Kasikorn Business Technology Group (KBTG), has announced the launch of Kasikorn X, which will act as a venture capital group that will spin-off ventures in the DeFI space and grow them into separate and strong businesses as part of its entry into the DeFi space.
The bank also announced the launch of an NFT marketplace called Coral which it says would be to encourage artists from Thailand and the rest of Asia to launch their creations on the blockchain in what is seen as a move to make hay while the sun shines on the DeFi and NFT space. The idea would be to sell the artwork to a global audience and also build a creator economy around the marketplace which would be beneficial for content creators in the long run as it would help them to monetize their content.
“We established KX as a launchpad of the new S-curve startups for growth by incubating and scaling them as well as making a spin-off. KX will mainly focus on decentralized finance [DeFi],” said Ruangroj “Krathing” Poonpol, group chairman of KBTG.
This is not the first foray of the bank into the digital asset space as it had previously launched a company called Kubix which is into the ICO portal business. This shows the continuous growth of the blockchain and crypto industry in recent times with many businesses looking to enter into the space and it is only in recent times that the financial firms in the region seem to be understanding the underlying potential of crypto. It is expected that the Coral NFT platform would go live by the end of the year and the bank plans to get in revenue by charging platform fees.
The NFT industry in Thailand is already worth millions of dollars and it is expected to grow even further in the coming months and it is only natural that the bank, which is a strong believer in the crypto industry, would want to capitalize on this growth. It is also reported that the bank would be looking to enter into the blockchain gaming industry as well as expand its footprint into digital music, videos, and other items that can be tokenized in the future.
