People who got rich riding the crypto wave in the second part of last year are under pressure. If they held on to their coins and did not liquidate during December-January, their patience is being tested. Cryptocurrency market is living through challenging times during the first half of 2018 – the overall market valuation has dropped around 70% and is hovering over $250 billion at the moment.

Baltic fintech startup ORCA Alliance is experiencing the market volatility first hand – bear run is making the battleground for ICO investors increasingly fierce. The number of ICO projects which are aiming to raise millions is growing on a monthly basis but investors are harder to find.

Pessimistic market sentiment means that new market entrants are more likely to buy and hold cryptocurrencies which are already traded on exchanges. They choose hodling rather than trying their luck at ICO investments. Security issues and frequently reappearing news about hacks and fund losses is not adding extra confidence either.

When asked what strategy has ORCA chosen to deal with outstanding issues, N. Avidan, the CEO had this to say: “Right now it’s all about integrity. People who invest in ICOs are getting more sophisticated and picky about the projects they select. They tend to choose projects which have been around for a while and have some proven tech cases with potential. No one is investing in promises anymore. You can’t buy credibility. You earn it.”

ORCA is delivering a personal banking tool connecting financial accounts onto a single dashboard. All coins, bank and exchange accounts, portfolio values and price movements in one place. The user is required to plug accounts once and manage funds without ever leaving one application. ORCA is solving instant crypto-to-fiat withdrawals as the first step in bridging crypto with traditional finance – a 6-second solution they’ve already showcased during a live event a few weeks ago. Instant withdrawals aim to solve liquidity issues tormenting cryptocurrency users.

“Financial environment is changing. It’s an evolution-like process like with everything else – only the fittest will survive. Cryptocurrencies are just one aspect of the impending change. Open banking is another development set to cause an earthquake in Europe creating ripple effects all over the world. At ORCA we are anticipating the future and are going to be the first ones in.”

Open Banking is a set of regulations written into European legislature which came into enforcement on January this year. It mandates all European banks to open up their client data through APIs giving third-parties access to it. It is set to make groundbreaking changes to the way regular people do banking. People using financial services will be able to compare prices and quality of different banking services, easily switch back and forth between providers, and even get tailored suggestions from machine learning algorithms. Simply put, cryptocurrencies and Open Banking initiative are bringing decentralisation to capital markets and empowering users to make informed decisions about the way they take care of their money.