Inside the 50-Person Startup Behind Equity Product xStocks

xStocks:- Backed, the company founded by former Quantum Physicist Adam Levi has been making waves in the hot trend of tokenized equities.

The 2021-founded startup has been signing parternships with leading crypto exchanges such as Kraken, Bybit, crypto.com and blockchains Solana, BNB Chain, among other big names. The centre of all these partnerships is its RWA product, xStocks. Made live on 30 June, the product allows users to trade tokenized equities of the likes of Microsoft, Apple, and ETFs directly from their partnered Exchange account.

The popularity of its product is exemplified by the metrics available on Solana. Number of wallets on Solana holding xStocks has increased dramatically from just 4400 on July 3 to over 33,300 on July 5.

Also Read: xStocks Expand to Solana

Backed: The Startup Born From DAOstack’s Lessons

xStocks and its creator Backed have caught news headlines in the past month only. However, Dr. Adam Levi, the Co-founder and CTO of Backed have been working on the vision of tokenized equities – Backed – for the past 4 years.

He holds a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from Technion with research on quantum effects near black holes.

In an interview, he explained that the reason why tokenized equities are now gaining momentum is because “people understand that after stablecoins, this is the next game and it is being seen as the best way to scale crypto.” He also believes that the adoption has something to do with the generational change as well. For today’s generation, “Trading tokens is the way for them to own financial stocks unlike previous ones who preferred Bank notes and real stocks.”

As per company’s official website, Backed’s other two co-founders are:-

2. Yehonatan Goldman (COO) who holds a Master’s in Cultural Heritage Conservation. He founded an art gallery, and worked as a project manager.

3. Roberto Klein, the Legal Lead who holds both a B.S. and M.S. from Tel Aviv University and works on legal and regulatory expertise

It is interesting to note that all the three founders of Backed have previously worked at DAOstack – the DAO infrastructure platform. However, the trio’s decentralized coordination operating system failed miserably in 2020 with the token GEN coming to zero liquidity. Now, the team has returned under their new project Backed and is making waves in the tokenized space.

Behind the minds of 50 People

The Backed team is scaling globally on the back of just 30-50 employees with main focuses on legal compliances and technical developments.

As the distinguished element, Backed involves leadership roles such as Growth Manager given to aspiring ones who do not really show much experience in crypto. This strategy by the start-up has perhaps helped it in bringing fresh perspectives and breaking the traditional mechanisms. e.g. its Software Team Leader Nata Naradotski

Though its all three co-founders are Israelies, the company’s headquarters are based in Zug,Switzerland – one of the most crypto-friendly and well-regulated jurisdictions in the world.

Whats Next for the Pioneering Player

Currently, xStocks is functioning as a tokenized equities product by Backed Finance and is listed on platforms like Kraken, Bybit, and in Solana DeFi (Raydium, Jupiter, Kamino). It currently includes only 60 tokenized equities and is expected to expand beyong it in near future.

But based on recent updates, the official xStocks website now says “Dashboard Coming Soon”. This strongly suggests that xStocks is developing into a standalone platform or portal.

While not officially confirmed, based on Backed’s roadmap and DeFi trends, the xStocks dashboard might allow the users to manage all their tokenized equity assets under one place. This may include Portfolio tracking, On-chain trading UI, Bridge options (Solana to BNB, etc.), Asset minting/redemption tools for institutions and Analytics on tokenized stock performance.

Thus, with no doubt Backed is leading the race where its competitors are the likes of established players such as Robinhood and novices like Gemini partner Dinari. However, the tokenized equity space is set to get fiercely competitive pushing the 50 minds to work beyond their limits.

Disclaimer: The content may include the personal opinion of the author and is subject to market conditions. Do your market research before investing in cryptocurrencies. The author or the publication does not hold any responsibility for your personal financial loss.