Startup DriveWealth Dives into Crypto with Softbank Backing

SoftBank has been one of the major investors in blockchain technologies and FinTech companies. DriveWealth will use the backing to implement a fully functioning crypto financial service platform, and become one of the largest market makers in the industry.

According to a report by CNBC, DriveWealth had seen immense growth over the past two years, and secured backing from some of the largest venture capital firms like SoftBank's Vision Fund, Insight Partners, and Point72 Ventures.

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In fact, the FinTech startup acquired Crypto-Systems and its blockchain platform with "an end-to-end crypto-trading system" so customers are eligible to trade in major digital assets like BTC or ETH. 

With the acquisition, DriveWealth will be launching its own crypto exchange platform called DriveDigital for investors to trade their cryptocurrencies via access to its API.

With a value of $2.85B, the New Jersey-based FinTech firm seeks to make a more transparent crypto market, with more effective ways of trading digital assets that would not require large gas fees:

"To become a commercially viable product, you can’t have those types of transaction costs. It’s coming out of the wallets of the customers." - Bob Cortright, CEO of DriveWealth.

Likewise, DriveWealth’s CEO threw some shade on Coinbase, saying that due to crypto-assets being heavily regulated, customers "get more focused on spreads and efficiency", and that the transaction fees on the exchange are "too much."

With Coinbase being one of the top cryptocurrency exchanges in the industry, and despite it having high transaction fees, the DriveWealth startup has a long way to go, in terms of security, data privacy, and speed that only a few crypto exchanges have fully covered.