Santander Blockchain Challenge - Cambridge Blockchain Team Defends Title

Rage Comment : Santander Bank is the largest bank in Spain. They have a strong interest in blockchain technology. They are one of the first banks to conduct blockchain research and launch research reports. Their report believes that blockchain can greatly reduce bank costs and will become the infrastructure of banks in the future. Santander Innovation Capital is also actively exploring how to put blockchain into practical use as soon as possible. Obviously, competition is a very good method, which can not only quickly bring together technical elites, but also find the smartest ideas and obtain corresponding proof of concept.

Translation: Li Qingnan

Santander Innovation Capital, a subsidiary of Santander Group with a fund size of US$100 million and an ecosystem covering 1,000 angel investors, recently announced that the Cambridge Blockchain Team won the distributed ledger challenge. The Cambridge Blockchain Team from Massachusetts was one of the five teams selected from 100 teams in the finals. They reported to the judging committee at the challenge held in New York on January 17.

The Cambridge Blockchain team will receive a $15,000 prize to advance their ideas before preparing for angel round financing. The team will also receive guidance from experts in the marketing and technology departments of Santander Innovation Capital and its parent company Santander Group. At the same time, Onevest will provide mentors for the team and recommend the champion team to the angel investor community.

Matthew Commons, CEO of Cambridge Blockchain Team, said:

“Winning the competition is a huge boost for our creative ideas and hard work, and we are also impressed by the depth of knowledge of the judging panel and the brilliant ideas of the other four teams. We are excited to work with Santander and Onevest to help us continue to commercialize our ideas.”

In order to ensure that each participating team is carefully evaluated and the most innovative teams can enter the finals, the judging panel is composed of many industry experts. The judging panel is led by Mr. Mariano Belinky, Managing Partner of Santander Innovation Capital, and also includes Julio Faura and Juan Jimenez Zaballos, members of the management of Santander Group, James Smith (founder of Elliptic), Greg Schvey (founder of TradeBlock), Peter Smith (founder of BlockChain), Chris Larsen (CEO of Ripple), Pascal Bouvier (senior financial technology expert; partner of Santander Capital).

Chris Larsen, founder and CEO of Ripple, said:

“We were very impressed by the teams that competed in this challenge and with Santander as an investor, I can confidently say that Mariano and his team have a deep understanding of distributed ledger technology and how it can be applied to solve real-world problems – I think the Cambridge Blockchain team will be Santander’s first choice with the best skills.”

Mariano Belinky

Mariano Belinky, Managing Partner at Santander Innovation Capital, said:

“There is huge scope for innovative applications of distributed ledger technology in financial services and we are delighted to see the innovation emerging at the start-up level. Blockchain technology has a wide range of applications and we are keen to provide these benefits to our clients. We will be delighted to see the progress of the Cambridge Blockchain team and we will provide them with guidance.”

In this final, the real estate management solution team Midasium won the second place, the customer loyalty and rewards solution team Ribbit.me won the third place, the liquidation solution team Coinprism won the fourth place, and the private equity trading market solution team ExiVest won the fifth place.

The Distributed Ledger Challenge is an open competition that encourages and supports blockchain startups focusing on the financial services sector. It is open to startups from all over the world. The challenge is dedicated to discovering innovative applications of blockchain technology to improve banking operations.