Overview & Vision
In the world of blockchain, functionality and philosophy often come hand-in-hand; new functional possibilities enabled by blockchain technology are facilitating fundamental philosophical shifts in our understanding and experiencing of the world. This is not only beginning to materialise in disruptions to traditional business mechanics (e.g. supply chains) and social interaction (such as decentralised social media and communication) but is also fundamentally challenging our very notion of finance and wealth management.
As a value transfer network unrestricted by geographical boundaries and run by the collective, Bitcoin was the first implementation of global democratised finance and provided the functional framework for genuine collective individual financial autonomy. Blockchain innovators are now tasked with furthering this core philosophy through their own disruptive visions.
The team at Smart Valor strongly believe that blockchain holds the transformative power necessary to facilitate a level of unhindered individual financial autonomy never before possible. What do I mean by financial autonomy? Secure control of and freedom over your own finances. The freedom of access to financial opportunities and wealth management in the same way as any privileged high net worth individual.
To this end, Smart Valor are building an online investment platform with a focus on enabling the tokenisation, listing and trading of alternative investments including cryptocurrencies and- most excitingly- asset backed security tokens. These will encompass a huge span of asset types, including equity in companies, real estate, VC’s, and much more, and the use of blockchain enables the creation of reliable, transparent and verifiable records of ownership of such assets.
Meaning of 'Smart Valor', taken from the Smart Valor whitepaper: https://go.smartvalor.com/whitepaper
Ultimately, Smart Valor are aiming to facilitate a more accessible, secure and autonomous investing experience for the masses. Finance is evolving, and Smart Valor plan to be firmly at the helm when in the field of tokenized alternative investments.
Current Problematic Situation
From a broad perspective, the traditional financial system is plagued by a plethora of intrinsic weaknesses and challenges relating to the accessibility, security and management of wealth for the average person. In short, expensive intermediaries, prohibitive barriers to entry and inefficient infrastructure are preventing the efficient and safe management of wealth aside from for the privileged few. This situation is ultimately culminating in an environment which is not conducive for the financial betterment and autonomy of individuals as a collective whole.
Those looking to find opportunities through alternative investments (anything which is not equity, bonds or cash products) usually require a large upfront investment due to high minimal stake requirements. Furthermore, investors must be financially comfortable with shouldering the illiquid nature of alternative investments for a potentially long time. Real estate, for example, is one of the most traditionally sound asset classes providing some of the most fruitful opportunities for investors over the long-term, but usually requires a large upfront cost in the form of a deposit at the very least- especially in areas of high demand where the wealthy greatly outcompete the average investor. As always, the rich get richer through enhanced financial freedom and opportunity as the poor continue to struggle.
The finality of this financially problematic situation changed with the 2009 invention of Bitcoin. Bitcoin’s base technology, blockchain, for the first time enabled genuinely secure individual custody of wealth on an openly accessible global level. However, as is the case with any ground-breaking industry, investing in digital assets such as cryptocurrencies is fraught with its own challenges relating to legal uncertainty, poor user experience and high-risk exposure to malicious actors. It is estimated that a staggering $2.3bn worth of cryptocurrency has been lost due to hacker-related activity, and it’s statistics such as this which are unnerving many institutional and traditional investors when it comes to the crypto space.
Though the fundamental technological tools for financial democracy have been gifted to the world by Satoshi Nakomoto now over a decade ago, there are certainly many kinks still to be ironed out by the new wave of blockchain innovators along the journey to true collective individual financial freedom.
Smart Valor’s Solution
Smart Valor intend to combat these prohibitive challenges for the betterment of the average investor, with a vision to achieving financial inclusion and freedom through financial innovation. Believing that blockchain holds the answer to the functional challenges preventing a practical and philosophical shift towards widespread democratised finance, Smart Valor are building a next-gen multi-sided marketplace for a varied array of tokenized alternative investments.
The types of investments in question vary massively, and include traditional alternative investments such as private equity, venture capital and real estate, alongside more niche platform-facilitated investments such as social improvement projects. The scope of possibilities here is HUGE. Blockchain technology is enabling the base functionality of this democratisation of finance, which promises to not only revolutionise traditional alternative investments, but also allow for the exploration of brand-new avenues of financial opportunity.
The Smart Valor ecosystem is ultimately designed to securely and accessibly facilitate the global transition to tokenized asset ownership, and thus greater financial democracy.
The benefits of tokenization, taken from the Smart Valor whitepaper: https://go.smartvalor.com/whitepaper
Platform
The Smart Valor platform will be the gateway to the ecosystem, housing their innovative multi-sided investment marketplace designed to enable the tokenization, listing and trading of wide-ranging alternative investments.
Tokenization will enable the fractional trading of such assets, thereby vastly increasing the scope of accessibility amongst the average investor; as a result, liquidity is greatly increased. Furthermore, the utilisation of a blockchain framework will enable almost instant settlement of trades (as opposed to taking days under current traditional structures), further increasing investment liquidity.
From the perspective of the average user/ investor, the fully-compliant Smart Valor platform effectively solves problems relating to legitimacy and privacy concerns within the crypto space, and broadens the scope of individual financial freedom by allowing inclusive access to alternative investments not traditionally available.
Beginning in the initial form of a cryptocurrency exchange and gradually evolving encompass its full set of features with full regulatory compliance, the platform will therefore offer a secure, compliant way for investors to diversity their portfolio whilst allowing issuers to issue asset-backed tokens and thereby unlock access to a new global investor base. Smart Valor’s platform essentially facilitates the transformation of illiquid and inaccessible assets into highly liquid, ultra-accessible asset-backed tokens.
Smart Valor platform prototype, a demo video of which can be found on the finovate website: https://finovate.com/videos/finovateeurope-2018-smart-valor/
Protocol
Necessary adherence to regulatory requirements such as KYC/AML, or the undertaking of asset-specific governance procedures e.g. voting and dividend payments can be handled in a centralised manner through the platform, however Smart Valor remain true to the vision of decentralisation and are strategically pushing towards the completely decentralised trading and management of securities.
To this end, the aim of the Smart Valor Protocol is to facilitate the decentralised trading and governance of security tokens within the platform. The Valor Protocol is the collective term for the set of smart contracts used to enable such decentralised functionality. With smart contracts designed to enable compliance with Swiss regulatory requirements (KYC, AML etc.) currently under development, the next phase planned is a set of category-specific smart contracts for the platform’s supported assets.
Vault
Smart Vault is Smart Valor’s enterprise-grade custody solution for crypto assets. To aid in the creation of Smart Vault, an exciting collaborative partnership with Ledger was jointly announced at Consensus 2018 in New York. The ultimate goal of the Vault is to enable a safe, secure and complete solution for institutional investors, thereby greatly increasing the practical accessibility of the crypto space for such investors.
VALOR Token
The Smart Valor platform will house its own native token, the VALOR token, which is classified as a utility and payment token. VALOR will be utilised for a number of different platform functionalities, such as membership staking and as one of the platform’s bridge currencies, as well as being utilised as a payment mechanism for the platform’s service fees.
The second stage of the Smart Valor token sale is now live, during which a 20% bonus of VALOR tokens is currently available. More information can be found on their website.
Team
When evaluating any project in the Wild West of crypto, as I always say, ensuring the team has the experience and capability required to carry out the vision they are outlining is crucial. Of course, anybody can write an impressive whitepaper and create a persuasive website; the idea is the easy part, it’s implementing the idea which is difficult. For a project with a vision as fundamentally grand as Smart Valor, the team’s technical and operational capability is especially critical. Ushering in a new generation of tokenized alternative investment is no small task.
When it comes to Smart Valor, it is not only the individual members who comprise the 35-strong team that is notably impressive, but also the company’s operational background itself. Spearheaded by the capable CEO and founder Olga Feldmeier, the Smart Valor team consists of an array of impressive individuals who combined possess extensive experience in relevant fields including blockchain technology and cryptography, banking, software development and the implementation of large-scale IT projects.
Smart Valor management team, as taken from the Smart Valor company presentation: https://go.smartvalor.com/company-presentation
Headquartered in the Zug ‘crypto valley’ of Switzerland, the Swiss company was founded in April 2017 also has offices in Munich, Paris and Vaduz. Smart Valor as a company has already accomplished several impressive achievements, having been selected from hundreds of start-ups to take part in the prestigious Thompson Reuters Incubator, and even being nominated as one of the top 10 European tech start-ups of 2018 by Forbes.
Even at this early stage, the top-tier tech-focused team at Smart Valor are truly a force to be reckoned with.
Verdict & Summary
Believing strongly that a blockchain-powered global transition to tokenized asset ownership will usher in a new level of greater financial democracy for the masses, the top-tier team at Smart Valor have designed an innovative platform to unlock previously unrealized functionalities and investment opportunities in the form of tokenized alternative investments.
Enabling revolutionary blockchain-powered transparent and verifiable records of ownership, the platform offers a secure, compliant way for investors to diversity their portfolio whilst allowing issuers to issue asset-backed tokens and thereby gain access to a new global investor base.
Blockchain is enabling the base functionality of this democratisation of finance, which promises to not only revolutionise traditional alternative investments, but will also allow for the exploration of brand-new avenues of financial opportunity. The scope for financial innovation is here enormous, as is its potential positive benefit in furthering Satoshi Nakomoto’s philosophy of financial democracy and collective individual autonomy.
Finance has begun its next evolutionary process, and Smart Valor plan to be firmly at the helm in the field of tokenized alternative investments. I will be following them keenly on their mission to do so.
Have any questions regarding Smart valor? Join their active community on Telegram where you can discuss anything Smart Valor-related: https://t.me/smartvalor_official
Learn more at their website: https://smartvalor.com/
Dig in deeper with Smart Valor 's whitepaper: https://go.smartvalor.com/whitepaper
Get connected to Smart Valor on social media:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/@smartvalorinc
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/smartvalorinc/
Disclaimer: this is not financial advice in any form, it is my opinion and insight based on research and you should always do your own research before committing to anything financially whatsoever.
Terms of agreement: $3000 of VALOR token for the creation and publishing of an impartial article and video review.