Plug and Play is betting that blockchain technology and cryptocurrency economics will change how business is done on the internet and across multiple industries.
On Tuesday, the Sunnyvale-based organization, the second largest incubator and accelerator in the Bay Area, and several of its partners announced the launch of its new crypto and digital assets program. The announcement came on the first day of a three-day summit, the second event this year to showcase some of the startups that have gone through its program.
According to Plug and Play officials, the new program is designed to expedite the adoption of crypto and digital assets by enterprise companies and help get from the internet we know today to what enthusiasts call Web3, the third generation of internet infrastructure that they believe will be built around blockchain technologies.
The program is being led by Max Jungreis, head of crypto and digital assets at Plug and Play.
"We look forward to accelerating enterprise-level adoption and bridging the gap between Web2 and Web3," Jungreis said in a press release.
Joining Plug and Play as founding partners are Visa Inc., AllianceBlock, The INX Digital Company Inc. and Franklin Templeton, according to the news release.
"At Visa, we believe partnerships can unlock a deeper understanding of the emerging use cases in the payments ecosystem" Dan Roesbery, the San Francisco financial giant's vice president of global financial technology partnerships, said in the release.
Among the other partners, AllianceBlock is building an ecosystem of stakeholders across traditional and decentralized finance. Its goal is to create a fully decentralized capital market, which is globally-compliant. INX, meanwhile, offers a fully regulated service combining investing and trading in security tokens, crypto and capital raises.
Plug and Play's crypto and digital assets program will have four focus areas:
- Stablecoin adoption: Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies whose values are tied to other currencies, commodities or financial instruments. The goal of stablecoins are to provide an option to the "high volatility of the most popular cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin," according to Investopedia.
- Decentralized finance: Capital markets across the world are expected to become "more efficient and accessible to everyone," by making units of value — including stocks, bonds, real estate and currencies – shareable on blockchains, according to the Plug and Play press release.
- Crypto economics: Plug and Play executives say that tokens "create opportunities for innovation" in creating capital. Crypto-economic systems are "enhancing access to core commodities," such as file storage and decentralized wireless.
- Enterprise blockchain: These are networks designed for large companies and organizations. According to Plug and Play, they keep the core benefits of blockchains, like efficiency, but modify the underlying permissions. This reportedly helps businesses secure their data, expedite transactions and streamline supply chain management.
Plug and Play's crypto and digital assets program will connect international startups with its business partners so they can help guide how the startups' technology evolves. The new program joins 18 others in Plug and Play’s repertoire, including those that focus on agriculture technology, energy, and travel and hospitality.
On a global level, Plug and Play connects startups and enterprise corporations through these industry-specific programs. It has more than 500 partners worldwide.
The cryptocurrency industry is reeling
The launch of Plug and Play's new program comes as the cryptocurrency industry has been in turmoil and as venture investors are reassessing their investments in the industry.
Last week, cryptocurrency exchange operator FTX Trading Ltd. filed for bankruptcy after a run on on its token left it with little liquidity. The fallout of FTX's collapse is still reverberating. Among other effects, San Francisco-based Solana Labs Inc. has seen the price of its token halved over the last week amid concern that a company related to FTX may have to sell Solana tokens en masse as part of FTX's bankruptcy.
FTX's failure came just six months after the collapse in price of TerraUSD, a stablecoin that was supposed to be pegged to the dollar. Meanwhile, amid those high-profile collapses, economic uncertainty, inflation and rising interest rates, all of the major cryptocurrencies have seen their prices plunge. Bitcoin, the most widely used cryptocurrency, has seen its price fall from more than $60,000 a coin a year ago to less than $17,000 per coin in recent days.
Thanks to such dynamics, venture investors have in turn seen the values of their crypto-related assets crash. Blue chip venture firm Sequoia Capital, for example, wrote off the entire $214 million it invested in FTX. And Andreessen Horowitz warned last month that its Web 3-focused fund lost 40% of its value in the first half of this year.
