Switzerland-based EOE Foundation Ltd., an all-in-one “Exchange of Exchanges” blockchain global asset ledger, announced today that the company has raised $10 million led by Lion Financial Group.

With this funding round, EOE also announced that it is ready to begin the first phase of the launch of its platform and establish a membership system and upload mechanism for asset data.

EOE uses a blockchain distributed ledger to connect financial institutions such as international exchanges and banks in order to enable transactions with digital assets.

Financial instruments and assets that can be exchanged include stocks, bonds, derivatives, digital currencies, digital derivatives, and various indexed, structured financial products. Although the system is not necessarily limited to these types of assets, they are the most popular for exchange.

“The blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value,” said Rex Li, an independent director at EOE.

With the EOE blockchain, not only are asset exchanges secure and tamperproof, but the chain also adds the ability for trading entities – individual people and institutions – to connect with one account and one Know Your Customer process. KYC policies are an important part of regulations governing financial exchange as part of anti-money laundering and investigating fraud.

According to EOE, most of the world’s major financial exchanges are currently relatively independent — for example, major cryptocurrency exchanges — and asset prices on exchanges are not linked. As a result, market liquidity is lower than it could be and too many positions are held by exchanges or market makers, which EOE claims lead to increased risk.

At the same time, traditional financial institutions and fragmented financial markets make it difficult to construct optimal investment portfolios.

To correct this, EOE seeks to build what it calls an all-asset-class trading platform called “Universal Ledger” based on blockchain technology designed to connect financial markets around the world.

This ledger platform will do so using what is called an industry-driven electronic communication protocol called the Financial Information Exchange, or FIX, application programming interface. With the FIX API, developers at financial technology institutions can quickly build automated applications that can interface with EOE’s blockchain and exchange assets on its platform.

Investments in blockchain platforms and startups have been booming since 2015, especially in the arena of financial technology where blockchain has been sought by the industry to increase security and efficiency for trading securities. Last year alone, investments in blockchain businesses amassed $4.5 billion (with more than $2 billion from token sales and digital assets).

Blockchains for financial institutions seek to connect separate systems to allow swifter resolution of trades, lower human error and counteract potential fraud. Startups working on this interconnective technology include Spring Labs Inc., which raised $14 million in March, Digital Asset LLC, which raised $40 million in October, and Chain Inc. Older, more traditional institutions have also sought blockchain solutions, including the American stock exchange Nasdaq and Australia’s primary stock exchange Australian Securities Exchange Ltd. Credit Suisse Group AG and ING Groep NV recently completed a transfer of $30 million worth of securities using a purpose-built blockchain.

Because of regulatory concerns, EOE’s global asset chain does not currently serve China, the United States, Cuba or North Korea. The company currently serves Hong Kong, Singapore and Southeast Asia, but EOE is looking to expand to the U.S. and United Kingdom in late 2018.

Image: EOE Foundation