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Hashed, one of Korea’s leading crypto asset managers, is raising $120 million to finance emerging blockchain startups.
To finance their projects, the start-ups can mainly rely on private financing. In South Korea, blockchain startups will be able to turn to one more investor.
Hashed, one of the country’s largest crypto asset managers, is announcing the creation of a new investment fund. Endowed with 120 million dollars, Hashed Ventures will take stakes in blockchain startups.
To date, the company does not specify the identity of its investors. According to a spokesman, these would include Korea’s leading technology companies. Is Samsung, positioned on the blockchain, in the game?
“Hashed plans to invest massively in national and foreign startups that want to achieve the ‘economy of protocol’, which recently appeared as a hot topic,” says the fund for the moment.
But what is ‘protocol economy’? It is a broad term for emerging platforms and applications that exploit the blockchain.
“The protocol economy is an economy in which you can create a new protocol and, fundamentally, a proof of empowerment and create a long-term sustainable economy,” one expert describes it again.
The definition seems vague. More concretely, it encompasses the players in the worlds of cryptocurrencies and blockchains. Moreover, Hashed knows these markets and their players well. In its investment portfolio, the company counts many crypto companies.
Among the most notable are projects such as Ethereum, EOS, Ontology and Kyber Network. As for the fields of application of the blockchain covered, they are very diversified (finance, apps, publishing, etc.).
It should also be noted that South Korea is a pioneer in the adoption of blockchain solutions and the democratization of crypto. The government has recently agreed to defer a change in its taxation of these assets.
This is in particular to preserve a still fledgling economy. But the government is also investing the country’s money in blockchain projects, excluding cryptocurrencies. However, the value of the financing does not rival the amounts invested by private investors.
The Korea Internet Security Agency (KISA), an agency reporting to the South Korean government, was planning a $9 million fund in 2020. However, this direct aid is lower than in previous years.