State of BSN

August 25 2020

Some world leaders have something far more stable and enduring in mind. China’s nationwide blockchain project, the Blockchain Service Network, or BSN, will be integrating stablecoin support in 2021.

Piloted in late 2019, China’s BSN is a state-backed initiative that intends to support medium-sized businesses in building and deploying blockchain applications.

Stablecoins will be used as payment for various services on the BSN ecosystem, including cloud resources. “Only stablecoins can make it much easier, quicker, and safer,” the executive noted.

Stablecoins will purportedly enable instant settlement between public city node providers and the so-called BSN portals. Also known as the digital currency electronic payment, or DCEP, the project is backed by China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC).

While China’s digital yuan is not based on blockchain technology, it could use BSN infrastructure. Some commercial banks are purportedly considering using blockchain on DCEP settlement or circulation.

Credit: Angie Wang

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Crypto Currency Startups:

Founded in 2013, Circle is a payment services company that operates stablecoin USDC, subsidiary crypto exchange Poloniex, and equity crowdfunding platform SeedInvest. It has also introduced a mobile app, which was eventually rebranded as Circle Pay.

Storj is a decentralized system of distributed object storing, which keeps information encrypted. Storj is based on Bitcoin’s blockchain technology and peer-to-peer protocol in order to provide safe and efficient cloud storage. Besides that, the cloud storage company has issued its own Storj tokens (STORJ) similar to other cryptocurrencies. The main idea of the Storj coin is to allow users to lease unused space on a hard drive as a way to gain profit. The Storj ICO was conducted in 2017 and, before the ICO, the project had become more and more popular, with Storj’s price growing more than 10 percent. The company also offers two types of Storj wallets for cryptocurrency, one of which is based on blockchain and the second option is available at Freewallet. Storj mining happens when space on a hard drive is leased.

Hashgraph is a distributed ledger technology developed by Leemon Baird, the co-founder and CTO of Swirlds, in 2016. It is an asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus algorithm that they consider capable of securing the platform against attacks.

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Since last week, PrivCo has added:
1,108 Companies | 175 M&A Deals | 160 Funding Activities

Funding & Deal Highlights:

Take-Two Interactive acquires the mobile developer Playdots in a deal worth $192M. That figure comprises $90M in cash, with the remaining $102M in shares of Take-Two common stock.

Chicago ad-tech startup Signal announces it has been scooped up by credit reporting agency TransUnion. Founded in 2009 as BrightTag, Signal gives brands data to help gain more knowledge about their customers. The startup raised more than $60M to date, and it counts I2A, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Baird Capital and Yahoo! Japan among its backers.

In a deal that signals more consolidation for the data center and edge network sector, EQT Infrastructure strikes a deal to acquire EdgeConneX. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the deal paves the way for EQT to absorb an EdgeConneX footprint that spans more than 40 computing facilities in 33 markets in North America, Europe, and South America.

Buoyed by a $12M Series A funding, Odeko and Cloosiv merge to form a connected supply and demand management platform for cafes and coffee shops.

Entertainment insurance provider SpottedRisk acquires Media Guarantors, a specialized managing general underwriter focused on completion bonds for the film industry.

Flexis Capital and Eurazeo, through Eurazeo Brands, its investment division focused on differentiated consumer brands, along with Moore Strategic Ventures, announces they have acquired Waterloo Sparkling Water ("Waterloo") and will support the company in its next phase of growth. The Flexis Capital–led equity consortium also includes JW Levin Management Partners and Waterloo Capital's investors. Jason Shiver, CEO of Waterloo, who has driven the company's rapid growth over the last three years, will continue to lead the company alongside COO Jeff Arnold.

Drizly Group announces that it has closed a $50M Series C funding round, led by Avenir, a New York-based investment firm, with participation by Tiger Global and other existing investors. The investment comes as Drizly, the leader in alcohol e-commerce and delivery, has grown over 350% in 2020 as compared to 2019 while achieving sustained profitability. The number of retail partners on Drizly's platform has doubled since January 1. As consumers shift to online shopping for alcohol, Drizly expects 20% of off-premise alcohol purchases to be transacted online within the next five years, as compared to less than 2% in early 2020.

LensGen, Inc., an ophthalmic medical device company and developer of Juvene®, a disruptive fluid-optic intraocular lens (IOL) for cataract and presbyopia treatment, announces the initial closing of $10M of a $20 million bridge financing. The company is also pleased to announce the election of James (Jim) Mazzo to its Board of Directors.

MSUITE, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based construction tech startup, completes a $4M seed funding round. The round was led by Next Level Ventures and Stanley Ventures, with participation from AEC technology firm U.S. CAD.

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