According to the recent announcement, NEM (XEM) and Symbol have teamed up with the Wall Street crypto firm, Valkyrie Investments, which will now be in charge of the project’s $700 million token treasury.
An interesting new collaboration is born
The new multisignature setup was completed on January 25th, 2022, and it is an important development for the crypto industry, as it ties two very different corners of crypto.Valkyrie, as mentioned, is a Wall Street financing company that has developed an interest in Bitcoin futures ETF .Meanwhile, Symbol is one of many blockchain protocols that aim to become the future of finance.It acts as NEM’s tokenization blockchain.
Welcome, [@ValkyrieFunds] .
— Symbol & NEM (@NEMofficial) [January 28, 2022]
Having these two companies collaborate to the point where Valkyrie is getting the hold of Symbol’s treasury might seem odd at first, given that the crypto industry has rather strong opinions on pseudonymous treasury management.However, this was not a unique move, as only days ago, a reserve currency protocol called Wonderland counted Michael Patryn as its keeper of coin.
Patryn is also known as one of the co-founders of QuadrigaCX , a failed Canadian crypto exchange whose CEO passed away several years ago, leaving all of the exchange’s funds permanently locked up, as he was the only one who had access to them.
As for NEM and Symbol, these are two separate protocols that voted to merge some time ago.They already have a history with treasury management, which is why the project’s core contributor, Hatchet, kept insisting that the projects partner up in order to salvage their reputation.
Hatchet claimed that teaming up with someone like Valkyrie would make the project seem more trustworthy in the eyes of the community, as there would be “a second pair of eyes” or a “second set of governance, making sure that these funds are actually being used for the benefit of NEM and Symbol community.”
Details about the partnership
According to what is known, the partnership comes as a multi-signature smart contract that holds nearly 3 billion NEM, or around $295 million.
Four signatures are controlled by Valkyrie officials, while core contributors, including Jaguar, Gimre, and Hatchet, have the other three.
With a total of five signatures being necessary to execute, at least one of the core contributors will have to agree with the new treasury management officials in order for something to happen.
Valkyrie CEO, Leah Wald, stated that the company is likely the only one working with a DAO and protocol treasury as an asset manager.Wald’s firm will be an in-house finance team, taking over the jobs such as accounting, auditing, asset management, and more.
Interestingly enough, the move did not cause nearly any backlash.The change was executed via a hard fork, where 92% of validators approved of it.Now, communities of Symbol and NEM are hoping for Valkyrie to be their finance guru.
Wald believes that there is great potential in servicing the treasury of a DAO and that Valkyrie is already in talks with several more protocols.
To learn more about this token visit our Investing in NEM guide..
