Earlier today, we published an article about Mike Cagney, the cofounder of Sofi. He also runs the Provenance blockchain, and there’s big news surrounding the network in that it’s launching a new $50 million HASH development grant to establish core services and experiences on the blockchain.
Provenance Blockchain Has Big Plans for the Future
The grant comes by way of a new partnership formed between Provenance and Apollo, an asset management firm that controls more than half a trillion in overall assets. Not long ago, John Zito – the senior partner and deputy CIO of credit at Apollo – commented on what both entities are planning for the future:
We are excited to work with Mike and his team at Figure on [several] initiatives using Provenance blockchain technology specifically developed for our industry. This collaboration extends Apollo’s strategy of working with best-in-class fintech firms to seek the operational and cost benefits that blockchain and other technologies can bring to bear.
The Provenance blockchain is presently utilized by more than 60 separate financial institutions and fintech enterprises. Right now, the network has close to $10 billion in asset value locked within its confines. CEO Morgan McKenney says it’s different from other layer-1 blockchains in that it purely tries to service regulated monetary platforms on a regular basis. He commented:
As we add asset classes, we add other participants to the ecosystem. We have private funds live on-chain that bring accredited investors. We have a lot of lending, mortgage and HELOCs, which brings bank and credit union buyers, and mortgage providers white labeling their services through Figure Technologies. Infrastructure lending brings in insurance companies and pensions… The grant program is so important because it brings developers to support the asset lifecycle. Our team has deep financial services knowledge as well as an amazing engineering team that’s trying to develop the protocol in ways that are competitively advantaged… We are enabling the crowdsourcing of the future of finance.
About nine years ago, CEO of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon warned that the banks of the modern era were becoming too entwined with the world of growing tech companies. Many of these enterprises were too speculative and volatile to be given all the attention they were receiving, and he warned this would come back to bite the banking industry in the rear (which it clearly has given how many institutions from Signature to Silvergate have crashed and burned as of late). He said:
When I go to Silicon Valley…they all want to eat our lunch. Every single one of them is going to try.
Banks and Tech… Not a Great Combo
He reiterated his sentiment five years later, commenting:
I tell our people, don’t guess, you know they’re there, you know they’re coming, you know they want to eat our lunch. Assume it.
