CrescoFin: interview with founder Robert Sharratt

A new project is emerging during these days: CrescoFin, which caught our interest because of its interesting partnerships with world-famous companies like Aave and Chainlink.

Why did you choose an IDO (Initial DEX Offering) rather than an ICO (Initial Coin Offering)?

We wanted to build a strong community and also establish a liquid market for our token holders.  We are excited to be the first regulated company to offer real equity in tokenized form in crypto.  By starting on DODO and then moving to Balancer we were able to distribute a good number of tokens at a low price, much lower than if we had offered the tokens on Uniswap, as the curves are more beneficial to the community.  

Why did you choose the Ethereum blockchain?

We chose Ethereum so that we can interact with other great projects that are also building on Ethereum.  For example, we have a partnership with Aave to build a money market for our insured collateral.  

What is the wCRES equity token?

The wCRES token is an ERC20 token that can be exchangeable into CRES tokens.  The CRES token is also an ERC20 and it represents real equity in a Swiss regulated company. 

The tokens are protected by Swiss law and there is an absolute maximum number of tokens that can be minted (12 million, of which 10 million are in existence).   There is no advance requirement to purchase the tokens; anyone can buy them. This exactly matches Swiss law: anyone can buy shares of Swiss companies, like Nestle.  However, to register to vote, you need to inform the company and do a simple identity process.  If you are not on a Swiss government sanctions list then you are automatically accepted.  Then, it is also easy to switch back to wCRES for trading if people want.  

In which macro category of DeFi do you operate?

The company is not pure DeFi, since we bridge the traditional and crypto world.  Since we operate in the real economy, there is an element of centralization that cannot be avoided.  

We don’t fit easily into existing DeFi categories.  We are really the first technology alternative to a bank account and we compete with commercial banks.  Our view is that crypto will eventually lead to more and more people having their savings on-chain and this is the market we want to capture.  We also intend to bring our institutional users to crypto.  

DeFi implies that there is no interaction with the traditional world, not even KYC, which you are using, wouldn’t it be better to say you are CeFi?

The company differs from centralized entities like banks by being built on Ethereum.  So, we don’t have our own in-house black box databases.  However, while CrescoFin is non-custodial, it is permissioned, since we are regulated.  Swiss law is quite clear about crypto and KYC and we feel that Switzerland is one of the best countries in which to be operating a crypto project.  Our view is that KYC and regulation is inevitable if you are creating financial products.  For attracting institutional users, dealing with a regulated entity is a requirement.  

Have you encountered issues with Swiss legislation?

Swiss legislation has been very clear about crypto for some time and it is a supportive environment in Switzerland.  The country itself has a decentralized political model that perhaps has encouraged crypto adoption.  Swiss legislation continues to evolve in a positive direction, including recognizing on-chain transactions as legally valid.  Swisscom runs a blockchain integrated KYC process.  A number of canton governments have even put their company registry on-chain.  

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