Chinese Private Equity Group Unites Blockchain and Investment Strategies
As cryptocurrencies continue to make their mark on the financial arena, many capital investment firms are looking to bring the power of the blockchain and traditional investment strategies together to give traders more opportunities in an adapting industry.
Leading Chinese private equity group is one of those firms. Founded in 2007 and headquartered in both Beijing and New York, the company holds $9 billion assets under management and claims to be the only Chinese private equity enterprise listed on a major stock exchange. Presently, JD Capital employs over 400 people and manages over 100 publicly-traded portfolio companies.
In early 2017, JD Capital established its blockchain investment division, JLab. It has since participated in over 20 token sales in infrastructure, applications, exchanges and media verticals. JLab has also partnered with to incubate new projects.
JOne is JD Capital’s investment banking division, established to help blockchain companies with fundraising, community building and marketing. Among JOne’s many goals is accelerating the blockchain industry by connecting fintech portfolios with public chains. Examples include , which is valued at over $10 billion and boasts over 100 million users.
Balancing Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Business Models
Zhen Cao serves as JD Capital’s investment director and the North American representative of JLab. Before joining JD Capital in February of 2018, she was the founding member of Outpost Capital; she has worked on roughly 15 equity investments in virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence, as well as deploying over $10 million into more than 20 pre-sales and crypto funds.
“China has been very fast paced regarding blockchain development,” said Cao in an interview with bitcoin Magazine. She added that the country is more open to blockchain applications and businesses than digital currencies. “They’ve already done a lot of implementation in finance, supply-chain management and medical insurance. China is supportive of blockchain development, and different cities are setting up blockchain incubation centers.”
Despite what she considers to be solid growth over the last few years, Cao admits that the current environment in China still makes things challenging for cryptocurrency companies. “The government is not supportive of crypto fundraising models like ICOs, as they are trying to protect retail investors.”
Last February, regulators began that allowed investors to trade on overseas exchanges. This move was preceded by a ban on all websites that involved or and token sales.
A Global Approach
Strict laws surrounding virtual assets means that most companies need to think big from the very beginning and lay out any long-term plans for expansion before official launches can occur.
“Thinking about globalization from day one is very important,” she said.
According to Cao, JD Capital provided a 900 percent return on fund one during its primary market. The company is now looking to expand its secondary market team by recruiting individuals with extensive “blockchain development experience.”
“JD Capital has always been an innovator in finance in China with a large range of different services,” Cao states. “The blockchain is a critical element of the future of finance.”
She also mentions that the company is leveraging existing experience in public market trading and working to develop stronger trading strategies for its expanding list of clients. Lastly, executives are beginning work on public chains and new consensus mechanisms.
A new documentary film called The Blockchain and Us was released last week exploring how Blockchain technology can change the world in a meaningful way.
Documentary: ‘The Blockchain and Us’
A documentary film dubbed “” by Manuel Stagars has been released last week. The 8-part documentary focuses on what blockchain technology is and the social and economic impact it can have in the world, if its potential is successfully harnessed.
The preview description reads:
Economist and filmmaker Manuel Stagars portrays this exciting technology in interviews with software developers, cryptologists, researchers, entrepreneurs, consultants, VCs, authors, politicians, and futurists from the United States, Canada, Switzerland, the UK, and Australia.
The 30-minute long documentary features cuts from several interviews with industry leaders like Christian Decker from Blockstream, Perianne Boring Founder & President at the , Taylor Gerring Co-Founder at , Matthew Roszak Co-Founder & Chairman of , and many more.
The documentary does not focus on the technical aspects of blockchain technology and should not be viewed as an introductory video. Instead, the film seeks to give a high-level view of the blockchain “far from ” and “starts a conversation about its wider implications” in several aspects of our society.
Chapter 1: First Contact With The Blockchain
In the first segment, the interviewees describe their first contact with blockchain technology. An experience that has changed many lives but usually starts off with a pinch of disbelief. Most people were quick to dismiss bitcoin and the blockchain once they run into it for the first time, but many return to it after understanding how it works and the potential it has to change the world.
Matthew Roszak Co-Founder & Chairman of Bloq, shared his experience:
I did what most people do the first moment they are exposed to bitcoin. I discounted it. I thought this was silly internet money, you could mine it, it’s like a golden goose and it took me about an year to really re-explore the technology…
Chapter 2: Blockchain Technology
Here, the documentary delves into a high-level explanation of what blockchain technology is and what makes it tick, and what we can do with it.
R. Jesse McWaters Financial Innovation Lead at the World Economic Forum, explained:
You have the ability to create records that are indelible. You have the ability to transfer value by making updates to those records. And you have the ability to automate updates to the records through these things called smart contracts. That means potentially that you could transform the structure of financial services.
Chapter 3: Influence Of The Blockchain
This chapter focuses on how blockchain technology can influence various industries and aspects of our society like financial inclusion, identity, and IoT.
Rik Willard, Founder & Managing Director at Agentic Group, said:
As the blockchain became more influential in our thinking we began to realize that it was a profound shift in how the Internet could be used to create new forms of value and how it could be used to enfranchise and include people in global finance.
Chapter 4: New Business Opportunities
Chapter 4 talks about the infrastructure that is being built around blockchain technology, the business opportunities that arise from it and how traditional industries are dealing with and adapting to this disruptive new technology.
Paul Meeusen, Head Finance and Treasury Services at Swiss Re, stated:
We are all, also in the financial services industry trying to recognize that we don’t have to be defensive but we rather have to embrace not just this technology but this enabler that it brings us to access a vastly underutilized or undiscovered market that we have to do business with on an eye-to-eye level.
Chapter 5: The Blockchain and Banks
This segment explores how big financial institutions will implement blockchain technology through slow upgrade processes and how some of these institutions are reluctant to accept this technological shift, while others are actively researching and testing the technology to stay ahead of the curve.
Caitlin Long, Chairman of the Board & President at Symbiont.io, explained:
I know how big financial institutions work. They’re not going to do something reckless with technology. This is people’s money and livelihood they’re working with.These are slow upgrade processes. These systems, once they get implemented, will run in parallel with the old systems for a while before you have a switch over to the new one. That’s standard in technology upgrade. knew this was going to take time. But there are antagonists, players who are threatened. It’s the AT&T/Verizon/Kodak analogy again. Their business model is threatened by this and they’re going to do things to slow down and water down the transformational networks. There is a game theory approach to how the technology is being rolled out in the markets, for sure.
Chapter 6: The Blockchain And Financial Inclusion
An estimated 74% of the world population (according to the World Bank) do not have access to basic financial services provided by Banks. Chapter 6 explores how Blockchain technology can drastically change the financial inclusion landscape and allow people to interact with the world economy in a much more meaningful way than micro-finance institutions and other alternatives.
Eric Van der Kleij, Founder OF Adeptra, London Tech City, Level39 and adviser to the UKGovernment expressed his opinion on the subject:
I don’t like to think that we’re creating so much prosperity for the less than one percent. I like to think of purpose-led businesses. By the way, that’s the trick, I think, for large corporations: to understand that the cost/efficiency of embracing this new technology will potentially widen their accessible markets at a cost, that’s reasonable. That in itself will create prosperity in different areas. Something that we should think about.
Chapter 7: The Real Revolution
Blockchain technology can be considered the fourth technological revolution. With it come the same concerns, which is the loss of jobs due to automation. Blockchain technology has the power to cut out institutions that act as intermediaries or “middlemen”, including banks themselves.
This chapter delves into this concern and how various people perceive it. Dolfi Müller, Mayor of the City of Zug stated:
It’s called the ‘fourth technological revolution’ and I think we are at the beginning of such a revolution just now. That’s why we don’t close our eyes. Some people say ‘There will be much trouble, people will lose their work,’ and so on. I’m sure it will happen but it’s better we face it than deny it.
Chapter 8: The Blockchain and Us
In the eighth and final chapter of the Blockchain and Us documentary, interviewees express their thoughts on how blockchain technology can be implemented on a larger scale and how it can affect our lives. From an idea to a full-scale revolution, blockchain technology is here to stay and has the potential to change the world in a meaningful way.
Guido Rudolphi, Founder of Cryptocash:
Everything will change. In my opinion, the possibilities are endless.
The documentary can be seen .
Full interviews can be seen .
Do you think Blockchain can truly change the world for the better? Share your thoughts below!
Images courtesy of Angel.co, Linkedin, Blockchain-newyork.com, Caitlin-long.com, Twitter, Shutterstock
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