Our mission at SMART VALOR is to provide our users the best opportunities to invest in digital assets. Today we empower thousands of users to do so using our digital asset exchange platform, while offering white glove service to our wealth management clients.
In keeping with this mission, today we are pleased to announce the launch of VALOR Prime, the premium marketplace for rare, investible assets. With this move SMART VALOR becomes the first European digital asset exchange to launch a NFT marketplace , creating new investable assets and leading the innovation in the space of asset tokenization.VALOR Prime asset focus: only top-quality assets, extending to hybrid and fractional
We believe that non-fungible tokens offer the next great opportunity for investors. Non-fungible tokens represent unique digital or digitized assets. These assets can be art, digital goods, domain names, different types of intellectual property or even financial contracts, like insurance or derivatives.Amongst NFTs, digital art is showing immense promise in the near-term. The traditional art market had a market cap of roughly $65 billion for the last few years and outperformed the S&P 500 by over 180%, which leads to expect 6,000x increase in the digital art market cap - currently around $10 million( [1] ).
Therefore, much of the early focus for VALOR Prime will be on identifying and giving access to the best opportunities in the digital art space. Rather than list or enable user-led listing of all non-fungible tokens, VALOR Prime will seek to curate only the highest quality assets. The selection is based on a combination of objective criteria such as the performance history of the artist, the number or awards, exhibitions, the quality of their artwork, popularity, and experts' evaluations.
Digital art is just one category within the NFT space. We have also identified fractionalization of assets and hybrid assets as categories we will focus on within the main release.Securing the tokenization of real assets within the new legal framework
The “Physical Validator” license was introduced in Liechtenstein as part of the new Blockchain Act this year. This framework represents the result of two years of work by the regulators and government in Liechtenstein. It is the most progressive blockchain regulation among European Countries today. To enable secure and reliable tokenization of real assets, SMART VALOR has applied for registration as a Physical Validator. With this registration SMART VALOR will be able to validate physical assets, whether tokenized by VALOR Prime or by third parties.
With the growing convergence of physical and digital assets, we foresee significant demand for services around validation of physical assets. As the first digital asset exchange domiciled in Liechtenstein, SMART VALOR is driving this effort and looking forward to becoming one of the first implementors of the Physical Validator facility.
A better custody experiences
Managing digital assets can be difficult for those who are unfamiliar with the process, new to wallet management, or simply do not possess a lot of technical knowledge. There is an inherent sense of security to mainstream software products – if a user loses access to their account, there is someone else to fix it. Put simply, it is not easy for non-technical and those unfamiliar to blockchain to get started in participating in digital assets. As more and more people seek to join these markets the optimal user experience is a hybrid custodial wallet, where the user retains the ability to control their keys if they so choose, but the default experience is centralized and their assets are custodied. This paradigm puts the legal responsibility on the shoulders of the custodian.
VALOR Prime gives users this experience. All assets are custodied by VALOR Prime by default, giving investors a peace of mind and secure custody, giving investors a peace of mind and secure custody.Enhanced user experience regarding payments
Most NFT platforms today are only enabling payments in Ether via user-owned Web3 wallets. Fiat payments are however important to attract non-crypto users to this space. For most people seeing prices quoted in Ethereum is not particularly useful as Ether itself is a highly volatile cryptocurrency.
A full range of payment options including fiat currencies is another distinctive feature of VALOR Prime. Today SMARTVALOR offers exchange users fiat funding in four fiat currencies such as USD, EUR, CHF and GBP via credit card or bank wire. This utility function will be extended to purchases via VALOR Prime within main release.
The advantage of VALOR Prime is its foundation on top of a regulated exchange, with fiat access, custody and trusted legal entities. One of the leading US crypto exchanges, Gemini, has proven this point with taking over the operation Nifty Gateway (another NFT Marketplace).
VALOR Prime in Beta and development towards the main release
The Beta version of VALOR Prime is now live with a set of basic functionalities. All assets listed will be Ethereum-based assets complying with either the ERC721 or ERC1155 standards, offered in a fixed price format.
A new batch of assets will be released on weekly basis. Each listing will be priced in Ether, the native currency of Ethereum. Purchase will only be payable in ETH or VALOR using a Web3 wallet. There will be a discounted price available to those who pay in VALOR.
After a successful purchase, the asset will be transferred to the user’s VALOR Prime custodial wallet. If the user does not wish to keep the asset custodied within VALOR Prime, then they can request a withdrawal from within the application.Functionality features VALOR Prime
With this strategic move SMART VALOR, as the first European digital asset exchange extends the range of available assets to NFTs, creating new investable assets and leading the innovation in the space of asset tokenization.
[1] .https://pomp.substack.com/p/the-next-big-bet-digital-art