Ethereum Wallet imToken Raises $10 Million from IDG Ventures
While big-name competitors such as Coinbase and Electrum are seemingly the world’s most widely-used cryptocurrency wallets, a lesser known Chinese cryptocurrency wallet called imToken quietly raised $10 million in funding from IDG Ventures on May 30, 2018. The wallet stores over $35 billion in cryptocurrencies, mostly that of Chinese investors.
Impressive Wallet Statistics
An estimated four million people use imToken, and despite its obscurity to Westerners, the wallet was amongst the first players to support the Ethereum blockchain. At the time of writing, the wallet supports over 30,000 tokens.
While retailer investors remain unaware of the free crypto-wallet, the staggering figures explain why IDG Ventures chose to invest in the company.
IDG Capital said in a press release:
“imToken has developed its product into one of the top crypto asset wallets in the world with such a sound reputation. We believe it will benefit both the crypto economy and blockchain technology. We’re excited to back imToken.”
The rising investments in blockchain and cryptocurrency businesses are a perfect example of the age-old adage – sell shovels in a gold rush – and indicate that institutional investors remain interested in the technology regardless of the waning cryptocurrency prices.
Ethereum Support a Genius Move
After Ethereum was launched in 2015, He decided to support the smart contract framework, which proved to be a stroke of genius for the company.
In 2017, Ethereum became the go-to framework for many cryptocurrency businesses, and imToken’s support led to widespread fame amongst Chinese retail investors. Interestingly, the company supports over 500 ERC-20 tokens, making imToken the largest, and least well-known, wallet regarding token support.
Ben He, the founder of imToken, said:
“We noticed very early the potential of Ethereum and focused on it to differentiate against competitors. The growth has been completely organic. We didn’t have any marketing or promotional budget.”
Notably, Coinbase’s reported $20 billion in customer crypto-assets is dwarfed by imToken’s $35 billion.
The imToken team. Source: TechCrunch
Funds to Promote Expansion
According to a report by SCMP, imToken’s wallet users have accounted for over ten percent of Ethereum transactions daily since 2018, and over 21 percent in May alone. Also, figures from the Federal Deposit Insurance suggest that ImToken experienced massive deposit growth in 2018, and rivaled both Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase.
He did not provide details of the company’s annual financial statements or total valuation but stated that the funding should be used to expand beyond China and for Research & Development. Currently, 70 percent of the wallet’s users are from the Far East country.
He added that imToken should open an office in Singapore, and use part of their funds to grow the team. The company’s offerings shall be expanded to appeal to institutional investors, in addition to heightened security features.
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Source: BTCManager.com
Original Post: Ethereum Wallet imToken Raises Million from IDG Ventures
