The Japanese financial services giant SBI Group has invested $ 15 million in the Swiss startup Tangem, a manufacturer of a thin hardware wallet for cryptocurrencies.
(https://cryptocurrencies.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Tangem-760x400.jpeg)
Tangem describes its cryptocurrency storage product as a"smart banknote for digital assets". Designed to be used as a Bank card, this product allows you to use physical transactions outside of the blockchain, for example, for in-store payments, after cryptocurrencies have been downloaded to your device via an NFC-enabled smartphone.
On Monday, the startup announced SBI investments, saying that it will help expand its technology into other areas such as stab-clones, initial coin offerings (ICOS), tokenized asset offerings, digital identification, and more.
This news was confirmed by SBI Group in a separate statement. Although it does not disclose the amount, the company stated that the funding was provided through its subsidiary SBI Crypto Investment, which invests in cryptocurrency businesses.
SBI stated that it invested in Tangem because its "low-cost and reliable product (hardware wallet) can help increase demand for cryptocurrencies" as well as the company's own products. Yoshitaka Kitao, spokesperson, President and CEO of SBI Holdings said:
The Tangem hardware wallet, which is highly reliable and affordable, is an important tool to facilitate the mass adoption of digital assets and blockchain. We believe that using Tangem will help stimulate demand for other blockchain services provided by SBI.
In October 2018, the SBI Group has also entered into a partnership agreement with the Danish startup in the blockchain-security Sepior with the aim of developing the digital wallet for your cryptocurrency exchanges VCTRADE. In March last year, the group bought a 40% share of the Taiwanese manufacturer of purses CoolBitX.
Hardware wallets are an increasingly popular solution for the storage of cryptocurrency, because many exchanges are often faced with break-ins. According to the report of the National police Agency of the country (NPA), in Japan alone for the first six months of 2018, a cryptocurrency worth 60,503 billion yen (about 540 million dollars) was lost. Another report indicates that over the past 18 months, more than 880 million dollars in cryptocurrencies have been lost in the world as a result of cyber attacks.
LINK - https://altstake.io/news/sbi-investiroval-15-mln-vapparatnyykoshelektangem