The bear market this year has seen an exodus from cryptocurrencies for a lot of people and companies. Not all are so pessimistic though and not all are in it for a quick buck. Binance is one of the pioneers of the industry and has recently launched a program to foster innovation for blockchain and crypto.
Binance Not Deterred by Bear Market
The first batch of initiatives for the Binance incubation program will focus on solving the most critical issues currently facing the industry. There are a number of projects aimed at nurturing education and mentorship in the crypto space run through the exchange’s venture arm Binance Labs.
According to the head of Binance Labs, Ella Zhang, who spoke to Forbes last week explaining the ethos behind the ten week on-site program;
“Through the program, we support entrepreneurs who are solving critical problems for the blockchain industry. In particular, we help participants focus on “BUIDLing” products from an early stage. The term BUIDL is a glossary term from the Binance Academy, originally derived from HODL, a term referring to keeping your heads down and focusing on building your product,”
Over 500 projects applied for the first round of the incubation program and only the top 8 were selected. Those lucky few will get direct funding of $500,000 and full access to the all resources they need from Binance.
According to the report, seven of the eight projects had launched working products and enrolled new members. Three of them already have paying clients and their recent ‘graduation’ from the program will put them on the path to greater things.
Binance also offered the opportunity for these projects to pitch at the Singapore Blockchain Week organized by the company next month. Some of the problems tackled included hardware wallet development, secure logins for dApps, prediction markets, blockchain data insights, computer security systems, and decentralized exchanges.
“There are two problems we have seen in the ecosystem, which helped inform our design of the program: a lack of product-market fit in many blockchain projects, and the market hype that distracts founders from BUIDLing. With the incubation program, projects can focus on shipping a working product or service with product-market fit as quickly as possible,” Zhang added.
Binance has taken the initiative to focus on developing the technology for the future rather than looking at the prices. Its own trade volume is massively down from over $2 billion per day to around $300 million today according to Coinmarketcap. This has not deterred the team though which has not only expanded internationally over the past year but is now channeling energies into education and innovation for the nascent industry.
Image from Shutterstock
