Swissquote, the Switzerland-based online banking service today, October 22, has announced that it became the first bank in the world that allows its clients an option to participate in the ICO.
The bank’s clients who wouldn’t want to miss such an opportunity won’t even be required to have a crypto wallet, and moreover, to understand much how the blockchain technology works. Swissqoute will "take care of the execution of the orders and the custody of the tokens" for them. The bank has also promised that among all the ICOs that would like to run on their platform, it will leave only the "mature projects, ready to be launched," and scrupulously "review who the management is, what the business is, what the financials are and what the legal situation is."
“True to our philosophy to democratize finance by offering services that are simple and accessible to everyone, we are now offering our clients the opportunity to help grow startups. Combining crowdfunding with the blockchain creates a new form of fundraising. Thanks to contributions starting at 33 Swiss francs, clients can participate without being required to invest large sums into venture capital or private equity funds," Marc Bürki, the CEO of Swissquote commented on the new opportunity.
The first ICO listed on Swissquote will be LakeDiamond, powered by EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne), which is focused on Chemical Vapour Deposition reactors. CVD reactors are producing the purest of diamonds in laboratory conditions.
The LKD token sale is expected to attract much-needed funds for an additional 50 CVD reactors. Tokens will allow owners to grow diamonds and as Swissquote says, they are: "the first time-based payment tokens allowing the production of physical assets."
While the public sale of tokens will start around January 2019, Swissquote is hosting a pre-sale between October 22 and December 11, with a 10% bonus for the early participation.
“LakeDiamond has developed and continues to develop its cutting-edge technology combining lab-grown ultra-pure diamonds and high-end industrial applications. With its ICO, LakeDiamond is seeking to accelerate its growth and is delighted to be the first company using the new ICO services offered by Swissquote,” said the CEO of LakeDiamond, Pascal Gallo.
The bank belongs to Swissquote Group Holding Ltd, that was founded in May 2000. The same year Swissqoute Bank has obtained the Banking license. Three years later, it also became a broker after acquiring MIG Bank, a major Forex player.
During the last year, Swissqoute has shown its positive approach to cryptocurrencies. In the beginning, it became the first online bank in Europe to offer Bitcoin investing on its trading platform. Last year in November the bank started providing Bitcoin exchange-traded certificates. The bank's decision was based on the interest in cryptocurrency they saw from the investor's side, so Swissquote had created the algorithm allowing to minimize the risks from the volatility of the first crypto. The Bitcoin Active Certificate works by moving investors’ holdings between Bitcoin and U.S. dollars with the help of a machine learning algorithm that forecasts short-term market movements using technical indicators, buy/sell pressure and analysis of a social media sentiment. In December 2017 it became the first bank to offer five cryptocurrencies.
This year in March, the bank has widened its offers by launching the first multi-cryptocurrency certificate, called “Multi-Crypto Active Index”. The algorithm that is developed by Swissqoute this time gave the opportunity to invest in a portfolio of Bitcoin (Bitcoin), Ethereum (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD) and Bitcoin Cash (Bitcoin.Cash) “that reduce volatility while offering the transparency that comes with the listing at the Swiss Exchange.”
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