Santander will hold digital awards event in metaverse

Major financial institutions are showing a rising interest in the blockchain and cryptocurrency business as it continues to grow. One such institution, the banking behemoth Santander is organizing an awards ceremony that will take place in the metaverse.

According to the announcement that was posted on Santander’s website on July 7, the bank is planning to host an awards ceremony in the Decentraland metaverse on July 14 for its “Santander X Global Challenge | Blockchain.”

In particular, the ceremony marks the conclusion of the competition that was organized in collaboration with the Oxentia Foundation and received a total of around 400 submissions. Following the application deadline, which was on June 9th, 2022, a panel of international specialists evaluated all of the submissions and shortlisted 20 candidates to move on to the next round.

On the 7th of July, these finalists gave presentations on their solutions to the open innovation team at Santander’s Fintech Station.

Six of the twenty companies that have been chosen as finalists will be selected as the best providers of solutions that focus on technologies. These technologies include enhancing and expanding digital interactions through Web3 and the metaverse, as well as privacy and security for blockchains. The ten startups and ten scaleups that have been chosen as finalists are the companies that will compete for this award.

At the awards event, these six winners will get a total of €120,000 (about $121,985): each of the three winning startups will receive €10,000, and each of the three winning scaleups will receive €30,000.

They will also become a part of Santander X 100, a global community for entrepreneurs that is being created by the bank. This will give them access to a variety of tools, including training, funding, clients, and connections.

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According to a story that was published in November 2021, Banco Santander was getting ready to establish the first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in Spain. The key factor driving this move was consumer demand, as the Executive Chairperson of Banco Santander, Ana Boton, stated. Since that time, there has been no additional information made public.

More recently, the United Kingdom branch of the Santander group published a report stating that frauds involving celebrity endorsement of cryptocurrencies in the United Kingdom increased by 61 percent in the first quarter of 2022. The report also predicted that the number of frauds would likely double in 2022 and grow by 87 percent compared to 2021.