In The Metaverse, Santander Hosts a Digital Awards Ceremony

As the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry continues to expand, major financial institutions are displaying an increasing interest in participating in the market. A event to hand out awards is being planned by one such organization, the multinational financial conglomerate Santander, and it will take place in the metaverse.

According to the notice that was published on Santander’s website on July 7, the financial institution is going to hold an awards ceremony for its “Santander X Global Challenge | Blockchain” on July 14 in the Decentraland metaverse.

The competition, which was run in conjunction with the Oxentia Foundation and had a total of approximately 400 entries, will specifically be brought to a close during the event. After the application deadline, which was on June 9th, 2022, a panel of international specialists examined all of the submissions and picked 20 individuals to proceed to the next phase. The deadline for applications was on June 9th, 2022.

At Santander’s Fintech Station on July 7th, these finalists delivered presentations on their respective ideas to the open innovation team.

The greatest providers of solutions that are centered on technologies will be picked from among the twenty businesses that have been shortlisted as finalists. Six of these companies will receive the honor. A few examples of these technologies are the enhancement and expansion of digital interactions via Web3 and the metaverse, as well as the provision of privacy and security for blockchains. The 10 companies considered to be startups and the ten companies considered to be scaleups that were picked as finalists are the companies who will fight with one another for this prize.

These six winners will be presented with a total of €120,000 (about $121,985) during the awards ceremony. Each of the three winning startups will receive €10,000, and each of the three winning scaleups will receive €30,000.

In addition to this, they will be invited to join Santander X 100, an international network for business owners that is being established by the bank. They will have access to a range of resources as a result of this, including training as well as money, clients, and relationships.

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It was reported in November 2021 that Banco Santander was getting set to launch the first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in Spain. This was according to a news that was published at that time. According to Ana Boton, Executive Chairperson of Banco Santander, the most important aspect that drove this move was the demand from customers. Since that point in time, no new information has been disclosed to the general public.

More recently, the United Kingdom arm of the Santander group produced a research saying that the number of frauds involving celebrity endorsement of cryptocurrencies in the United Kingdom surged by 61 percent in the first quarter of 2022. The report was authored by Santander UK. The report also made the prediction that the number of fraudulent activities would almost certainly increase by 87 percent between the years 2021 and 2022.