The capitalization of EGLD, a cryptocurrency launched by Romanian startup Elrond, reached USD 1 billion - prompting headlines about the second Romanian unicorn (after the robotic process automation, or RPA, leader UiPath), Ziarul Financiar reported.

Elrond claims to have developed "the most advanced blockchain in the world," which all the other startups will use to develop applications.

The models behind the two businesses (and inherently the valuation) are, however, very different: the owners of EGLD cryptocurrency (as opposed to owners of a company's shares such as UiPath) are entitled only to benefits derived from the value of the currency in their portfolio, and not to benefits derived from company's revenues (such as dividends), other assets or the voting rights - like in the case of the shareholders.

Citing the cryptocurrency capitalization (as a proxy for its value), Elrond declared itself the second Romanian unicorn on January 28.

"I congratulate the team, the community, and the partners for their efforts! It's just day one. Elrond is at the beginning of a period of accelerated expansion, and the next step for us is the launch of the Maiar mobile application. From books, we switched to eBooks, from mail to eMail, and from gold to eGold," said Beniamin Mincu, one of the founders and CEO of the company, quoted by Profit.ro.

"This growth comes amid significant increase that we have seen on the one hand at the macro level and the interest expressed by institutional investors and retail investors from all over the world in blockchain technology and the progress that is taking place in this industry. On the other hand, we have launched the network, we are live, and we currently have probably the most advanced and most efficient blockchain network in the world, so we are very excited. We probably have over 100 partners trying to integrate the network or build directly on Elrond. Moreover, we will launch an application that is highly anticipated, an application called Maiar. All this puts us on a path that will be at least remarkable in the next period," Mincu said recently, explaining his company's success.

iulian@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Facebook/Beniamin Mincu)