August 4th 2015http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-04/wall-street-meet-block-368396-the-possible-future-of-financeIn June, Symbiont raised $1.25 million from a group of investors including former NYSE chief Duncan Niederauer; former Citadel LLC executive Matt Andresen; two co-founders of high-frequency trading firm Getco LLC, Dan Tierney and Stephen Schuler; and SenaHill.
“Today is the day crypto joins Wall Street,” Symbiont Chief Executive Officer Mark Smith said to the room full of investors, bankers and reporters in New York. Representatives of JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and other financial institutions were among the audience members
For those who aren't familiar with the last two ex citadel Symbiont Investors (Dan Tierney and Stephen Schuler) they paid out $1.4 billion to merge with Knight Capital , the merged company, KCG holdings accounted for approximately 14.0% of consolidated U.S. equity share volume last quarter.
Some more relevant information about the firm:
KCG's strategic investments include a 15.2 percent stake in BATS Global Markets Inc. and a 19.9 percent stake in Direct Edge Holdings LLC. During the third quarter, BATS and Direct Edge agreed to merge. As of September 30, 2013, KCG had approximately $798.7 million in cash and cash equivalents. Aggregate long- and short-term debt was approximately $970 million. The company had $1.5 billion in stockholders' equity equivalent to a book value of $12.34 per share and tangible book value of $10.63 per share
BATS Global Markets Inc. took a big step into the currency market on Wednesday with the acquisition of a trading venue called Hotspot FX.
The Lenexa, Kan.-based exchange operator agreed to buy Hotspot for $365 million in cash from KCG Holdings Inc. Both parties will share tax benefits, which could result in up to $70 million in further payments to KCG. The deal is scheduled to close in the second quarter of this year.
August 5th, 2015http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2015/08/05/bitbeat-smart-contracts-land-on-wall-street/ This is, to our knowledge at least, the first time a financial service based on the technology that underlies bitcoin has been launched that directly targets services offered in the existing financial world. Not that Wall Street sees it as a threat, apparently. Both Mr. Byrne and Symbiont CEO Mark Smith said they have serious interest from myriad parties on Wall Street, and plan to license out their technology.
In the morning, Symbiont unveiled its Smart Securities platform at a small gathering off Wall Street at the offices of the financial-services firm Capco that was attended by investors in the firm, representatives of financial services like the clearing-house service Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC), Morgan Stanley, and UBS. The team gave a live demonstration of the platform, which included a handful of debt securities issued by SenaHill Partners (an investor in Symbiont), which were the first instruments to trade on the platform.
About 10 minutes after Mr. Smith began his presentation, the confirmation notice came across and he announced the trades had cleared. Such a system, he said later, takes counterparty risk down to “zero.”
Bear in mind, DTCC alone handles the clearing of nearly $2 QUADrillion per annum!) or equivalent to the entire US GDP every three days. And they are not the only institution with eyes on blockchain tech, here is a list of some others working on pilots.
CBW Bank
ANZ
Westpac
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
BNY MELLON
LHV Bank
Barclays
UBS
Goldman Sachs
ABN Amro
ING
RoboBank
SWIFT
Santander
Standard chartered
DBS
USAA
BBVA
KPMG
InfoSys Finacle
CitiBank
DTCC
Deutsche Borse
Markit
EuroCCP
CME
Recent news pushed the XCP price up to 0.01. CounterParty is currently trading down -27.31% and again a sub $5 million market cap at 0.0067.
I believe at this moment, with a long term purview- predicting expected value XCP remains undervalued. I submit to any readers that factoring in latest developments at this price range (0.006), it is a clear candidate for a long term buy and hold. It may well go lower, but I believe it will also go higher.
I would be interested in engaging with anyone who disagrees and hearing their opinion why they think that is not the case.
Cryptocurrencies are maturing into a new phase and scrypt forks & quick flips of gimmick IPO's on bittrexx have long since not being enough. Projects like this represent a rare early investment window in the nascent cryptofinance space. I will continue to post back on this thread on occasion with latest news and developments in the CounterParty world.
