A Singapore-based blockchain network has surpassed $1b in market cap

Welcome to the three comma club.

The total value of tokens on Zilliqa, a blockchain network founded by a Singapore-based company with the same name, has broken through the billion-dollar barrier, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Zilliqa is the second Singapore-based blockchain firm to achieve the feat. Qtum was the first. Zilliqa’s bull run began in April, days after it released a prototype (a “testnet” in crypto-lingo) of its blockchain, which aims to process far more transactions per second than Ethereum can manage.

The startup is one of many teams scrambling to solve Ethereum’s so-called scalability problem, which proponents say prevents blockchain from achieving its true potential.

The fuel for the latest price surge appears to be news of its involvement in Inmediate, a project that seeks to build blockchain-based insurance products. Joining Zilliqa as the project’s launch partners are consultancy firm Deloitte and insurer FWD. Zilliqa will give app developers access to its infrastructure.

Excitement may also be building for an upcoming announcement on May 23, when Zilliqa is scheduled to reveal more partners.

Zilliqa’s immense market cap is typical in the blockchain space. Companies can raise tens of millions within seconds with just a whitepaper and no workable product. Many scams have also been carried out under the guise of an initial coin offering (ICO).

However, Zilliqa’s team is stacked with technical talent – its chief executive and head of technology hold PhDs in computer science from the National University of Singapore. The original idea was first described in 2015 in a research paper by Prateek Saxena – who is now Zilliqa’s chief scientific advisor – and Loi Luu – who advises the company even as he’s running Kyber Network, a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange.

In addition, unlike many startups in the space, Zilliqa had a proof-of-concept before it raised money. An internal test in 2017 saw its blockchain surpass 2,488 transactions per second, which is over 200 times of Ethereum’s current throughput. As a result, its ICO became one of the largest in Singapore.

“We think in the blockchain space, an innovative team with the timely delivery of promises apparently is highly rewarded,” says Dong Xinshu, CEO of Zilliqa.

That said, like all blockchain startups, Zilliqa faces an unpredictable future due to the nascency of the technology. It’s unclear which scalability solutions will prevail, whether it’s Ethereum alternatives like EOS or Cardano, or Ethereum extensions like the Plasma project. Overcoming the network effects that Ethereum already enjoys – its market cap at US$80 billion is second only to Bitcoin – is a difficult hill to climb.

Zilliqa’s gameplan is to invest in tools to enhance its platform for building decentralized apps (dapps). “We are going to roll out good tools for developers to write new secure smart contracts or migrate existing ones onto Zilliqa. We are also planning for growth programs to grow the ecosystem together with our partners and Dapp developers,” says Dong.