Happy New Year! EMURGO hopes each of you celebrated the start of 2020 in good spirits with family and friends. Now that we’ve started the new year, it’s good to look ahead and think about our new goals for 2020. But first, a quick look back at our top accomplishments of 2019! Throughout 2019, EMURGO – the official commercial and venture arm of Cardano – achieved many worldwide accomplishments as it sought to boost the global adoption and awareness of Cardano’s third-generation blockchain solutions. EMURGO would like to share and recap our top 10 accomplishments of 2019, starting here and now!
Top 10 EMURGO Achievements in 2019
2. EMURGO Leads Cardano ADA & Yoroi Wallet Integration with Ledger Wallet
3. EMURGO Develops & Launches Seiza: An All-New Cardano ADA Blockchain Explorer
4. EMURGO Launches New User-Friendly EMURGO Website and EMURGO Official Merchandise Online Store
5. Launch of EMURGO’s First Education Unit EMURGO India and Opening of EMURGO Indonesia
6. EMURGO Establishes dLab/EMURGO Accelerator in NYC; Four Startups Accepted Into First Inaugural Batch
7. EMURGO Develops & Offers New Open Source Product: Tangata Manu
8. Retail Stores in Japan and Korea Now Accepting Cardano ADA Payments (Famous Yakiniku Franchise Restaurant, Japanese Retail Outlets, More Japanese Retail Outlets, Korean Retail Outlets)
9. EMURGO Organizes Showcase in Tokyo with Charles Hoskinson
10. EMURGO Joins US Chamber of Digital Commerce & EMURGO Inks MOUs With South Korean Government-Approved Trade Associations To Further Drive Cardano Adoption
Strategic Investment & Partnership with Leading Digital Merchant Bank Y2X
In January 2019, EMURGO became the anchor investor in Y2X, the leading digital merchant bank for the decentralized economy. Y2X’s focus is on exponential growth companies, and the application of new technology to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges currently not being tackled by governments and corporations.
Y2X helps entrepreneurs raise capital for expansion through Securities Token Offerings (STOs) and other means. Cardano will become the protocol of choice for Y2X and its portfolio firms, especially in the field of regulated STOs, therefore providing an increased value add to ADA holders. Y2X’s co-founders J. Todd Morley & Dave Shuler, come from established backgrounds in finance on Wall Street, together bringing a wealth of professional expertise and global networks to build the platform.
Official Launch of EMURGO India and EMURGO Indonesia
In February 2019, EMURGO launched its education & academy unit with the formal announcement of its entry into the Indian market with the establishment of EMURGO Academy (EMURGO Learning Solutions Private Limited), also known as EMURGO India. Meanwhile, EMURGO also expanded its overseas business to the Indonesian market with the establishment of EMURGO Indonesia to focus on driving blockchain adoption in a growing region.
EMURGO’s vision is that blockchain is becoming a vital social infrastructure, much like the Internet, and enables a more connected and equitable world. Our vision is to empower all organizations and developers to build global solutions embracing blockchain technology towards a better future. At EMURGO, we believe that education is the first step towards fulfilling that vision. Moving forward in 2020 and beyond, EMURGO Academy will look at other strategic regions across the globe to educate aspiring talents to develop on Cardano and drive the adoption of the Cardano blockchain ecosystem.
Newly Developed EMURGO Products: Yoroi Wallet, Seiza Cardano Blockchain Explorer & Tangata Manu
Earlier in March 2019, EMURGO announced the integration of Cardano’s ADA with Ledger, a leader in security and infrastructure solutions for cryptocurrencies and blockchain applications. Ledger Wallet is now compatible with Cardano’s ADA via our EMURGO-developed Yoroi Wallet. Users are able to protect their private keys through Ledger’s wallets, giving them access to their ADA with increased security and peace of mind. The Ledger hardware wallet integrates with the EMURGO-developed Yoroi Wallet, the first official companion app to support the industry-leading Ledger hardware wallet.
Building off of the momentum of launching Yoroi Wallet in late 2018 and the integration with Ledger, EMURGO developed and released Seiza Cardano Blockchain Explorer in May 2019 to add services to ADA holders. Seiza reflected another fundamental step towards building the Cardano ecosystem as the Yoroi ADA wallet functions as a safe & secure cryptocurrency storage solution complemented by the “ADA search engine” that is Seiza which allows users to track their ADA transactions and other vital information related to the Cardano blockchain including wallet histories, addresses, block size, and stake pools, among others. With Cardano’s Incentivized Testnet at the end of 2019 and Shelley bringing decentralization & staking features, Seiza is going to provide the necessary information behind the evolution of the Cardano protocol.
Later in September 2019, EMURGO released Tangata Manu – a new fully open source codebase library for third party developers & enterprises to create their own secure light wallets and explorers for Cardano ADA on Internet browsers and mobile devices. Originally inspired by IOHK’s initial development of Icarus, Tangata Manu is an open source library also compatible with Shelley – the next era of Cardano’s development that brings full decentralization along with delegation & staking pools.
Speaking at Global Conferences and Events & Joining Governmental Blockchain Associations To Drive Cardano Adoption
In 2019, EMURGO enjoyed a great presence at various international conferences speaking about the utilities of Cardano as the protocol of choice. EMURGO participated in more than 81 global conferences & events in 23 different countries around the world to increase awareness of Cardano!
More Retail Merchants Accepting Cardano ADA Payments
As the official commercial arm of Cardano, EMURGO strives to increase the practical applicability of Cardano ADA with real world use cases such as implementing Cardano ADA payments at merchant stores.
In June 2019, EMURGO organized and launched an opening event to celebrate the introduction of Cardano ADA payments at Tamura – a Japanese Yakiniku franchise restaurant owned by the popular Japanese comedian celebrity Kenji Tamura. These ADA payments were facilitated by the usage of the EMURGO-developed Yoroi Wallet – a highly rated Cardano ADA light wallet for Android, iOS, Chrome, & Firefox. It was a highly successful launch event with complimentary giveaways and attended by passionate members of the local Japanese Cardano community.
EMURGO has also started to put forth more efforts to increase the number of stores and merchants accepting ADA payments utilizing the EMURGO-developed Yoroi ADA Wallet with other retail merchants in Okinawa & Korea accepting Cardano ADA payments.. Read also: Introducing More Merchants Accepting Cardano ADA Part 1 & Part 2, Top 5 Places to Use Your Cardano ADA Crypto Card in South Korea
Looking Ahead to 2020
2019 has brought a lot of great momentum to EMURGO through the developed products mentioned above, a strong Cardano community, new partnerships & investments, educational services, and the development of the Cardano roadmap with Shelley. It was a year of building the foundational pieces necessary to allow the commercialization of Cardano to flourish alongside the technical developments. Please stay updated to see what is in store for EMURGO & Cardano in 2020!
EMURGO would like to send our very best wishes to each of you and your family in 2020. Please continue to follow EMURGO’s social media channels on Twitter and YouTube for all of the latest developments coming soon!
EMURGO drives the adoption of Cardano and adds value to ADA holders by building, investing in, and advising projects or organizations that adopt Cardano’s decentralized blockchain ecosystem. EMURGO leverages its expertise in blockchain R&D as well as its global network of related blockchain and industry partners to support ventures globally.
EMURGO is the official commercial and venture arm of the Cardano project, headquartered in Singapore, with a presence in Japan, the USA, India, and Indonesia. EMURGO works closely with IOHK and The Cardano Foundation to grow Cardano’s ecosystem globally, and promote its adoption. Learn more about the project at https://emurgo.io
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