Blockchain has seen multiple use cases over the years, from simple payment coins to tokenizing art. But there is a class of projects aiming to build solutions to last over the years, with a level of complexity rivaling traditional business and financial structures.
The creation of blockchain ecosystems can boost the case for automated insurance processes. The track record of transactions, combined with the potential to collect and timestamp reliable data and events opens the door to a new insurance marketplace on the blockchain.
Platform projects have branched out into multiple niches, including insurance targeted both to the wider market, and to crypto-specific events and risks. We looked at the state of the market and the niches taken by platforms promising to build democratic token-based economies with multiple features. We picked up and coming projects that started their expansion in the past few months, with the potential to ride alongside another bull market for both coins and tokens.
While Ethereum remains the leading platform, others, like Chainlink or BinanceChain offer tokenization potential and automation. This opens the door to complex marketplaces and multiple economic relations, creating the need to create insurance products.
Antier Solutions has dedicated its efforts to building a vast portfolio of related services, which encompass most of the achievements within the crypto space from the past five years. Antier focuses on the possibilities of enterprise blockchain services to transform businesses.
The services offered by Antier allow a business to acquire the key infrastructure and join several powerful trends first sparked by crypto startups. Antier offers technology to build exchanges with a powerful trading engine, and has solutions for proprietary smart contracts, coin and token issuance, wallet creation and consulting on other types of platforms.
Antier also adds the functionality of issuing regulator-approved security tokens, making all of the crypto infrastructure fully transparent and capable of withstanding any regulatory scrutiny.
Additionally, Antier has packages to power new businesses in decentralized finance and derivatives trading. The available technologies allow for the creation of a decentralized finance business, including tools to cover insurance claims.
The rise of DeFi and collateralized loans, as well as yield farming, has accelerated the demand for products to protect the invested principal. Even the non-fungible token (NFT) market has issued its own forms of protection to de-risk a valuable digital asset.
Mosaics Markets also centers around the idea of an economy based on voluntary participation and tokenization. Mosaics aims to build wider tokenization of assets, making investment opportunities live as smart contracts on the blockchain.
The goal of Mosaics Markets is more specific about the type of tokens it aims to create. Mostly, the project is interested in various forms of fractional ownership. Such ownership has been tested through tokenization, selling properties around the world to investors willing to test a new type of token.
Mosaics is built upon an optimistic prediction of the token economy, envisioning $24 trillion in assets by 2027. Currently, the entire crypto market of coins and tokens has some catching up to do, as its total valuation is about $3 trillion.
To draw in clients, Mosaics focuses on the process of creating and distributing tokens for its clients, covering the entire lifecycle of a digital solution. Assets under consideration include bonds, securities, funds, private equity, real estate, musical copyrights, artworks and collectible wines. While not directly involved with insurance, Mosaics is a tool for risk mitigation through investment in alternative assets.
Mosaics has two way of touching blockchain-based insurance. For one, it is creating a marketplace which can itself host insurance products and help underwriters. Another important feature is data collection and fraud prevention, a key element in assessing digital environment risk.
Etherisk built a fully decentralized insurance protocol for both external and crypto-related risks. The project hinges on the Ethereum capability for smart contracts. It builds upon a use case for triggering on-chain events based on real-world events supplied by oracles.
Etherisk combines insurance for factors like hurricanes or flight delays. The project also built crypto-specific products, insuring both wallets and collaterals in crypto-denominated financial operations and collateralized loans.
True to its decentralization idea, Etherisk has created tools to build tailored insurance products for third parties. Insurance on the Ethereum blockchain can look as simple as a smart contract which will automatically reimburse a customer if their flight information shows a delay. At the same time, the insurance ecosystem can be grown with additional elements, to add oracles, risk pool keepers, resellers and underwriters.
Etherisk unites various participants, including developers as well as product architects and risk-takers. The possibility for smart contracts achieves immediate distribution of fees and commissions, ensuring a fair cut for all participants in the ecosystem.
Tierion tackles the data side of blockchain-based insurance. The data-rich world of events meets the immutability of the blockchain, to create a connected world of potential claims and event triggers.
Blockchain insurance has the distinguishing trait of being potentially immediate. The payout and event can follow each other automatically through the algorithm of a smart contract.
Tierion has built the Chainpoint network, creating a hub to anchor data to the blockchain and get an immutable timestamp. The process ensures proof of integrity and can become the hub for additional insurance procedures. Tierion is also considered one of the most active projects in crypto insurance, though its technology does not deal with product creation.
The crypto-based insurance sector spans up to 700 companies, each with its unique profile. It is difficult to categorize each startup immediately, but taken together, all make up a powerful platform for innovations.
Blockchain-based insurance operations can be faster and leaner, relying on automated responses instead of paperwork to file a claim.
The growing demand for decentralized trading, derivatives and crypto lending has also opened the role for insurance issuer for those crypto-specific risks. Collateralized lending may need an additional insurance to boost safety and avoid the worst losses during unexpected trading conditions.