Traxia Launches ICO On Cardano, Dubbed ‘Japan’s Ethereum’

Switzerland trade finance nonprofit Traxia is the first company to launch an initial coin offering (ICO) on Japan’s Cardano platform, reports this week said.

On Monday (March 26), ICO Examiner said Traxia initiated its token sale on Cardano, which is dubbed the “Japanese Ethereum.” Cardano claims to be the most advanced blockchain platform.

Cardano’s investment unit Emurgo had previously invested in Traxia, reports noted, which links small businesses to trade finance. The publication said Traxia cited Cardano’s “superior technology,” which “will allow Traxia to present a more robust solution to better tackle scalability, settlement and security.”

Traxia aims to convert unpaid invoices into smart contracts that can be traded for short-term assets, providing global small business traders with financing to continue business while they wait for invoices to be paid. Reports noted that transactions on the Traxia platform are conducted via fiat currencies not cryptocurrencies.

Its ICO will run until April 9.

Blockchain technology is increasingly targeting the trade finance space as innovators and traditional financial institutions explore how to address a $1.5 billion trade finance gap, as estimated by the Asian Development Bank. Separate analysis from the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) last year found a 9 percent decline in the number of lenders that reported an increase in trade finance activity.

While trade finance is a popular target of blockchain innovators, ICC Trade Register Project Chair and HSBC Global Head of Capital Management for Trade and Receivable Finance Krishnan Ramadurai recently told PYMNTS that the technology is still too new to make an immediate impact on the trade finance gap.

“While distributed ledger technologies and blockchain technology have rapidly progressed in a reasonably short space of time, these technologies are still at the early stages of global market application,” he said. “In our view, trade finance presents a compelling case for the application of this technology to certain products.”