Feb 25, 2021 via PR
Bitcoin and Ethereum are on fire. If you haven’t been paying attention, the reigning champions of the cryptocurrency world have hit all time highs this month. As such, a new class of billionaire has emerged, and it’s in the world of digital assets.
Widespread adoption has been difficult, to say the least, and one of the biggest barriers to entry is that the banking system just doesn’t like to make it easy. Using a credit card to buy crypto is nigh-impossible, especially in Canada.
This is why TechBomb was astounded to find out that Versabank (formerly Pacific and Western Bank), a small charter bank from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan have announced their aggressive foray into crypto by announcing a partnership with Canada Stablecorp for its own smart contract stablecoin. A stablecoin is a new class of cryptocurrencies that attempts to offer price stability and are backed by a reserve asset. Stablecoins have gained traction as they attempt to offer the best of both worlds—the instant processing and security or privacy of payments of cryptocurrencies, and the volatility-free stable valuations of fiat currencies.
This direction for Versabank, who are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange TSE, and became known in the banking world as “the world’s first fully digital financial institution” is not surprising. Cryptocurrency is maturing with the likes of Elon Musk recently investing over a billion dollars and numerous institutional funds popping up to service the market. At the time of writing this, 1 Bitcoin is valued at $50,000 USD. In March of 2020, it was down to $3,596 USD, leaving a lot of savvy investors in a position to reap massive gains.
“As North America’s first bank-issued “stablecoin”, VCAD offers consumers and businesses the ability to adopt and leverage the benefits of digital currency and blockchain-based assets without the volatility of traditional currencies, alongside the security of a value-backed asset that the cryptocurrency world has long demanded,”
David Taylor, President of VersaBank
Versabank looks to capitalize on this bull crypto market by servicing Canadians who want utility in their crypto.
“VCAD provides consumers with not only the security afforded by an underlying deposit with a Canadian chartered bank but also the comfort of knowing that each VCAD issued or redeemed will always have one-to-one value with the Canadian dollar. With such clear benefits, we are highly confident in the demand for VCAD as digital currencies increasingly become part of mainstream financial transactions.”
Jean Desgagne, CEO, Stablecorp.
In addition to VCAD, under their partnership, VersaBank and Stablecorp plan to work together towards the development and launch of “VUS” and “VEuro”, deposit-based, US dollar and Euro versions of the VersaBank digital currency.
TechBomb will keep a close eye on this and report back when it happens.
