Bitcoin Daily: Europe Overtakes US In Digital Blockchain Securities; Ripple Backs Keyless Cybersecurity Firm

A new report has found that Europe has an early lead over the U.S. when it comes to blockchain digital securities.

“The Global Digital Securities Ecosystem 2019” report, compiled by conducted by the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center, and Swiss security token issuance provider BlockState, analyzed more than 200 companies associated with the security token ecosystem, and found that Europe leads the industry with 88 companies identified, closely followed by 83 coming from the USA. The United States dominates the investors category, while Europe is in the lead with the issuance providers.

Within Europe, Germany, Switzerland and the UK are leading markets, with a combined 47 players. Germany stands out with 10 issuance providers — more than any other European country.

In other news, cybersecurity startup Keyless raised $2.2 million in seed funding, led by venture fund gumi Cryptos Capital. Ripple’s Xpring, Blockchain Valley Ventures and LuneX also participated.

London-based Keyless plans to use the funding to expand a security product that unlocks access to users’ private keys with encrypted biometric data.

“We don’t want the network to spy on user biometrics,” said Paolo Gasti, Keyless co-founder and chief technology officer. “This way, the authentication happens right there and wasn’t just a session replay of a previous authentication.”

And tZERO has announced a partnership with Alliance Investments, a UK-based direct-to-developer real estate investment company, to provide technology services to tokenize Alliance’s River Plaza, a 180-unit luxury residential development in Manchester, UK.

Alliance intends to tokenize at least $25 million of the value of River Plaza, which is the UK’s first real estate-backed security token offering (STO). It’s also the first project of Alliance’s real estate plan to tokenize approximately $640 million of real estate projects across the UK over the next several years.

“We view tZERO as a leader in blockchain innovation and asset tokenization solutions and are excited to partner with them on our first STO. We strive to stay ahead of the innovation curve and believe that security token offerings are the future. They are more efficient, cost-effective, autonomous and democratic in comparison to traditional financing. We hope to continue to collaborate with tZERO to see out our real estate tokenization plan,” Alliance Investments Chief Investment Officer Rani Zahr said in a press release.