FinTech Connect 2024
04 Oct, 2024
Dacxi is the champion of democratising cryptocurrency and decentralised finance (or DeFi) within the UK. Both a wealth building platform and learning hub, it has led the charge in building a network of independent investors and partners It is now extending its activity to educating financial advisors and pension providers about the role digital currencies and tokens can play in portfolio asset allocation.
Whilst the world of tokenised assets is expanding exponentially, Dacxi is selective in only offering ‘Blue Chip’ coins, selected challenger ‘altcoins’ and tokenised precious metals on its website. MD Katharine Wooller is clear that the business focus is not to act as an ‘exchange’ but a way for investors to build a crypto asset base:
‘We don’t see Dacxi as a trading platform – there is plenty of choice for those who want to buy and sell on a speculative basis, trying to time the market for short term gain. Rather, at Dacxi, we believe in ‘time in the market’ recommending a long-term buy-and-hold strategy.’
The business has also worked with external partners to develop ways to shelter capital gains made through crypto from tax. On the one hand it works with SSaS pension providers with clients looking to diversify 5-10% of their portfolios into assets that have the potential to significantly outperform traditional retirement assets. On the other, it has developed a ‘Cryptocurrency ISA’ that works through a Director’s Loan scheme.
The Dacxi board takes developing relationships with financial intermediaries seriously. Gareth Cleverly, Dacxi Sales Director, is about to embark on a series of ‘Lunch and Learn’ roadshows dedicated to financial services professionals:
‘We appreciate that to truly democratise crypto we have to demystify a sector that is only now starting to be taken seriously. It is clear that businesses like ours need to establish crypto’s bona fides. We’ve already seen the importance of this, working with individual investors at the start
Underpinning those bona fides is the certainty that global commerce needs global currencies to reduce the transactional time and expense of foreign exchange and escape the propensity for central banks and sovereign nations to roll their printing presses and flood financial ecosystems with fiat currency, causing inflation.
‘For us it is not a question of ‘if’, but ‘when’ DeFi will become the global transactional exchange system of choice,’ says Wooller. ‘It’s not going to happen overnight, and it may not immediately affect the average man and woman at street level but, with multi-national businesses and financial services giants like PayPal and Visa gearing up for crypto, it will happen with increasing speed.’
At first sight, in technology terms, the Dacxi offering may look little more than a digital wallet. However, the business has ‘skin in the game’ deep in the blockchain business through its own digital currency ‘Dacxicoin’. Designed to be a community coin and funding tool. It runs on Dacxi’s own proprietary blockchain technology which has been developed in-house and is called ‘The Dacxichain’.
Dacxicoin is available on Dacxi’s own platform and is also traded on several Tier 2 exchanges. The sum total of Dacxicoin issued will be limited to 10 billion, thus representing a wealth building opportunity for investors and those working within the Dacxi ecosystem. Future applications for Dacxicoin include ‘crowd funding/lending’ for tech businesses, particularly start-ups, providing an opportunity for small independent investors to access exciting new ventures from initial offerings upwards.
By 2025, through Dacxicoin, the business aspires to have:
·100 countries with a national licensee operating in a powerful global network. Licensed, regulated and managed locally.
·Each country will have opportunities and access to new product sectors from Property Crowdfunding to Local Crypto. All designed to help them build wealth as quickly and safely as possible.
·A global innovation funding system that has the power to significantly fund opportunities in every country where Dacxi operates.
·A community of customers and investors supported locally, yet connected globally, able to introduce their friends and share their ideas and successes.
The transactions within each country, and within the global network make up what’s called the ‘Dacxi Economy.’ The value of all of these elements has the potential to be in billions of dollars.
Naturally, security for customers within the Dacxi ecosystem is paramount, as Sales Director Gareth Cleverly points out:
‘Everything at Dacxi starts with security and it is one of the few exchange platforms where the ‘front-end’ interface is independently rated as A+. Also 98% of crypto assets are held in ‘cold’ wallets away from ‘hacking’ and the remaining 2% are held in hot wallets which are backed by cash reserves for full 100% security. The company does not risk its business by lending-out its customers’ assets.’
With regard to democratising crypto, MD Katharine Wooller has paid particular attention to building and encouraging a ‘women in crypto’ community, running webinars and face-to-face training sessions designed to upskill women.
‘Women traditionally prefer to save rather than invest,’ she says. ‘Crypto is a way to do both and our community of crypto ladies have been early adopters of regular monthly investing, following the concept of “pound cost averaging” to de-risk their portfolios from volatility and take advantage of buying the dips and running with the market upsides.’
As you might expect one of Dacxi’s main challenges is the noise created by the plethora of naysayers with regard to the future of crypto. Wooller’s response has been ‘education, education, education’, from grassroots level up to engaging with the FSA. Not surprisingly she has become one of the UK’s most sought-after commentators on ‘all things crypto’.
Almost five years after its inception in 2017, Dacxi has carved out a unique position and proposition as the UK’s ‘champion of crypto’. Already it is looking towards the implications of what Web 3.0 and the Metaverse will mean to its business, partners and customers.
‘They may say that money never sleeps, but crypto is money on steroids having just had a major caffeine hit,’ Wooller claims.
She and the business have their eyes facing positively to the future. And there seems little chance they’ll blink.