Tangany Recap 2021

Tangany Recap 2021

Last year has seen a bull market for cryptocurrencies and overall increased interest in blockchain-based solutions and assets. Bitcoin and other major assets reached a new all-time high and innovations such as NFTs started their way into mainstream adoption.

Furthermore, in Tangany’s space a lot happened. Service providers like Curv, Unbound, GK8, and BitGo were acquired and often vanished from the market. Others like Upvest did a full pivot to new horizons and challenges. This created a lot of uncertainty for many projects as switching the custodian can be very complex and expensive.

This underlined, even more, our core value of reliability in all forms. Tangany has been and will be the trustworthy white-label custodian for blockchain-based products and services. The course is set. Additionally, we were one of only three licensed crypto custodians and were also the first preliminary licensed crypto security register manager in Germany in 2021. And yet, this is only the top of what happened in 2021.

The 2021 Recap

2021 started where 2020 has left off, the market gained more traction and so did our solution to empower various business cases related to cryptocurrencies, tokenized real-world assets, or crypto-native applications such as NFT, staking, and more.

The first half-year of 2021 was dedicated to the onboarding of new clients and overall growth. We also deepened partnerships with strategic players on the market to create very complementary products and market offers. A bit more visibility came with the test by TiAM magazine in regards to the ‘best German crypto custodian’ where Tangany has been chosen as the winner in a strong environment with Coinbase and others.

In October 2021, we received the long-awaited letter by BaFin granting us the crypto custody license. Since then, we are officially listed in BaFin’s company database of regulated institutes. A huge milestone, considering that more than 50 applicants have been sent, and still, as of today in early 2022, only three licenses were granted. Shortly after, we also received the preliminary crypto security register manager license for the newly introduced crypto security. A security solely based on the blockchain — 100% digital. Without a doubt a remarkable step forward in the German regulation.

Also in late 2021, we were once again awarded with the FinTech Germany Award 2021. The second time after 2020. That is great market feedback aside from the pure client growth.

From a product view also much has happened last year. We introduced new functionalities for our supported protocols Bitcoin and Ethereum with the release of 1.7 and 1.8 of our solution. Since then, our solution is EVM-ready, meaning that technically we support any EVM-compatible blockchain by default. This includes popular chains like Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, but also upcoming promising solutions like Arbitrum, Optimism, Cronos, or Aurora. Our API enables clients to interact with any given smart contract on any EVM chain (see the full list of supported EVM chains).

The Tangany Custody Suite consists of our powerful self-developed warm wallet API and our offline/cold wallet solutions (using both, HSM and MPC technology). Powering tokenization, crypto custody, crypto trading (with partners) and crypto-native applications like NFTs, staking and pooling.

2021 in Numbers

As every year, we also want to share some numbers.

In 2021 Tangany was utilised by 39 partners, as we were able to onboard 23 new institutions and Fin-Techs. This number includes mostly regulated institutions or service providers. A growth of 116% year on year. Most of the partners are based in Germany (65%) and Europe. However, we also see global demand for our solution from Asia, America, and even Africa. Tangany’s solution is worldwide acknowledged for its quality and reliability.

The growth ensured that 2021 was commercially a profitable year for Tangany as our revenue has grown by 480%. This growth is also reflected in our team growth. By the end of 2021, we were 22 members and aim to grow to a size of 50 by the end of 2022.

The assets that are stored with Tangany, are reflecting the full range of known assets on the blockchain. The majority are security tokens (52%) based on Ethereum, but also cryptocurrencies (24%) such as Bitcoin and Ether and utility tokens (17%) have a high share on the distribution cake. Stable coins are a minority and NFTs are not included in the summary as price determination is still vague.

Although Tangany turned from a tech company to a regulated financial service institute, tech is still our DNA. The following figures are related to more technical aspects. In 2021 the uptime of the service was over 99.8%, which is an increase of 0.2% compared to the year before. Our system has handled more than 95,451,000 requests via API.

While Bitcoin and Ethereum were the dominant layers in 2020, in 2021 the focus has frayed to other chains. Bitcoin and Ethereum are still the leaders, yet we have seen significant demand for Polygon and Binance Smart Chain as well.

Outlook 2022

We enter 2022 with the release of version 1.9, which introduces support for Tezos blockchains including smart contract ability and support for NFTs on Tezos. Next will be our new Partner Portal, which enables our clients and partners to manage their Tangany accounts and to gain more insights about their assets at a glance. The first crypto security using our custody solution will be launched in Q1 2022. And we have a lot more in store like more direct crypto staking and investment activities for our clients and partners.

In accordance with the growth also our team will be expanded. We aim to be 50 employees before the end of 2022 and to go more into full remote setups. In parallel, we also prepare branches outside of Munich, Germany. Depending on how the total COVID situation evolves further, we might also have to relocate our headquarter to ensure that enough spaces are available for on-site team members.

Regulation like MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) on the EU level is already on the horizon to harmonize VASPs (virtual assets service providers) across Europe. This will allow us to expand our business more actively outside of Germany.

We are bullish that 2022 will be another incredible year for blockchain and digital assets.

We wish all our partners and the European blockchain ecosystem a great year ahead.