Start-up of the Year

supported by

World Mobile

Swash

Swash is reinventing data ownership through new incentivisation streams and a collaborative
development framework, governed by the ethos of Web 3. It enables individuals, developers, and businesses to cultivate new realities of data ownership and value creation. It is the largest data union
in the market with over 400k users, and in addition to generating passive income and monetisation models for democratised online presence, it is the only project to have enabled integration with
charities and NGOs so that individual data generators can allocate part of the revenue received via
Swash, to charities of choice, in a swift and seamless manner

Digital Pound Foundation

The Digital Pound Foundation (DPF) was formed in October 2021 for the purposes of research,
advocacy and multi-stakeholder collaboration with respect to the design, development and
implementation of a well-conceived digital Pound, in publicly issued (CBDC) and privately issued
(stablecoins and other types of tokenised money) forms, and a healthy and diverse ecosystem for new
forms of digital money. We see new forms of digital money as a critical enabler of the transition to a
digital economy, and as a platform for innovation for the UK to maintain its leadership in financial
services and Fintech.
Current members include: Accenture, Avalanche, Billon, CGI, Clifford Chance, Electroneum, Modulr,
Ripple, and Quant.
The foundation’s key objectives are to:
Advocate for and demonstrate the societal impact and potential benefits to the UK (and globally) that
arise from various new forms of digital money, through research, thought leadership, and practical
experimentation.
Provide a central point of reference for updates and informative material aligned to the different stages
of development of new forms of digital money and the journey to adoption.
Develop educational materials, thought leadership and resources, and an engaging programme of
communications, publications and events, that will support wider understanding of, and confidence in,
potential new forms of digital money.
Communicate our work effectively to policymakers, both directly and via the cultivation of a network of
key partners whose advocacy and policy objectives align with our own.
Extend our knowledge and experience beyond the UK, incorporating learnings from other countries’
initiatives, investigations and analyses.

Zebu Digital

We’re a global, diverse collective of marketeers, designers, writers and hustlers who truly believe in the promise of generational change that web3 offers. We work hard, we play hard. We sleep, sometimes.
A bunch a few crypto fanatics keen to see business-sense in the decentralised world.
Founded in the heart of the bull-run, – we’ve seen the industry reeked with snake oil – we want to give
legitimate ideas a fighting chance. We’ve built a smashing squad to accelerate crypto projects with good intentions to change the world.
At the heart of it, we’re your plug and go marketing team.

Digital Asset Exchange  of the Year

supported by

Coinweb

LMAX Digital

Headquartered in London, LMAX Group is a global financial technology company and leading independent operator of multiple institutional execution venues for FX and crypto currency trading.
With offices in 9 countries and a global client base, the Group builds and runs its own highperformance, ultra-low latency infrastructure, which includes matching engines in London, New York
Singapore and Tokyo. LMAX Group has a solid presence in all the major FX markets around the world,
including Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.
The firm operates its own proprietary technology, servicing funds, banks, brokerages, asset managers
and proprietary trading firms through the provision of an anonymous, regulated and rules-based trading
environment with strict price and time priority order execution at ultra-low latency.
The LMAX Group portfolio includes LMAX Exchange, LMAX Global and LMAX Digital.
LMAX Digital is the leading institutional cryptocurrency exchange run by the LMAX Group. Launched in
May 2018, LMAX Digital has grown into the leading institutional spot cryptocurrency exchange from a
leading FCA regulated trading venue, currently trading current ADV of $1.5bn.

Gemini

Founded by Tyler and Cameron Winkelvoss in 2014, Gemini is a regulated crypto exchange and
“Qualified Custodian”, which has built an institutional grade platform with a security-first mentality.
Despite the fact that crypto has not necessarily been subject to the same regulations as traditional
financial assets, Gemini has approached the market with the upmost respect for regulation believing
that is is better to “ask for permission rather than forgiveness” and has positioned itself as a peer to
established top-tier regulated traditional financial institutions as well as crypto-native firms.
We are committed to earning and maintaining trust. We believe that in order to do so, we must invest in
our four pillars (Product, Security, Licensing, Compliance) for the long-term, as they are the inputs that
generate a trust output.
Gemini is a New York trust company regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services
(NYSDFS). As such, we are subject to capital reserve requirements, cybersecurity requirements, and
banking compliance standards set forth by the NYSDFS and the New York Banking Law. Gemini is also
a fiduciary and Qualified Custodian.
Gemini is currently available in 60+ countries as will be shortly rolling out across 18 new European
countries.

Coinpass

coinpass.com – UK based, UK founded, FCA licenced and compliant crypto exchange.
Serving UK retail investors, traders, businesses, corporates, fintech apps and pensions since 2018.
Their new 4.0 platform makes signup easier and faster, with more assets available than ever as well as
stable coin on/off ramping.
Long list of Law Firms and Accountants and SSAS Pension Administrators that trust coinpass.com for
all their crypto deposits, trading and custody.

Outstanding Contribution to Education

supported by

Luno

UK Cryptoasset Business Council

The UK Cryptoasset Business Council (UKCBC) was born out of a necessity to promote and defend the
interests of the UK’s crypto-economy at the highest levels of Government. Ultimately, the problems
facing the sector are political and therefore require political solutions.
It serves as an anchor in bringing together select business leaders to educate Westminster and
Whitehall, helping to identify and shape policy pathways to ensure the UK becomes a global crypto hub
and making the industry more accessible to the senior policy and decision makers.
The UKCBC is underpinned by six overarching principles, from promoting growth to ensuring high levels
of consumer protection – all of which are pertinent to the advancement of a supportive operating
ecosystem that balances innovation with consumer protection and market integrity.

Digital Pound Foundation

The Digital Pound Foundation (DPF) was formed in October 2021 for the purposes of research,
advocacy and multi-stakeholder collaboration with respect to the design, development and
implementation of a well-conceived digital Pound, in publicly issued (CBDC) and privately issued
(stablecoins and other types of tokenised money) forms, and a healthy and diverse ecosystem for new
forms of digital money. We see new forms of digital money as a critical enabler of the transition to a
digital economy, and as a platform for innovation for the UK to maintain its leadership in financial
services and Fintech.
Current members include: Accenture, Avalanche, Billon, CGI, Clifford Chance, Electroneum, Modulr,
Ripple, and Quant.
The foundation’s key objectives are to:
Advocate for and demonstrate the societal impact and potential benefits to the UK (and globally) that
arise from various new forms of digital money, through research, thought leadership, and practical
experimentation.
Provide a central point of reference for updates and informative material aligned to the different stages
of development of new forms of digital money and the journey to adoption.
Develop educational materials, thought leadership and resources, and an engaging programme of
communications, publications and events, that will support wider understanding of, and confidence in,
potential new forms of digital money.
Communicate our work effectively to policymakers, both directly and via the cultivation of a network of
key partners whose advocacy and policy objectives align with our own.
Extend our knowledge and experience beyond the UK, incorporating learnings from other countries’
initiatives, investigations and analyses.

CryptoCompare

As the digital asset markets continue to grow, so does the need for high-quality research that
brings greater clarity and transparency to this rapidly evolving industry.
CryptoCompare’s suite of complimentary research reports provides market participants with
trusted and unbiased, high-quality data and analysis. These reports have allowed for the greater
adoption of digital assets with detailed research that empowers those interested in the digital
asset space.

Best Application of ESG 2022

supported by

Cardano Foundation

Zumo

Zumo is a decentralised finance platform with the mission of bringing the benefits of blockchain
technology and digital currencies to people and businesses everywhere.
Zumo Enterprise, its B2B Crypto-as-a-Service platform, is an intelligent, embedded crypto solution fully
regulated in the UK.
Zumo App, its direct-to-consumer mobile application, allows individuals to exchange, store, send and
spend cryptocurrency alongside their ordinary money.
Founded in Edinburgh in 2017 by entrepreneurs Nick Jones and Paul Roach, Zumo is a purpose-driven
fintech business with transparency, accessibility and financial inclusion at its core. Its staff are based
in locations across Scotland, London and Slovenia. It is partner to WasteAid; member of CryptoUK;
signatory of the Crypto Climate Accord; and supporter of the UN Global Compact.

Aniseed

Duncan is a pioneer of blockchain for good, having founded DustAid in 2017, partnering with Coinbase
to collect crypto dust and donate it to charity. DustAid helped orphans in Romania, a village in Malawi
and children via the NSPCC.
Aniseed was the first charity NFT marketplace to go live and the first to issue carbon backed NFT’s. We
have been carbon negative since launch and want to have the most positive impact on the planet of any
web3 project. We have the most NGO partners of any web3 project, with over 200,000 acres of land
ready to be protected and rewilded.

Rebalance Earth

Walid Al Saqqaf is the CEO and co-founder of Rebalance Earth is a global ecosystems services
platform for valuing and funding a living nature to combat climate change, biodiversity loss and lifting
communities out of poverty. Walid started off in the corporate world at Barclays Corporate Banking in As a serial entrepreneur he has co-founded 6 start-ups of which one had a successful
acquisition. Walid is an industry associate at the UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies and is a
proud father of 2 little amazing daughters.

BCB Group

BCB Group is a leading crypto-dedicated payment services provider, serving many of the industry’s
largest clients including Bitstamp, FTX, Crypto.com, Fireblocks, Galaxy, Gemini, Huobi and Kraken. BCB
Group provides payment services in over 30 currencies, FX, cryptocurrency liquidity, digital asset
custody and BLINC, which is BCB’s free, instant settlements network for the BCB client ecosystem.
As a crypto-native institution, we provide fully segregated and safeguarded crypto-friendly business

accounts to the full spectrum of the industry, from incumbents such as Wintermute and FTX to high-
growth enterprises and startups.

We offer access to 27 currencies including USD, GBP, EUR and CHF. We also act as an on/off-ramp for
buying and selling crypto for fiat, and vice-versa, alongside a broad suite of complementary services
Responding to corporate and institutional demand for essential and excellent infrastructure in digital
asset markets, BCB Group was created by established thought leaders in finance, regulation and
technology. Founded in the UK and developed to encompass key relationships across global financial
services communities, BCB Group is well positioned as one of the first multi-jurisdictional regulated
cryptocurrency service firms. BCB Group’s leadership executive team have worked for Barclays,
Paysafe, Bitstamp, Coinbase, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, FIS, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Investec,
Lloyds Commercial Bank, Luno, Norton Rose Fulbright, FIS and Sun Life of Canada.

Checkout.com

From the ecommerce boom and growing obsession with digital experiences, to the rise of web3 and
cryptocurrency, the pace at which companies need to keep up with global digitization is only
accelerating. Checkout.com equips merchants across a myriad of industries with innovative payment
solutions that flex to their needs, helping them adjust to the ever evolving global market.
In 2022 Checkout.com unveiled a stablecoin settlement solution, leveraging Fireblocks’ new crypto
payouts technology. The solution offers merchants the flexibility of 24/7 settlement, including
weekends and holidays — increasing access to cash flow and significantly reducing operational
complexity.
So far over $1bn has been settled using the solution to crypto companies and exchanges around the
world

Worldpay

Worldpay from FIS (Worldpay) is a global acquirer with ~1.5m merchant customers and a leader in
Card-to-Crypto and Crypto-to-Card processing. We have been re-designing traditional payment
settlement models to unlock the full power of cryptocurrency assets and blockchain technology We
work with many of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets and brokerages worldwide and
collaborate with a range of partners in the industry ecosystem.
Worldpay from FIS plays a key role in enabling consumers to engage in the cryptocurrency economy, by
facilitating the movement of fiat onto cryptocurrency platforms. As we progress our strategy, Worldpay
from FIS will support the growth of the broader market by enabling crypto at checkout and allowing
merchants to settle in new cryptocurrencies.
We believe that in the future, crypto and fiat currencies will co-exist as mediums of exchange in daily
commerce, allowing consumers and businesses to fully leverage and realize the benefits of blockchain
technology.

Most Notable Campaign of the Year

supported by

Clay Nation

State Street Digital

In 2021, we launched State Street Digital to empower institutional investors and their clients to
transition and thrive in the new digital economy. Our mission is to offer and operate a fully digital and
frictionless enterprise outsourcing platform in the industry. To realize that goal, we are working to
develop the digital landscape of the future — including digital cash, central bank digital currency, smart
contracts, distributed ledger technology and tokenization. We strive each day to build the most
innovative financial markets of the 21st century by leading the digital revolution in our industry – and
we believe that effort begins with education. We launched our Digital Digest as a compendium of our
best, most recent, and noteworthy thinking on all things digital with the intention to close the gap
between enthusiasm and understanding as all of our stakeholders – clients, shareholders, employees,
partners and communities – look toward the future.

OneOf NFT

OneOf is the Green Web3 Company and NFT marketplace for Iconic Brands, Artists and Athletes.
American Express enlisted OneOf to develop and mint an NFT campaign to compliment their Amex
“Color Oasis” pop up experience at the Mandarin Oriental in Bodrum, Turkey.
OneOf’s concept was to curate renowned regional Turkish digital artist, Selay Karasu, to design the
inaugural Amex Experiences NFT collection and attend the dinner party to share her inspiration and
process in creating the art using satellite data of Bodrum.
Multiple token offerings included a free digital collectible POAP for attendees, a One-of-one LaSarte
Dining Experience NFT for sale and three Amex Platinum Passport NFTs which gave owners VIP access
to premier festivals, concerts and dining experiences. These experience NFTs could only be purchased
exclusively by card members

Aniseed

Duncan is a pioneer of blockchain for good, having founded DustAid in 2017, partnering with Coinbase
to collect crypto dust and donate it to charity. DustAid helped orphans in Romania, a village in Malawi
and children via the NSPCC.
Aniseed was the first charity NFT marketplace to go live and the first to issue carbon backed NFT’s. We have been carbon negative since launch and want to have the most positive impact on the planet of any
web3 project. We have the most NGO partners of any web3 project, with over 200,000 acres of land
ready to be protected and rewilded.

Most Inspirational Woman in Blockchain 2022

supported by

Astraea Group

Jillian Godsil

Jillian Godsil is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author in Web3. She is constantly
educating the world about innovative blockchain projects, leaders in blockchain and showcasing the
uses of the technology. She is passionate about the democratizing impact of Web3 technology. She
chairs, moderates and speaks at Web3 conferences all over the world. Most recently she was named in
the Top 100 Women of the Future, a legacy project published by Global Village Publishing Inc,
celebrating women leaders and trailblazers in web3 and the metaverse globally.

Loretta Joseph

Loretta is a public policy influencer and globally recognised as an authority in digital asset regulation
and blockchain technology. She has been working globally on digital asset regulation in Bermuda,
Serbia, Vanuatu, Nigeria, Kenya, India, Lebanon, Philippines among others. She has been asked by the
Commonwealth Secretariat to present on a common regulatory framework for digital assets for
Commonwealth Ministers of Finance and Justice Ministers. She is a global influencer and expert in
digital asset regulation.

Nikita Sachdev

Indian-American serial entrepreneur and investor, Nikita found her passion in the crypto and blockchain
space in 2017, after working for crypto giant, Huobi. This led her to launch Luna PR, an award winning
public relations and marketing agency, which is HQ’d in Dubai, with offices in Miami and Singapore.
Luna PR’s parent company, Luna Media Corporation, also houses a web3 venture capital, a foundation
which aims to educate less-privileged girls in India, and Cointelegraph MENA. Nikita is also the host of CNBC Arabia’s first ever crypto show, On the Chain, targeting 50 million homes. Since entering the space, Nikita has travelled globally to speak at universities and conferences, which has tremendously
impacted her growth, catching the attention of multiple worldwide government officials.

Influencer of the Year

supported by

Minima Global Ltd

GMEX

GMEX Pyctor (Pyctor) was recently acquired by GMEX Group, a leader in digital business and
technology solutions for exchanges and post-trade market infrastructure. Pyctor is a digital assets
post-trade market infrastructure technology offering, which now operates as an entity within the GMEX
Group. This leading fintech provides regulatory compliant digital assets network and custody technology, and is designed for firms operating in regulated environments. It offers highly secure digital
custody and transactional network services for a broad range of digital assets, as well as delivering interoperability between permissioned and public blockchains.
Before being spun out to GMEX Group, Pyctor was successfully incubated in ING Neo’s Amsterdam
innovation lab in collaboration with major financial institutions and regulators and was jointly
developed with multiple blue chip financial institutions (both asset managers and banks) and
regulators, with a focus on custody of digital assets. GMEX aims to scale Pyctor to the next stage,
where the GMEX and Pyctor combined offering addresses the need for a decentralised solution to
mitigate security/hacking risks with its Ecosystem-as-a-Service enabling end-to-end trading, clearing
and settlement flow. It provides the ideal connectivity between multiple trading parties and digital assets custodians, while addressing interoperability issues experienced in the market aligned with current and evolving regulations.

Innovate Finance

Innovate Finance is the independent industry body that represents and advances the global FinTech community in the UK. Its mission is to accelerate the UK’s leading role in the financial services sector by directly supporting the next generation of technology-led innovators.

Innovate Finance’s membership ranges from seed stage startups and global financial institutions to investors, professional services firms, and global FinTech hubs. All benefit from Innovate Finance’s unique position as the single point of access to promote enabling policy and regulation, talent and skills, business opportunity and growth, and investment capital.

By bringing together and connecting the most forward-thinking participants in financial services, Innovate Finance is helping create a global financial services sector that is more transparent, more sustainable and more inclusive.

Outlier Ventures

Outlier Ventures has been backing startup founders since 2014 and following huge growth in 2022, are now established as the leading global Web3 accelerator and top three crypto investor globally by volume of investments, with a renowned reputation as the go-to authority for Web3 founders, investors and enterprise, to help shape the future of the Metaverse. 

Building on eight years of industry experience, Outlier Ventures plans to grow its portfolio to 180+ startups from every region of the world by the end of 2022, helping raise $350m in seed funding across its various accelerator programs. Outlier Ventures has also supported the launch and growth of several billion-dollar crypto economies including Biconomy, Boson Protocol, Fetch.ai, Secret Network, Blox Move, and DIA Data. 

LeadBlock Partners

LeadBlock Partners is a European venture capital fund capturing opportunities in the fast growing
Blockchain & Digital Assets ecosystem. We focus on corporate and institutional blockchain adoption.
The fund is based in London and Paris.
Portfolio Includes: Bitpanda, Talos, Yuga Labs, Venly, Grow Inc & more with 17 companies to date
We are the specialist blockchain venture capital fund and we leverage our network and knowledge base
to make high conviction investments. We are active investors and we work hand in hand with founders
to drive adoption of blockchain technology.

Fabric Ventures

Fabric Ventures backs founders in Web3, working as a venture contributor with the most enduring
projects and networks at the heart of the new, open, decentralised economy.
Fabric Ventures has been investing in Web3 founders, businesses and networks, from inception to
scaling, since 2012. During this time, Fabric Ventures has backed and invested in leading, pioneering
web3 and Open Economy businesses and start-ups, including Immutable, Aurora, Angle, Moralis, Sky
Mavis, Polkadot, NEAR, Ramp, Nansen, 1inch and The Graph.
The Fabric Ventures Investment team and Venture Partners support founders with their unique blend of
experience and expertise gained from across a broad range of disciplines, including careers as
computer scientists, engineers, fintech executives, venture investors, and web infrastructure and digital
asset pioneers.
Founder and Managing Partner Richard Muirhead has over 20 years’ experience at the forefront of
technology and software innovation and investment. Prior to founding Fabric Ventures, Richard built
and exited three software companies as an entrepreneur, building and scaling Automic (CA), Tideway
(BMC) and Orchestream (Oracle), which reached a cumulative market cap of $2.2bn.
Fabric Ventures LLP is an Appointed Representative of G10 Capital Limited which is authorised and
regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Fabric Ventures Group SARL is registered with the CSSF
in Luxembourg.

Digital Asset Custodian of the Year

Gemini

Founded by Tyler and Cameron Winkelvoss in 2014, Gemini is a regulated crypto exchange and
“Qualified Custodian”, which has built an institutional grade platform with a security-first mentality.
Despite the fact that crypto has not necessarily been subject to the same regulations as traditional
financial assets, Gemini has approached the market with the upmost respect for regulation believing
that is is better to “ask for permission rather than forgiveness” and has positioned itself as a peer to
established top-tier regulated traditional financial institutions as well as crypto-native firms.
We are committed to earning and maintaining trust. We believe that in order to do so, we must invest in
our four pillars (Product, Security, Licensing, Compliance) for the long-term, as they are the inputs that
generate a trust output.
Gemini is a New York trust company regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services
(NYSDFS). As such, we are subject to capital reserve requirements, cybersecurity requirements, and
banking compliance standards set forth by the NYSDFS and the New York Banking Law. Gemini is also
a fiduciary and Qualified Custodian.
Gemini is currently available in 60+ countries as will be shortly rolling out across 18 new European
countries.

Komainu

Komainu is the first regulated digital asset custody solution built by institutions for institutions.
Komainu was launched as a Joint Venture between investment bank Nomura, technology firm Ledger
and digital asset manager CoinShares. Regulated in Jersey in 2019 and launched to the public in 2020,
Komainu has been established to fill a gap in the marketplace and to provide institutions with a secure
and compliant custody service for digital assets, leveraging leading technology and institutional-grade
controls, supported by a transparent regulatory framework. Komainu has raised $25m in Series A
fundraising and reached over $8bn in Assets under Custody. Over the past year, Komainu has expanded
significantly to provide staking services for institutions and has launched offices in London, Singapore
and Dubai, where it received provisional licensing from the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.

Copper

Founded in 2018, Copper provides a gateway into the crypto asset space for institutional investors by offering custody, trading, and settlement solutions across 500 crypto-assets and more than 45 exchanges. It is committed to providing flexible solutions for institutional investors that can adapt to the changing crypto asset space, while enabling far greater transparency and control for asset managers.

Copper’s fully integrated products are unique in the crypto-asset space. Underpinned by multi-award-winning custody, Copper has built the comprehensive and secure suite of tools and services required to safely acquire, trade, and store cryptocurrencies. 

At the core of Copper’s infrastructure is ClearLoop, a framework that connects the universe of exchanges in one secure trading loop — with real-time settlement across multiple networks.  Integrated with market leading crypto exchanges, ClearLoop has already transformed the way in which institutional investors can engage in the crypto asset space since it was launched in May 2020. 

Best Deployment in FinTech of the Year

supported by

Sardine

GMEX

GMEX Pyctor (Pyctor) was recently acquired by GMEX Group, a leader in digital business and technology solutions for exchanges and post-trade market infrastructure. Pyctor is a digital assets post-trade market infrastructure technology offering, which now operates as an entity within the GMEX Group. This leading fintech provides regulatory compliant digital assets network and custody technology, and is designed for firms operating in regulated environments. It offers highly secure digital custody and transactional network services for a broad range of digital assets, as well as delivering interoperability between permissioned and public blockchains.

Before being spun out to GMEX Group, Pyctor was successfully incubated in ING Neo’s Amsterdam innovation lab in collaboration with major financial institutions and regulators and was jointly developed with multiple blue chip financial institutions (both asset managers and banks) and regulators, with a focus on custody of digital assets. GMEX aims to scale Pyctor to the next stage, where the GMEX and Pyctor combined offering addresses the need for a decentralised solution to mitigate security/hacking risks with its Ecosystem-as-a-Service enabling end-to-end trading, clearing and settlement flow. It provides the ideal connectivity between multiple trading parties and digital assets custodians, while addressing interoperability issues experienced in the market aligned with current and evolving regulations.

Block

Block (NYSE: SQ) is a global technology company with a focus on financial services. Made up of Square, Cash App, Spiral, TIDAL and TBD, Block builds tools to help more people access the economy. Square helps sellers run and grow their businesses with its integrated ecosystem of commerce solutions, business software and banking services. With Cash App, anyone can easily send, spend or invest their money in stocks or bitcoin. Spiral builds and funds free, open-source Bitcoin projects. Artists use TIDAL to help them succeed as entrepreneurs and connect more deeply with fans. TBD is building an open developer platform to make it easier to access Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies without having to go through an institution. To learn more, visit block.xyz

Revolut

Revolut is building the world’s first global financial super app to help people get more from their money. In 2015, Revolut launched in the UK offering money transfer and exchange. Today, more than 20 million customers around the world use dozens of Revolut’s innovative products to make more than 250 million transactions a month. Across our personal and business accounts, we help customers improve their financial health, give them more control and connect people seamlessly across the world.

Enterprise Blockchain of the Year

supported by

CMS Laws

Onyx JP Morgan

Onyx Digital Assets (ODA) is J.P. Morgan’s premier platform for tokenization and digital asset exchange. The platform utilises a permissioned blockchain network with a distributed participant set to drive value for a broad range of Financial Institutions and Corporates. ODA’s mission is to transform global markets by leveraging blockchain technology to break down silos across assets (traditional and digitally native) and asset-centric use-cases. 

Since the launch of Onyx Digital Assets in 2020, Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas Group have joined the platform as external customers. JPM Triparty, Bank of New York Mellon and Euroclear have integrated with ODA, providing custodial services for the underlying assets that back tokens on the platform. 

Over $420bn+ volume has been exchanged on the network. 

The network supports the tokenization of assets and cash to enable the processing, recording and DvP exchange of digital assets. Customers interact with the Onyx Digital Assets Network through applications (dApps) which are built atop the network by internal J.P. Morgan businesses or third-party application developers. 

Hedera

The Hedera network is the most innovative, sustainable public ledger for the decentralized economy. Hedera’s robust ecosystem is built by a global community, on a network governed by a diverse council of industry-leading organizations, including abrdn, Avery Dennison, Boeing, Chainlink Labs, Dentons, Deutsche Telekom, DLA Piper, EDF (Électricité de France), eftpos, FIS (WorldPay), Google, IBM, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), LG Electronics, Magalu, Nomura Holdings, ServiceNow, Shinhan Bank, Standard Bank Group, Swirlds, Tata Communications, Ubisoft, University College London (UCL), Wipro, and Zain Group.

R3

R3 is a leading provider of enterprise technology and services that enable direct, digital collaboration in regulated industries—banking, capital markets, global trade and insurance—where trust is critical. Multi-party solutions developed on R3’s platforms harness the “Power of 3”—R3’s trust technology, connected networks and regulated markets expertise—to drive market innovation and improve processes. 

R3 began with customers first, creating a group of the world’s largest banks and financial services companies to explore DLT. These included Barclays, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS.

Very quickly, the R3 team realised that what was required was an underlying distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform which would be suitable for enterprise use, on which multiple functionalities could be built. The team developed Corda, an open source DLT platform with a private and permissioned architecture, designed to give participants control over where their information is shared. This allows for users to gain the information sharing efficiencies of DLT without compromising the security of highly sensitive business information.

Corda underpins multi-party applications built by businesses across multiple regulated sectors. Corda was purpose-built for financial markets to bring increased efficiencies, from building the next generation of exchanges to creating efficiencies in some of the oldest and most established markets, like commodities. 

Headquartered in London, R3 has offices in New York, San Francisco, Brazil, Hong Kong, Singapore, Mumbai, and Dublin. R3 has over 400 employees and has raised more than $120m in funding. 

Industry Personality of the Year 2022

supported by

Archax

David Carlisle, Elliptic

David Carlisle is Vice President of Policy and Regulatory Affairs at Elliptic, the global leader in cryptoassest risk management and regulatory compliance solutions. At Elliptic, David leads engagements with senior regulators and policymakers on topics related to cryptoassets, and advises enterprise clients on establishing regulatory compliance frameworks for crypto. His commentary on crypto-related policy developments has featured in CityAM, as well as the FT, Bloomberg, CNBC, CoinDesk, CoinTelegraph, and other media outlets. Before joining Elliptic, David worked for the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, where he shaped US policies aimed at disrupting illicit finance. He is an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a UK think tank, where he has authored reports on regulatory issues impacting cryptoassets.

Nicole Sandler, Barclays

Nicole is the Head of Digital Policy at Barclays. She focuses on the impact of FinTech and RegTech related regulation and initiatives including AI and DLT use cases (such as digital assets including cryptoassets and CBDCs) and also focuses on data policy matters.  She regularly engages with policymakers globally including the FCA, BoE, ICO, EC, ECB, EBA, US Fed, CFTC, SEC, BIS, MAS and Japanese FCA.

Further, she represents Barclays in various regulatory and policy forums and industry groups. For example, Nicole is on the EC’s Expert Group on Regulatory Obstacles to Financial Innovation, GFMA’s CBDC Taskforce, the EBF’s Crypto Expert Group and chairs the UK Finance New Forms of Digital Money SteerCo.  In addition, she represented Barclays at both the Crypto-asset and Blockchain roundtable and Digital Identity roundtable at the European Parliament.

Nicole regularly speaks on panels, presents at conferences and universities and has articles published.  She was named in the Top 100 Women in Fintech 2022, the Re.Work ‘Top 30 Women in Fintech’ in 2021, the ‘Influencer of the Year’ at the NY Finovate Awards 2019 and the  ‘Most Influential Women in FinTech Regulation – UK’ at the Wealth and Finance Awards 2019.  In addition, she was listed on the Lattice80 Top 100 Women in FinTech Global List 2018 and is on the Innovate Finance Women in FinTech Powerlist.

Helen Disney, The Realisation Group

Helen Disney is a Director and Board Member of The Realization Group, a PR and Marketing agency leading at the intersection of traditional and decentralized finance. She is also the host of its Financial Markets Insights podcast. She is a serial entrepreneur who has founded 3 businesses including the creation and growth of a start-up with a turnover >£1m and 15+ employees. 

In 2017, she founded Unblocked, a well-known and respected hub for Blockchain insights, education, and events. She is now regarded as one of the best-known voices on Blockchain and cryptocurrency in the UK and is in demand as a speaker internationally. 

Helen has spoken at hundreds of major events globally alongside senior decision-makers including Presidents, Prime Ministers, MPs, and CEOs. She is a regular conference speaker and moderator and has worked with a host of international media brands including The Economist, The Times, The Evening Standard, Dagens Industrie, and The Fintech Times. She curated and chaired the UK’s first major Blockchain Alternative Investment Conference and has spoken at events hosted by the UN General Assembly, Chatham House, and the Law Society and gave evidence to the inaugural meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Blockchain.

Previously, Helen set up Blockchain Intelligence, a global platform for news, networking, and conferences about Blockchain and Distributed Ledgers, and worked on outreach at the Bitcoin Foundation to communicate the innovative potential of Bitcoin and Blockchain technology to policymakers and thought leaders in the days when the technology was still in its infancy.

Most innovative NFT Project of 2022

supported by

Cudos

Cornucopias

Cornucopias was formed just over 1 year ago by a team of 2x Brits and 2x Americans. The 4x co-founders were already well embedded in the Cardano Ecosystem, with Josh and Geoff running a stake pool and Rob and Ant creating open source software and being part of the original Cardano Project Catalyst Fund 1 cohort since 2020.

Rob is a highly skilled developer and Business Analyst and has a strong corporate background. Together with Ant who has built QA teams and tested software for a number of large high street companies, they have worked together since 2000 building software and businesses – one of which was later sold to one of the largest real estate portals in the UK.

Josh is an experienced startup entrepreneur for the last 25 years, specializing in building marketing teams and crafting strategy to go to scale.  Discontent with existing monetary systems drives his passion for the crypto and blockchain industry.

Niftyz

Niftyz is the NFT Platform for Business. Backed by Brinc and Animoca Brands, Niftyz.io is the first no-code minting platform specially created for the business ecosystem. We turn digital property into revenue through the use of NFTs. Businesses and brands can now easily productize and tokenize assets that they already own: documents, deal flows, events, communities & even their knowledge and lock them behind an NFT. 

SuperRare

Founded in 2018, SuperRare is the largest pioneering NFT platform dedicated to cryptoart, with more than $285M in total sales and more than $165M earned by artists to date. Each artwork on SR is an original and authentic single edition produced by a digital creator, then tokenized for easy ownership and trading. One of the earliest champions of perpetual artist royalties, SuperRare is a user-controlled and curated marketplace governed by $RARE token holders. Curation is decentralized on the platform, with artists being on-boarded by curators at SuperRare Labs and SuperRare Spaces, who are independent galleries on SuperRare voted in by $RARE token holders.

With a mission to revolutionize the economics of human creativity, SuperRare is building a new art market that anyone can access. SuperRare is a network of, by and for creatives, focused on shepherding the digital renaissance as an emerging global art movement that will radically alter our relationships to and participation with digital art.

Metaverse  Project of the Year

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Tingo

Pavia

Pavia is a singles instance world, made up of 100,000 plots of NFT land and a thriving community that will shape this utopian virtual world together. Pavia has not only awarded each land owner with 8333 $PAVIA tokens for each land parcel they own, but they have also given them Pavia merchandise such as hats, hoodies and t-shirts, plus opportunities to own Pavs.

Pavia has a lively community and has constantly found ways to give a little back to those that have invested in their project. Pavia has 17,400 wallet holders, considerably higher than any other metaverses on Cardano. Pavia was also the first metaverse to be minted on the Cardano Network. Unlike many other projects, Pavia believes Interoperability is a high priority.

VOMA Labs

We created VOMA as the world’s first completely virtual art museum. Accessible from anywhere with an internet connection, it was launched in November 2020. 

It has held museum-level exhibitions of world-renowned artists, along with a programme of talks and curators tours. It has fast become a destination for art-lovers globally, going viral in a way that was previously unthinkable for a museum. 

We’ve proved that in a post-pandemic world, people demand more and higher access to the arts. The work we’ve done with VOMA forms the basis of our plans for the future.

With the expansion of the VOMA landscape and capability to include metaverse solutions for museums and corporate. The Atos Art Exhibition was a unique collaboration between Atos and our curatorial team. We brought together an exhibition of 50 artworks to discuss issues around manufacturing and the future of technology, to provoke conversations at the highest levels of industry.  Featuring artists producing super-black pigments, sculptures that draw pollution from the air, and innovations in computing and 3D visualization. 

The exhibition programme included online conferences and workshops, held within the virtual environment and in innovation workshops. It was accompanied by a real-world exhibition that travelled to Atos HQ in Paris, Munich and London. 

Led by the heads of Marketing for Atos, and Lee Cavaliere, curator and Director of VOMA, the project welcomed guests from organisations such as Samsung, Microsoft, BMW and Siemens, in a wide-ranging campaign to enliven debate around innovation across industry. 

The Sandbox

The Sandbox is a virtual world where players can build, own, and monetize their gaming experiences and assets inside an immense virtual world. The Sandbox offers a suite of tools, tailor-made to empower players to come together and create engaging experiences across the metaverse.

Outstanding Contribution to the DeFI Sector 

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Jade City

Coinbase

This year, Coinbase announced the single largest deal between a crypto platform and an asset management provider. We finalised a deal to begin offering institutional crypto access to BlackRock’s Aladdin platform. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager.

The creation of the new access point saw the providers connecting the dots between Aladdin – an end-to-end investment management platform – and Coinbase Prime, which offers crypto trading, custody, prime brokerage, and reporting capabilities. 

Swarm

Swarm provides compliant DeFi infrastructure for token issuance, liquidity and trading. Our permissioned infrastructure combines the architecture and innovation of DeFi with the reassurance of regulation.

Regulated by BaFin in Germany, we connect TradiFi with DeFi. We can onboard new participants and assets into the blockchain ecosystem to create novel products and services so that people can do more with DeFi.

First, we launched a permissioned automated market maker (AMM) protocol, enabling retail and institutional investors to trade both crypto and digitized securities (1:1 backed) alongside each other in a protected environment. Our second product is liquid staking across the top five proof-of-stake blockchains. Investors can make non-directional investments into environmentally-friendly networks that are powering future financial market architecture.  

As a licensed counterparty, Swarm grants users full transparency on how funds are deployed and yield is generated. Our infrastructure instills trust where clients benefit from self-custody, decentralization and transparency.

Aave

Aave is a decentralised non-custodial liquidity market protocol where users can participate as depositors or borrowers. Depositors provide liquidity to the market to earn a passive income, while borrowers are able to borrow in an overcollateralised (perpetually) or undercollateralised (one-block liquidity) fashion.
Please join the Aave community Discord server; the Aave team and members of the community look forward to helping you understand and use Aave.

Best Staking Product of 2022

Coinbase

For over a decade, Coinbase has been working to be a gateway to web3. And, as part of its mission to increase economic freedom, Coinbase is sharing its learnings. 

Queue Coinbase Cloud, which makes it easier than ever to build and participate in web3 networks. Developers can use Coinbase Cloud’s suite of APIs and SDKs across a breadth of primitives to build robust applications faster. And token holders can participate in networks with Cloud’s staking infrastructure, contributing to security and decentralisation of networks, and paving the foundation for a multi-chain future.

Whether it’s web3 development, or secure, seamless staking with zero operational overhead, Coinbase Cloud’s infrastructure solutions, APIs, and SDKs empower token holders and development teams of all sizes with the solutions they need. 

Blockdaemon

Blockdaemon’s node management platform helps auto-scale blockchain networks securely with enhanced monitoring, back-up systems, HA clusters, APIs and cloud-managed node monitoring of on-premises solutions.

Figment

Figment is the world’s leading provider of blockchain infrastructure. We provide the most comprehensive staking solution for our over 200+ institutional clients including exchanges, wallets, foundations, custodians, and large token holders to earn rewards on their crypto assets. These clients rely on Figment’s institutional staking service including rewards optimisation, rapid API development, rewards reporting, partner integrations, governance, and slashing protection. Figment is backed by industry experts, financial institutions and our global team across twenty three countries. This all leads to our mission to support the adoption, growth and long term success of the Web3 ecosystem.

Institutional Contribution of the Year

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Matrixport

Coinbase

This year, Coinbase announced the single largest deal between a crypto platform and an asset
management provider. We finalised a deal to begin offering institutional crypto access to BlackRock’s
Aladdin platform. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager.

The creation of the new access point saw the providers connecting the dots between Aladdin – an end-
to-end investment management platform – and Coinbase Prime, which offers crypto trading, custody,

prime brokerage, and reporting capabilities.

Copper

Founded in 2018, Copper provides a gateway into the crypto asset space for institutional investors by offering custody, trading, and settlement solutions across 500 crypto-assets and more than 45 exchanges. It is committed to providing flexible solutions for institutional investors that can adapt to the changing crypto asset space, while enabling far greater transparency and control for asset managers.

Copper’s fully integrated products are unique in the crypto-asset space. Underpinned by multi-award-winning custody, Copper has built the comprehensive and secure suite of tools and services required to safely acquire, trade, and store cryptocurrencies. 

At the core of Copper’s infrastructure is ClearLoop, a framework that connects the universe of exchanges in one secure trading loop — with real-time settlement across multiple networks.  Integrated with market leading crypto exchanges, ClearLoop has already transformed the way in which institutional investors can engage in the crypto asset space since it was launched in May 2020. 

SIX Digital Exchange

SIX operates and develops infrastructure services for the Swiss and Spanish Stock Exchanges, for Post-Trade Services, Banking Services and Financial Information with the aim of raising efficiency, quality and innovative capacity across the entire value chain of the Swiss and Spanish financial centers

Outstanding Industry  Contribution Award

supported by

City AM

Coinbase

This year, Coinbase announced the single largest deal between a crypto platform and an asset management provider. We finalised a deal to begin offering institutional crypto access to BlackRock’s Aladdin platform. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager.

The creation of the new access point saw the providers connecting the dots between Aladdin – an end-to-end investment management platform – and Coinbase Prime, which offers crypto trading, custody, prime brokerage, and reporting capabilities. 

Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform used by government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 70 countries. Chainalysis data platform powers investigation, compliance, and risk management tools that have been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile cyber criminal cases. The business is now one of the key industry leaders helping to grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely and build trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk.  

A common misconception about cryptocurrency is that it is anonymous and untraceable. It’s quite the opposite. It is incredibly transparent. Cryptocurrencies operate on public immutable blockchain ledgers, meaning anyone can look up the entire history of transactions using a public block explorer. The problem is that it’s very difficult to read the blockchain. It looks like just a bunch of random numbers and letters  transacting with a bunch of random numbers and letters that doesn’t mean very much to most people. 

This is where Chainalysis comes in – a data company that is helping to map those random numbers and letters – cryptocurrency addresses – to their real-world services. That dataset powers investigation and compliance tools for financial institutions, cryptocurrency businesses, and government agencies. Chainalysis’ tools help these organisations understand which real-world entities transact with each other. For example, Chainalysis can show that a given transaction took place between two different cryptocurrency exchanges or between a cryptocurrency exchange and an illicit entity, such as a ransomware operator or sanctioned individual or organisation.

Fidelity Digital Assets

Fidelity Digital Assets provides services for Fidelity Crypto^SM, which enables investors to buy and sell digital assets through the Fidelity Investments^Ⓡ App