Cardano (ADA), a blockchain built on peer-reviewed academic research, has been one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in the last year. As a distributed computing platform, Cardano allows projects to conduct initial coin offerings (ICOs) and issue tokens to the public. Traxia (TMT) was the first ever ICO on the Cardano ecosystem. Its ICO launched in March and shortly raised $15.1 million worth of ADA, Bitcoin (BTC), and Ethereum (ETH). Traxia chose the Cardano platform because they believe it is currently the best available blockchain ecosystem.
Traxia is a niche project that aims to solve the liquidity problem of trade finance. Traxia believes that traditional banks do not provide enough liquidity to small and medium enterprises engaged in international trade and offer inefficient financing. Its proposed solution is a global decentralized trade finance system, in which business invoices are converted into smart contracts and traded as financial assets. Private keys will help buyers and sellers confirm the validity of invoices. Buyers and sellers will receive and pay in fiat currencies, so there is no need for small businesses to switch to cryptocurrency. The TMT token might be able to be used to pay for or access the services within the Traxia ecosystem in the future.
Traxia is governed by the Traxia foundation, a Swiss nonprofit foundation. Its small team is headed by CEO and cofounder Tobias Pfütze, who founded the fintech startup Payday and studied at universities in China and Germany before creating Traxia. Florian Ziem, cofounder and head of product development, worked at Mediaman, a digital product experience agency. CTO Jean Michel Lied Lied is a developer and entrepreneur with smart contract experience. The rest of the team seems solid as well, with a few business development, sales, and product roles.
Traxia has already partnered with LiqEase, a Chinese firm that serves as an issuing provider. That means LiqEase helps provide the blockchain infrastructure needed to secure a business-to-business trade. It acts as a market maker that matches investors and issuers of digital tokens. LiqEase is focused on the fast-moving consumer goods market in China and Europe. The partnership with LiqEase has shown success so far, and resulted in a minimum viable product.
The exact process is as follows: First, a seller uploads their invoice onto LiqEase. Then a buyer confirms the invoice and enters into an agreement to convert the invoice into a digital asset. A token is created and issued on a blockchain. The token is listed on the Traxia marketplace. Institutional investors can buy tokens wholly or in part. The buyer buys back tokens from the investors after the time period stipulated in the agreement ends.
TMT tokens are currently traded on only two exchanges, KuCoin and Gatecoin. It can be classified as a micro cap cryptocurrency, with an undefined market capitalization and $180,000 of volume in the past day. It seems that the Traxia project is working toward real-world utility in helping small and medium enterprises, but it needs to gain more traction and good press in order to succeed in its goals.
The author owns a small amount of BTC.