Kai C Chng, CEO and founder of Digix. Kai worked in Wall Street as an EMFX trader in a global investment bank for the past 4 years. He was an International Program student at Upenn – Wharton and graduated with honors from NYU – Stern.
What is Digix?
Digix is the leading asset tokenisation company on the Ethereum blockchain. We are currently building an ecosystem that aims to be the 21st century gold standard on the Ethereum blockchain, through the launch of our first product, the gold backed token DGX.
We first aim to democratise access to gold by having digital gold easily accessed by the average person. The use cases for operationally secure and transparent digital gold are endless.
We leverage the transparency and security afforded by the blockchain in what would otherwise be an opaque custody chain of asset transfers. All inventory data on the physical assets backing the tokens are transparently tracked and audited on the blockchain for anyone to verify. Tokens can be created through the smart contracts only after the physicals have been delivered by Digix to the independent custodial vault. The physicals are subject to quarterly audits by an independent precious metals auditor that we engage.
Our proprietary technology is the foundation of a revolution in the digitisation of assets. We sit on the convergence of the digital and physical worlds.
What are the Major Features?
The major features are security, transparency and easy transferability. In the burgeoning and volatile cryptocurrency markets, the ability to hedge with a stable asset is invaluable. Due to their status, DGX tokens can be traded directly for cryptocurrency or fiat in existing exchanges.
Digix is combining the bleeding-edge cryptocurrency domain with what is considered one of the soundest assets of all time – gold. Both areas have drawbacks and limitations which we believe can be largely mitigated by merging the two. On one hand, gold has historically been incredibly reliable , even in times of financial crisis. However, the handful of ways in which it can be acquired are somewhat lacklustre – high premiums must be paid for purchasing it outright, maintenance and brokerage costs apply if one wants to trade ETFs, and storage fees are necessary if an individual chooses to store it in a vault.
On the cryptocurrency front, coins are backed, essentially, by nothing. Many fear that, as a result, they could simply implode overnight, and that their price is fuelled solely by speculation. Indeed, this is what contributes to the wild volatility that makes Bitcoin and other contenders not fit for purpose as a store of value. On the plus side, blockchain-based systems allow for the near-instant transfer of value anywhere around the world for nominal fees.
One of our primary motivations for launching Digix was to promote financial inclusion – we realised that the current industry offered little to the unbanked or underbanked.
Backing issued tokens with gold would allow for the migration of gold to the digital realm – we tether one gram of the metal to each token, so as to make it easily spendable and purchasable in small amounts, without incurring exorbitant premiums over spot.
Tell us more about the Digix token?
The asset itself is an ERC20 compatible token, built and distributed on top of the Ethereum blockchain. It can be stored in digital wallets and sent to anyone – the offering is more promising than digital banking (users remain completely sovereign over their own funds), and more convenient than physically holding gold in small denominations.
What is the Digix Asset Explorer?
The Digix Asset Explorer is a registry that tracks all of the assets held in custody by the company. It’s built on IPFS, a distributed peer-to-peer storage solution. Links to documentation such as receipts are available on the Explorer in order to ensure that the highest standards of transparency are adhered to.
What is next on the Digix roadmap?
Digix is primarily an asset tokenisation company where DGX, as our flagship product, is an ongoing Proof of Concept for our proprietary Proof of Provenance protocol. We intend to scale the DGX scope of operations and circulating volume in a big way in the near future. This will be achieved by creating more awareness of the product, as we have chosen a low key marketing approach while focusing on product development prior to product launch. Secondly, we aim to partner with traditional precious metals dealers which will allow them to open their business to an entirely new crypto market and allow us to leverage on their store of expertise.
Digix is also proud to be one of the few prominent Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) projects with our DigixDAO. The DigixDAO aims to be a self-organising community on the Ethereum blockchain that actively involves its token holders in decision making and growing the Digix ecosystem.
Our smart contract governance codes are currently frozen and in the midst of being audited by Chainsecurity. ChainSecurity have an established track record of providing their services and technical expertise to Kyber Network, Paxos and Augur, to name a few.
Both Digix and our community are eagerly awaiting for the launch of the governance platform, which would be a great avenue of growth and innovation for our ecosystem.
Tells us about the association between Digix and Ethereum Foundation.
We were the very first ICO after Ethereum, at a time when the market was significantly smaller. After having explored coloured coins, NXT blockchain, and Counterparty, we opted to use the Ethereum network for our platform.
We’ve been close with the Ethereum Foundation since the early days and Digix co-hosted the first ever Ethereum meetup in Singapore with the Ethereum Foundation.
For more information please visit Digix: https://digix.global/
