In the cryptosphere, which pushes for decentralization and independence from large financial institutions, it appears odd that crypto banks, a centralized institution, would appear. Sure, you have a wallet and you can keep your crypto there, but you will still need exchanges to buy and sell until atomic swap technology is more widespread. But Bankera is offering more than just an exchange, it is offering debit card and real-time transactions. Most traditional banking technology is antiquated, especially in the US. For example, if you make a debit card purchase over the weekend it might take until Tuesday to clear- that is a long time to wait. Crypto-based transactions are instantaneous.
Eric EisslerFinancials
Bankera ran a long ICO from Nov. 27, 2017 to March 1, 2018 and raised a massive $150 mln in funding. However, the fundraising goal of $215 was not met. The bar was indeed set high for funding. The token is and ERC20/NEM based-token designed to operate on both Blockchain platforms. Despite the positives that the company touts, not having a market cap defined on CoinMarketCap is a red flag. Its daily trading is around $100,000. The token price is negligible at $0.002402.
Team
Vytautas Karalevičius - Co-Founder (also Co-founder of SpectroCoin)
Vytautas is currently completing a Ph.D. in Cryptocurrencies at KU Leuven University in Belgium. Prior to that, he received an MPhil degree in Finance from Cambridge University. He has interned at Bloomberg.
Mantas Mockevičius - Co-Founder (also Co-founder of SpectroCoin)
Mantas has more than eight years of experience in managing operations and compliance for electronic and digital money exchanges. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Master’s degree in Finance.
Justas Dobiliauskas - Not listed (CTO of Spectro Finance)
Justas has nine years of experience in developing software for medium and large financial institutions as well as five years of experience working with Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.
Risks and dangers of the project
Not every team member specifies that they work with Bankera in their LinkedIn profiles. There appears to be strong preference for SpectroCoin over Bankera. Furthermore, the project has no open platform algorithms or open repository, having a public repository is important for building trust with the public in the crypto sphere.
Finally, there is little information and few figures relating to the market in the official documentation. This combined with poor market performance, an undefined market cap and teams preferring more interest in SpectroCoin, make the Bankera project shaky.
SprectroCoin info
SpectroCoin is a partner for process and infrastructure, founded in 2013. It is an active cryptocurrency exchange platform with the facility to order a VISA card that has more than 300,000 users. Bank cards would be issued from this partner, which most of the founders of Bankera are associated with.
There is much work left to be done before most of the product goes live. The exchange is still not operational, slated for the second half of 2018, and the wallet was recently launched earlier this year. However, 2019 and 2020 are some key years for the rest of the components to go online.
Arman Shirinyan
Alex Dovbnya
U.Today Editorial Team
Vladislav Sopov
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