Triggered in August 2014, Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative intends to turn the city-state into the world’s first smart nation. This major digital transformation, expected to be fulfilled by 2030, is aimed at turning Singapore into a hyper-connected country where the pervasive use of technology is expected to bring improvement in the quality of life of people.
As part of the Smart Nation initiative, Singapore is also working toward the vision of a Smart Financial Center and is putting a lot of effort into developing the fintech sector.
One of the innovations being intensively explored is the blockchain, the core technology underlying bitcoin, which promises to disrupt the financial services industry.
Singapore’s blockchain scene, although still in its early stages, have some promising ventures. Here’s a list of the 8 blockchain, bitcoin-focused Singaporean companies that are worth watching:
Otonomos
Otonomos allows entrepreneurs and business owners to incorporate their businesses on a digital distributed ledger. Its technology allows massive disintermediation in traditional incorporation processes and reduces friction.
On its platform, users can form, fund and govern their companies on the blockchain, bringing company incorporation to the digital era, according to Otonomos’ co-founder Han Verstraete.
Toast
Toast is a peer-to-peer money transfer application targeting Southeast Asian migrant workers. Toast allows users to remit money in a faster and cheaper manner.
In October 2015, Toast raised S$1.2 million in a seed funding round led by Aetius Capital and ACE & Company to fuel its expansion in the large and growing Asian remittance market.
DigixGlobal
DigixGlobal is an asset tokenization platform built on the Ethereum blockchain that aims to marry the functionality and transactional utility of cryptocurrencies with real world physical assets.
On DigixGlobal, one Digix Gold token represents a one-gram share of a physical gold bar. Users can redeem their Digix tokens any time or trade them on the Ethereum blockchain for goods, services or any other digital assets such as bitcoin and ether.
CoinPip
CoinPip is a payments company that leverages the bitcoin blockchain to allow global money transfers. The company targets the freelancers and remote workers community by providing them with a solution to get paid in faster and easier way.
Users don’t need to know anything about bitcoin as payments are sent directly into the recipients’ bank accounts in conventional currencies.
CoinPip also provides merchant with payment solutions (Online and Point of Sales App) that allow merchants to accept bitcoin payments from mobile wallets (Mobile, Web-based and SMS).
DXMarkets
DXMarkets is a software company specialized in blockchain technology for capital markets. DXMarkets leverages blockchain technology to help financial services firms benefit from reduced costs, real-time settlement and transparency.
DXMarkets has offices in both London and Singapore, and was one of the ten startups to be selected to join FUSION’s 2015 fintech acceleration program.
Ripple Gateway
Ripple Gateway Pte Ltd, the operator of Ripple Singapore, is the first ripple gateway in Singapore but also the first ripple Gold & Silver gateway.
Ripple Gateway Pte Ltd, established in November 2013 in the Republic of Singapore, enables customers to deposit and withdraw Gold, Silver and currencies into and out of the ripple payment network.
Using the ripple network, customers can purchase tokens that represent precious metals and can collect their physical bullion upon demand.
Quantified Assets
Founded in 2013, Quantified Assets is a private investment company offering tailored education and services for saving and trading in physical precious metals and cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.
Quantified Assets’ offering includes bitcoin brokerage and exchange services, a bitcoin bill payment platform, merchant and point of sale solutions. Quantified Assets also operates bitcoin ATMs and since early 2014, allows customers to buy digital versions of gold and silver using a bitcoin vending machine located at Hackerspace in Singapore.
CoinHako
CoinHako is a bitcoin wallet service for consumers to buy, sell and secure their bitcoins.
In May 2015, CoinHako was awarded a winning position at the inaugural Blockchain hackathon organized by DBS Bank in Singapore. The company has attracted financing from investors in Silicon Valley – namely Tim Draper, Josh Jones and Boost VC.
In April 2015, CoinHako became the first Asian bitcoin exchange to have fully insured bitcoin deposits via Bitgo’s wallet insurance program.
Featured image: Bitcoin by Julia Tsokur via Shutterstock.
