Home / Capital & Crypto / Coinsilium Invests in Smart-Contract Sidechain Platform Rootstock

Coinsilium Invests in Smart-Contract Sidechain Platform Rootstock

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:46 PM
Samburaj Das
Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:46 PM

Blockchain startups investor Coinsilium is adding to its portfolio of investments by bringing in a total investment of $100,000 in smart-contracts-innovator Rootstock during the latter’s initial seed round.

Coinsilium, a London-based blockchain technology investor known for supporting blockchain-based startups during their early stages has announced its latest investment in a regulatory announcement today for investors. As recently as Christmas Eve 2015, the company started trading on the ISDX Growth Market in London.

The British firm has invested and facilitated co-investment for a total of $100,000 or 28.6% of Rootstock’s initial seed round. The investment represents approximately 2% of Rootstock, with the company valued at $5 million.

Coinsilium’s executive chairman Cameron Parry said:

We are delighted to announce that Coinsilium has acquired an early strategic stake in Rootstock and we’re excited at the prospect that the Rootstock platform can potentially deliver the strength and security of Bitcoin with the smart contract capability of Ethereum.

Rootstock is a P2P smart-contract platform developed as a sidechain to the Bitcoin blockchain. The platform is seen as a coming together of Ethereum-based smart contracts technology and the transparent settlement system of Bitcoin’s blockchain.

Sergio Demián Lerner, co-founder and chief scientist at Rootstock welcomed Coinsilium as an investor and stated:

We have designed Rootstock to add value to the Bitcoin network by providing smart contracts capabilities through a merge-mined sidechain, thereby enabling sophisticated transactions as secure as the Bitcoin network.

Lerner is one of Bitcoin’s early evangelists and was appointed as a core security auditor by the Bitcoin Foundation in late 2014. At the time, he was working as a security consultant at Coinspect, a bitcoin startup and has previously identified a number of vulnerabilities in Bitcoin’s core code prior to the appointment at the Foundation.

In a nod to existing miners of the cryptocurrency, Lerner added:

Rootstock also provides Bitcoin miners and mining pools the opportunity to participate in the smart contracts revolution and an additional revenue stream via merge-mining.

The announcement also noted a tweet by cryptocurrency pioneer Nick Szabo.

Rootstock saw its official launch in early December in Mexico City. The sidechain-based smart-contract startup is also negotiating with the World Bank and some Latin American banks to provide microlending solutions for the unbanked.

The company is aiming for a high level of transparency via its smart contract platform while designing tools that facilitate micro-lending programs that are currently being tested in the slums of Sao Paulo, Brazil and Buenos Aires, Argentina. The tools are being used by an NGO locally with the outlook that anyone with a smartphone will be able to use the technology in two to three years.

Further details reveal Coinsilium’s subsidiary, Seedcoin invested $50,000 in bitcoins, approx. 115 BTC in current rates on its own and an additional $50,000 (also paid in bitcoin) on behalf of Coinsilium’s co-investors who sought a convertible means for the right to shares of Rootstock’s equity at a pre-money valuation that does not exceed $5 million.

Consilium became the world’s first IPO of a blockchain technology company last year when it was admitted into the ISDX growth market in London, under the ticker ‘COIN’. It’s latest investment into Rootstock now expands its portfolio of blockchain-based startups to ten companies in total.

Featured image from Shutterstock.