addition to that, there is distributed governance and economics. It lets people develop DApps (Distributed Applications) on top of the already existing Blockchain.
The holy grail that makes this Blockchain Quantum-proof, is the Quantum Key Distribution, which is added for extra security.
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To me, the idea of a Blockchain, which can’t be tampered by anything, and is more secure than Bitcoin, is a really awesome idea.
These are all the European Startups that I really think are pushing the boundaries of what is actually possible to achieve with Blockchain technology.
If you think you know any other European Startups working on Blockchain, that are worth mentioning, let me know in the comments below.
Thanks a lot for reading through the whole article and I hope you now know more about all the amazing Blockchain-Startups in Europe!