The Arrival Of The Blockchain Era in Asia Sees Cobo Hit $15B In Cumulative Transactions With 100% MoM Growth

A year into the pandemic, Covid-19 has visibly put the world out of order, incurring a total loss of $28 trillion in production output. Now, the central question that concerns all policymakers around the world is how we can pick up the threads of the fallen economy and restore the system back to its working condition. However, according to Bloomberg, this enterprise may not be as easy as it sounds – in fact, the source suggests that even the robust macroeconomic stimulus may not suffice in recovering the soundness of the economic system. Instead, what governors should focus on is re-allocating the valuable economic drivers such as labour and capital, which became available in great plenitude throughout the crisis.

The idea of Covid-driven economic shift is in no way new. Rather, it is well-reflected by the words of an old saying “when one door closes, another opens'' – a perfect characterization of the forthcoming transformation. According to the Asian Development Bank, the pace of digital innovation is now growing leaps and bounds, creating new economic opportunities and hinting that the new economic era is not far off. Another factor is the growing confidence in decentralized assets, which is increasingly seen as a safe-haven gold-like keeper of value in the face of declining trust in traditional institutions. Within this year alone, Bitcoin rose to a trillion-dollar benchmark, which suggests that private investors and institutions alike are seeing the future with peer-reviewed currency.

While some countries are still struggling with unfriendly regulation, cryptocurrency has enjoyed its own meteoric rise, fueled by institutions in the U.S. and West staking their ground and money in Bitcoin. In Asia, investors have lagged behind with the bitter memory of March 2020’s Black Thursday. But in Q4 2020, Asia - led by China - has been taking active steps towards fostering legitimacy and finally catching up to the West in crypto investments. And amid this, blockchain and cryptocurrency companies are recognizing the opportunity to fulfill an unmet need in building an efficient infrastructure that later will be able to become an integral part of a new blockchain-based ecosystem. Attempting to lead the way, Cobo is making proactive steps in this direction. 

The spike in investment fuels Cobo’s phenomenal growth in Q4 2020

While traditional investment institutions like BlackRock finally jump into crypto investment headstrong, the blockchain infrastructure-provider Cobo is the one who is reaping  the benefits. Seeing month-over-month growth of 100%, and  $15 billion in cumulative transactions across the platform, Cobo is fulfilling the growing demand among investors for cryptocurrency-based services by providing a solid ground for expanding their blockchain-based infrastructure.

The underlying rationale behind Cobo’s existence is to grant investors an opportunity to capitalize on their crypto investments. Cobo Wallet at its core is designed to allow both private and institutional investors to generate a passive income that yields an average of 10% through staking and yield farming. However, the brand has since been expanding its portfolio of services and most recently has diversified to encompass enterprise clients. 

Cobo’s Custody Service Takes Off

Following the launch of the company’s custody service, Cobo Custody has since developed into Asia’s leading custodian service, evidenced by a 150% YoY increase in Bitcoin custodies since last year. With the recent interest fueled by traditional institutions in the West like Tesla and MicroStrategy diversifying their portfolios with Bitcoin, Asian institutional investors - namely in China - have just begun catching up. In total Cobo has revealed that it holds $500 million in assets under custody to-date.

But under the Cobo Custody brand, the company has since drawn closer ties to enterprise and blockchain companies that have increasingly sought to offer their own clients a way to generate a passive income on their investments. Taking a leaf from the development and maturity of Cobo Wallet, Cobo Custody offers a white labelled Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS) platform that enables institutions and enterprises to develop their own wallets that can generate a passive income for their customers. According to Cobo, their WaaS clients currently earn an average of 10% interest on their investments through DeFi, staking and yield farming.

Cobo Custody WaaS currently serves 50 enterprise clients and supports more than 1,000 cryptocurrencies.

In Cobo’s latest bid to further expand its business, Cobo is also beta testing “Loop Network” its own off-blockchain settlement and clearing network. According to Cobo,  Loop Network enables Cobo Custody’s enterprise and institutional clients to take advantage of zero fee and zero latency transactions between exchanges. Currently, the initiative is built in cooperation with 50 industry-leading partners, among which include Deribit and MXC exchange, and has processed $4 billion in cumulative transactions up to this day.

“While Cobo has facilitated US$15B in total transactions since inception, the 100% MoM growth in transactions over just the last quarter indicates that both traditional and crypto institutions in Asia are just starting to catch up with the West,” said Changhao Jiang, Co-Founder and CTO of Cobo. “Offering a 360° technology infrastructure for the crypto industry, especially a custodial service, is unheard of in Asia due to its complexity, however the recent wave of investors and latest interest has proven that the demand for our platform is accelerating, and so we’re excited to grow and reach new markets this year.”

All in all, Cobo is pioneering in Asia with the region’s first major attempt to develop and foster a 360-degree infrastructure that just might be the start to luring in the growing plethora of enterprise and institutional investors in China and Asia as they seek reliable solutions to safeguard or grow their crypto wealth. The platform’s custodial service opens a new paradigm of the crypto industry and takes one step closer to decentralized finance outstripping the long-lived hegemony of traditional financial institutions.