Uphold and Voxelus co-founder and chairman Halsey Minor. It turns out that the relationship between fintech startup Uphold and the speculative, non-tradable cryptocurrency "Voxel" it’s holding in its coffers is more complex than we first thought.
Business Insider reported last month that Uphold was holding $116 million (£81.9 million) in Voxels , a new digital currency issued by a separate company called Voxelus. (The value of the holding has since shifted to $115.95 million.)
Uphold is a "cloud money" platform — it lets you hold, move, and convert money cheaply on its online platform. It caters for 25 currencies, including bitcoin, and 4 precious metals.
Voxelus, meanwhile, is a virtual reality company aiming to build a marketplace for virtual reality goods and objects. The Voxel was created as the "coin of the realm" for this new virtual reality marketplace, yet to be launched.
Voxelus’s co-founder and chairman, Halsey Minor, is also the co-founder and chair of Uphold. Voxelus is issuing the new cryptocurrency while Uphold is offering to hold it and build a market infrastructure.
When BI first reported on the deal, Uphold’s CEO Anthony Watson told BI there was no conflict of interest in the contract despite Minor’s role at both companies. He also insisted that the company had no financial interest in the Voxel’s success and said that the Voxels it was holding were held on behalf of clients.
He told BI: "Let’s say Voxel goes to zero tomorrow — no one’s interested in it, no one wants to buy it. That makes zero difference to us. We’re simply holding it in wallets. We’re not actively trading it and we’re not actively backing the asset either."
"The reason why we have a large amount of Voxel on our platform is because we are the only company, so far, that allows you to hold […]
