July 1st represents Canada Day in the Great White North. As such, we thought that a quick look at a few Canadian companies involved in digital securities would be appropriate today.
To date, Canada has been one of the leading countries surrounding anything blockchain related. We have seen government adoption, the creation of Ethereum, the first Bitcoin fund listed on a major exchange, and rumblings of a potential central bank digital currency. The following are a few examples of Canadian based endeavours.
Bank of Canada
The Bank of Canada is one of the few of its kind to release official statements regarding the release of a CBDC. It has been established that, while there are no immediate plans for the release of a CBDC, the bank fully intends on being prepared for this, eventuality. This was first made apparent through job postings, such as ‘CBDC Project Manager’, but later through direct commentary.
In recent weeks, the Bank of Canada has gone so far as releasing an ‘analytical note’, which discusses the privacy needs of a potential CBDC. While they note that the goal is to attain privacy, akin to what cash affords its users, currently technology, such as zero-knowledge proofs, are not appropriate, and that both maturation and national-scale implementation first need to occur.
While it may be years before a Canadian CBDC is actually launched, the Bank of Canada is at least making sure the nation is ready for that day.
Blockstation
Operating out of Toronto, Blockstation is a young company, rife with potential. The team behind Blockstation has developed a suite of services which leverage blockchain technology. These services were built to allow “…the traditional financial ecosystem to get in on digital assets, including Bitcoin, Ether, and Tokenized IPOs (Security Token Offerings, or STOs)”
The hard work that went in to establishing these capabilities has not gone unnoticed, as Blockstation has successfully partnered with multiple stock exchanges. One such pilot will soon see the launch of at least 4 tokenized IPOs on the Jamaica Stock Exchange.
To learn about Blockstation in more detail, make sure to peruse our exclusive interview with CEO, Marko Hafez.
Interview Series – Marko Hafez, CEO of Blockstation
TokenGX
This Canadian outfit has recently received the greenlight by the regulatory body ‘Ontario Securities Commission (OSC)’, for the launch of a secondary marketplace.
Dubbed FreedomX, this anticipated marketplace will be one of the first of its kind in Canada. It will offer a home for digital securities to actively be traded, providing higher levels of asset liquidity in the process.
Beyond just operating a regulated secondary marketplace, TokenGX is also working to establish, and deploy, a stablecoin. This will be utilized as the primary means of settlement on FreedomX, and would be tethered to the Canadian Dollar.
Canadian Stablecorp
On the topic of stablecoins, a pair of Canadian Companies (3iQ and Mavennet) have joined forces to create ‘Canada Stablecorp’.
The first release by Canada Stablecorp is known as QCAD. This is a CAD backed digital asset, which was structured as such for 3 main reasons.
- Provide its users with easy access to a digital asset, which can provide a reprieve from market volatility.
- Give Canadians a ‘home-grown’ variant; A trait which should appeal to Canadian investors looking to support Canadian companies.
- Leveraging the strength, and stability, of CAD. The Canadian dollar is typically accepted on a world stage, and benefits from a nation which typically remains removed from divisive world events.
While QCAD has not established itself to the extent shown by Tether, GUSD, and USDC, the potential is there.
Onwards and Upwards
Unfortunately, not all of the promising companies coming out of Canada could be discussed here today. Those discussed represent a fraction of the activity taking place in the great white north.
If one thing is clear from this activity, it is that Canada has been/is playing an important role in the forwarding of blockchain and the digital securities sector.
Happy Canada Day!
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