When it comes to award-winning, buy-side, distributed ledger technologies, the smart contract solutions from Symbiont are apparently pretty hard to beat.
For the second consecutive year, the New York-based company has won the Buy-Side Technology Award for Best Distributed Ledger Technology Project by Waters Technology. In accepting the award, Symbiont CEO and co-founder Mark Smith emphasized the technology’s applicability to the buy-side, calling it a “founding principle” to help “upgrade settlement processes in capital markets via blockchain and smart contracts.” Smith highlighted the decentralized nature of Symbiont’s platform, with each network node being equal, as another advantage. “Because there are no gatekeepers in Symbiont networks,” Smith said, “the balance of power is fair to everyone and we appreciate the buy-side recognizing the value of this.”
Adam Krellenstein, Symbiont CTO and co-founder, during his presentation, “Distributed Ledgers and Smart Contracts” at FinDEVr New York 2016.
Symbiont Chairman and President Caitlin Long was even more specific, adding that the “long-only buy-side” is likely to be the biggest beneficiary of blockchain technology. This is because many of the costs increasingly borne by the buy-side – latency, capital requirements, counterparty risk – can be reduced with blockchain-based solutions, Long explained.
Founded in 2015, Symbiont has supported a number of major blockchain projects including its joint venture with Ipreo – a 19-party pilot for syndicated loans – and its work with the Delaware Blockchain Initiative. Last month, the company joined the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance as a corporate member, and this summer, Symbiont announced a strategic investment from Medici Ventures. A partnership with Privatemarket.io to build an alternative investment marketplace for closed-end funds announced in June and an investment from China’s Hundsun Technologies in May further characterize a busy year for Symbiont.
Company CTO and co-founder Adam Krellenstein presented “Distributed Ledgers and Smart Contracts” at FinDEVr New York 2016 where he explained the differences between Symbiont’s Smart Securities system and traditional distributed databases.