Everest Newsletter — November 2023
📝 A Note From Our CEO & Co-Founder, Bob Reid
I’ll jump right into my sense on the state of the market, and Everest’s place in it…..it feels like crypto winter is truly thawing, and Everest is launching products in time for the coming bull run. Regarding the market, I’ve been looking for one of two indicators to point to an upswing: (a) on-chain transaction activity, or (b) regulatory clarity to the point of institutional buy-in. I haven’t seen the former yet; there is no killer-app that is driving millions of users to process trillions of dollars, at least not at the levels of ICOs in 2017 and early ’18 or “DeFi summer” of 2021. However, there are multiple data points on the latter, and are fueling the next run. MiCA in Europe was nothing short of the starter’s gun firing at the 400M run in the Olympics. Every bank and TradFi institution in the EU is rushing to find a compliant, licensed custodial solution. They are all evaluating build vs. buy decisions. Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, BNPS, Santander have all selected their path, leaving 4k other TradFi institutions playing catch up. And they all need a fully functional, licensed solution by the end of 2024. Here’s a study that articulates that even if you’re an existing bank (i.e. regulated, licensed for fiat and have a core banking system with accounts, cybersecurity, reporting, etc.), it’ll take 18–24 months, cost $16M-$20M, and that won’t include a tokenization engine: Dans quelle mesure la sécurité et la régulation des blockchains peuvent-elles générer des coûts financiers?). Similarly, wins by Ripple and the first losses by DEXes to the CFTC point to a thawing, regulatory-compliant American market. Lastly, the imminent approval of BTC ETFs, and possibly ETH ETFs, in the US will open the floodgates to institutional adoption. Two points on ETFs: we still may not see retail investors on-chain (mom isn’t putting her 401k into a PEPE pool on a DEX), which explains the lack of TVL in DeFi and still low on-chain activity, but it does mean that demand will surge relative to supply, which simply brings more money into the crypto economy. Will it grow back to the highs o $2.95 trillion in 2021 from the current $1.47 trillion? Oh yes, and more.
Everest recently launched an “exchange” of tokenized fiat and crypto. As mentioned in the previous newsletter, Everest tokenized roughly 200 crypto tokens and a dozen fiat currencies, and effectively launched a faster, cheaper, more full-featured Uniswap. Users can swap ANY of the 200 cryptos (not limited to just a USD or ETH pair), so you can trade XRP for LINK, SOL for XLM, BTC & ETH to anything; and you can come in over Ethereum mainnet with your existing MetaMask wallet, and get your tokens back on mainnet, or transact over EverChain for zero gas. And to reduce friction, we enabled “no KYC” under $1k, per regulations. Check it out here and let us know what you think. We also allow users to buy crypto with any fiat in the world via debit card or with euros directly from their bank account. Selling into stablecoins is live, and withdrawing into EU banks accounts will be turned on in the coming weeks. Again, users can custody their tokens like most DEXes, but we have features of trading anything, similar to a CEX. As good as Everest’s exchange solution is, it’s really the opening showcase of our tokenization engine. Everest can bring on ANY asset, and make it tradeable with crypto, fiat, whatever. If you’ve been hearing the buzz about Real World Assets (RWAs), that’s because forecasts range from $16 trillion to $24 trillion! You can see a BCG report here. Starting to understand my “Oh yes, and more” comment? We’re in the beginning of the first inning of RWAs, and most players are scratching the surface……why? Regulation, of course. Have you noticed that you can’t get a TSLA share on a permissionless L1 yet? Yeah, regulation. So, we’re seeing folks tokenize US Treasuries (almost equivalent to USD. ie stablecoin providers can back their USDx with actual USD or US Treasuries, which should tell you that treasuries are nearly equivalent from a regulatory point of view), funds, commodities, and invoices. A couple are attempting securities/stocks, but in very limited form. None are offering the ability to use your stock, tokenized or non-tokenized, as collateral for a loan. Imagine collateralizing your $10k worth of AAPL, and receiving a loan of $7k in USDC; akin to Maple Finance or Centrifuge, but licensed and using securities as collateral. It’s simply game-changing! The technical and legal capacity to even attempt this is crazy-hard. Anyway, look the ability to swap crypto to/from securities in the near future.
Now that we have the basic plumbing functional, and the requisite licenses in place, we’re getting back to updating the UX/UI. We are still focusing on b2b2c, but even those partners need to see a UI on par with the underlying platform. Stay tuned for updates rolling out on this front.
A lot of folks ask me what Everest really is, and why we’ve taken so long. All very fair questions and it has taken a lot longer than I thought. That said, I explained Everest’s position to a VC the other day as “it takes $30M and a few years to build a bank…..You need to get the licenses, build the core platform of accounts, reporting, basic functions; get a bunch of correspondent banks to accept your compliance system, allow your users to transact across them, etc. And only then can you open your doors to start doing business. Everest followed a similar path, building the entire stack, including identity and custodial wallet platform. So, similar to a bank, we’re effectively going to market now. And with MiCA, we get to custody fiat AND crypto, and mint asset-referenced tokens.”
Beyond the above, I’m looking forward to seeing our fiat-on/off widget get deployed by our first wallet partner in the coming weeks. And it was heartening to see a developer start using our Chainlink integration to prove identity cross-chain. He won a prize from JP Morgan for his efforts as well, which tells you that we solved a real problem for a serious player. You can see info about Palmcivet’s CCID implementation here. Also, many of you have been watching Chainlink’s marketing push into RWAs, which is synergistic with Everest’s. You can see their approach summarized here. It’s important to understand that Chainlink moves data/info — and they do that phenomenally well. And Everest actually tokenizes assets, like stocks, bonds, debt, enabling the purchasing, movement, settlement and collateralization of RWAs. As such, think of Chainlink as supplying quality data regarding reserves, pricing, and verification of value that moves cross-chain, and Everest as the licensed entity that tokenizes & settles assets, adding some of the data they provide. It’s a big, wonderful ecosystem that is building this tokenized $16–24 trillion economy, and Everest is excited to be at the forefront.
📣 Everest Exchange: Buy, Swap, Sell, Save & Earn!
- Lowest Fees: No gas fees — like a CEX
- Over 100+ Tokens w/ Deep Liquidity: BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL, LINK & many more
- No KYC*: Like DeFi, but from a regulated and licensed custodian
- Swap ANY token: No need to bridge. Hold multiple network tokens in the same wallet, like XLM, SOL, ETH & BTC — like a CEX
- Self-Custody Your Tokens: Hold tokens in your self-custodied wallet — like DeFi
- Best Referral Program: Earn better than anyone (Over $25,000!)
- Get a $25 Welcome Gift*: Sign up now to learn more
Everest Exchange is the seed of a SuperBank, a tokenized financial services platform for buying, swapping, selling, hodling, sending & receiving — almost ANYTHING. This global everything account is a unified wallet for over 100 tokens, like BTC, ETH, XRP, XLM, BNB, and yes, buddy, even DOGE — all of which you can buy, sell, send/receive and swap without bridging or paying expensive gas fees. HODL everything in the same wallet. You can optionally link to your Twitter account too to get paid via social media. Over time, we will add trading to/from over 100 stocks, commodities and indices, like TSLA, SPDR, AAPL, US Treasuries. All integrated into your own self-custodied wallet (MetaMask), or an EverWallet!
📅 Q3 2023 Updates
MiCA 2.0: Regulatory Clarity for DeFi
Lightning fast LOGIN is now live in EverWallet!
Verified Wallet on Twitter: Get Paid to Prove You’re Not a Bot, Privately!
WORLDCOIN (BEGINNING OR END OF PRIVACY?) #CryptoTownHall
Our fiat-on/off ramp widget is now LIVE on Bancor!
Trillion-Dollar Blockchain: Decoding Identity Verification with Everest
Global Banking system with minimum KYC may explode? w/ Bob Reid
The Jim Rutt Show: Bob Reid on User-Owned Identity
We are thrilled to announce that we’ve been chosen as one of the 10 finalists for #PitchBlack2023
🏔 Community Highlights
📑 Cross-Chain Identity (CCID) by palmcivet7
This project is a prototype for cross-chain identity status verification. Using Chainlink CCIP and the Everest Identity Oracle, Cross-Chain Identity (CCID) is a demonstration of how the KYC status of an address can be securely transmitted across chains. Cross-Chain Identity leverages the security and sybil resistance of the underlying protocols to allow a new generation of interoperable and regulatory compliant Web3 applications. Read More
🆔 The Meta-Crises and Digital Identity by Jordan Hall
From where I sit, it appears that we have perhaps as little as a year to organize and act to secure what is, in fact, a crucial piece of strategic territory: Digital Identity.
Given the urgency, the implications and the nuance of the subject, I would like to take a solid fifteen minutes of your time to lay out why I think digital identity is important, why I have come to the conclusion that the time for action is now and what I propose might be a valid strategy in the present moment. Read More
🥇 Widget Bug Bounty Winner
Congratulations and thanks to Rayco, the winner of 10,000 $ID for contributions to our widget bug bounty!
🗣 Latest AMA Transcript
Check out the transcript for our recent community AMA with Everest CEO & Co-Founder, Bob Reid on Thursday 12th Oct 2023: AMA With Bob Reid (Thu 12th Oct 2023) — Transcript
Thank you for your continued support!
