Fireblocks, a platform for creating products on the blockchain and managing day-to-day crypto operations, has broken $100 million in annual recurring revenue.
Launched four years ago, it makes Fireblocks one of the few Software-as-a-Service unicorns – alongside Slack and Twilio – that have topped the milestone in less than five years.
The company was founded on a mission to enable every business to easily and securely support digital assets and cryptocurrencies.
“For the digital asset industry, 2022 has been a year of consolidation as well as tremendous growth,” said Fireblocks co-founder and CEO Michael Shaulov.
“We saw an unprecedented volume of new market entrants, including FinTechs, Web3 startups, banks and PSP (payment service providers).
“We have seen first-hand the innovation… bringing new digital asset products to market. We will continue growing our secure and scalable product suites to meet this market demand and support every business joining the decentralised economy.”
The cryptocurrency custody firm raised a $550 million funding round in January, valuing it at more than $8 billion.
Fireblocks claims to be the only platform that eliminates a single point of failure and insulates digital assets from cyberattacks, internal collusion and human error using a patent-pending multi-layer security approach.
As digital assets and crypto enter into mainstream consciousness, Fireblocks’ technology has become widely adopted by some of the world’s most recognized institutions and cutting-edge startups such as BNP Paribas, Six Digital Exchange, ANZ Bank, FIS, Checkout.com, MoonPay, Animoca Brands and Wirex.
In 2022, over 1,500 organisations deployed Fireblocks’ technology to protect customer and investor funds, strengthen digital asset security and streamline day-to-day crypto operations.
“Essentially, businesses – from startups to enterprises – reach out to Fireblocks in order to maximise security in their technology stack so that they may focus on their core competencies: building innovative services and products for their customers while maintaining agility and the ability to react quickly to headwinds,” said Idan Ofrat, Fireblocks’ chief technology officer and co-founder.
“As we look to the future, we are committed to delivering the same secure, easy-to-use and scalable solution for emerging market entrants and use cases such as stablecoin issuance, NFT treasury management, and crypto payments.”
Cryptocurrency shorts
Starbucks is to launch ‘Odyssey’ NFTs for its customers in the US. These digital stamps, earned through coffee-themed games and challenges, are expected to earn rewards such as virtual espresso martini-making classes, merchandise, exclusive events invites and trips to the Starbucks Hacienda Alsacia coffee farm in Costa Rica.
KINGSHIP, a virtual band based on Bored Apes by Universal Music Group’s label 10:22PM, has hired award-winning music producers and songwriters Hit-Boy and James Fauntleroy.
Disney CEO Bob Chapek told Reuters the company plans to use data obtained from Metaverse visits and consumer streaming habits to create personalised experiences for “next-gen storytelling”. It has filed a trademark application for a ‘Virtual World Simulator’ which leverages smartphone cameras and augmented reality to enable interactive theme-park tours.
Yves Guillemot, CEO of French gaming giant Ubisoft, seems to have cooled on the company’s NFT project Quartz following criticism from the gaming community. He told gamesindustry.biz: “We’re looking at all the Web3 capabilities. We tested a few things recently that are giving us more information on how it can be used and what we should do in the universe of videogames. So we are testing ground with some games, and we’ll see if they really answer the players’ needs. But we are still in research mode.”
Crypto exchange Huobi Global is to delist seven privacy tokens next week amid regulatory scrutiny: dash (DASH), decred (DCR), firo (FIRO), monero (XMR), verge (XVG), zcash (ZEC) and horizen (ZEN).
Crypto prices
The overall market cap of the more than 20,900 coins is at $1.07 trillion at the time of writing (7am UK), a 1.2% increase in the last 24 hours.
Market leader Bitcoin – the original cryptocurrency created by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto – gained 3% to top $22,400. BTC is 13% up on its price a week ago.
Ethereum, the second most valuable crypto coin – created as a decentralised network for smart contracts on the blockchain – lost less than 1% to around $1,720. ETH is 4% up over the course of a week.
Binance Coin is a cryptocurrency created by popular crypto exchange Binance to assist its aim in becoming the infrastructure services provider for the entire blockchain ecosystem. Its BNB token remained at $293, leaving it 4% up over seven days.
The XRP token of Ripple, a payment settlement asset exchange and remittance system, acts as a bridge for transfers between other currencies. XRP climbed 1% to 35.6c, with its price 6% up on seven days ago.
Cardano is an open source network facilitating dApps which considers itself to be an updated version of Ethereum. Its ADA token, designed to allow owners to participate in the operation of the network, dropped 1% to 50c and is 1% down in a week.
Solana is a blockchain built to make decentralised finance accessible on a larger scale – and capable of processing 50,000 transactions per second. Its SOL token rocketed 10% to $38.33, leaving it 17% higher than its price a week ago.
Polkadot was founded by the Swiss-based Web3 Foundation as an open-source project to develop a decentralised web. Its DOT token, which aims to securely connect blockchains, fell 0.5% to $7.63 and is 1% up on its price a week ago.
Meme coin DOGE was created as a satire on the hype surrounding cryptocurrencies but is now a major player in the space. DOGE remained around 6.3c and is where it was seven days ago.
Polygon aims to securely connect blockchains as a sort of decentralised internet. Its MATIC token rose 6% to 93c, while it is 4% up in a week.
Avalanche is a lightning-quick verifiable platform for institutions, enterprises and governments. Its AVAX token gained 5%c to $21.29 and is 7% up on a week ago.
To see how the valuations of the main coins have changed in recent times – and for round-ups of recent cryptocurrency news developments – click here.
For valuations of the top 100 coins by market cap in US dollars, plus 24-hour price change, see below.
