EMURGO is proud to welcome Credmark, the newest batch member of the dLab/EMURGO startup accelerator in 2020. Credmark aims to bring valuable credit data to the blockchain & cryptocurrency industry. This important data is the lifeblood of the global financial industry. Without credit data, it’s impossible for lenders to answer questions like who is credit trustworthy, who deserves better lending & borrowing terms, and who to do business with. Currently, traditional credit data doesn’t translate to cryptocurrencies. In order for a cryptocurrency-based financial ecosystem to flourish, trustworthy credit data & credit lending are essential. Credmark solves this problem by providing the data companies need to help the maturation of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
“So What?” For Cardano Ada Holders
Credit has been a pillar of human economies for thousands of years. However, widespread consumer credit is a relatively recent phenomenon. According to the U.S. Federal Reserve:
“Few financial institutions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were willing to extend consumer credit; lenders did not have sufficient information to assess the creditworthiness of most individual borrowers, and the costs of managing such loans in any number would have been prohibitively high.”
Lack of data was a big bottleneck for traditional banks in the past. The cryptocurrency industry in 2020 is facing the exact same problem that the traditional financial industry faced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, banks overcame these challenges through the availability of accurate and cheap credit-related information about customers. This data lets banks segment consumers and price risk to mitigate losses.
Credmark fixes this problem by selling verifiable credit data belonging to certain blockchain addresses. These may belong to individuals or companies. The identity of the address owner may or may not be known. Credmark can address the entire range of possible use-cases and securely analyze credit data pertaining to blockchain addresses. This data can then be used by DeFi lending projects, consumer lenders, and institutional lenders.
dLab/EMURGO Offering Valuable Guidance
dLab/EMURGO supports Credmark through best-in-class advisory with technical and business insights, leveraging EMURGO’s vast global network of industry partners. EMURGO as a global blockchain solutions provider has deep connections in both the blockchain/cryptocurrency and traditional finance spheres along with dLab’s connections in the startup world through EMURGO’s dLab partner SOSV. Since Credmark would benefit from access to these worlds, dlab/EMURGO is the perfect partner to provide valuable added services to Credmark.
Credmark’s Founders
Credmark was founded a little over a year ago by two ambitious entrepreneurs, Paul Murphy and Neil Zumwalde. Neil is a technologist through and through, and also a very successful composer and performer. Paul is a serial entrepreneur who has lived and run businesses on four continents.
Conclusion
Credmark is a fascinating blockchain company that will add massive added value to the world of cryptocurrency finance. This will be achieved by bringing traditional credit data to the cryptocurrency industry and be a massive step forward to bridge the traditional financial world and the blockchain/cryptocurrency world.
Credmark has also published an interesting report on the state of the crypto credit industry in the latest Q4, which also reviews 2019 in its entirety. This report collects data from across the industry, and analyzes key trends. The report is available here. To learn more about Credmark, you can follow them on Twitter and Telegram.
