Electroneum, Gemini Trust, IBM Hyperledger, among other top blockchain firms have been named among the winners of the City AM’s (London’s most-read business newspaper) 2020 crypto award, NewLogical can confirm.

According to a report made available to us, the UK-based newspaper hosted its first Crypto Awards on 11 March 2020. Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, not less than 200 blockchain and cryptocurrency experts, including influencers and entrepreneurs attended the event.

James Bowater, the chief editor at City AM Crypto Insider edition, felt it was necessary to host the event, thus, staging what could be named the first of many Crypto awards this year.

Electroneum emerged as the winner of the Social Impact and Sustainability Award while Gemini Trust and Marta Piekarska-Geater of IBM’s Hyperledger project received the Digital Asset Custodian Award and the Outstanding Industry Contribution Award respectively.

Other blockchain firms that bagged awards at the event include CryptoCompare, Bitstamp, Consensys Codefi, Coinpass, CMS Lay and Zerion among others.

William Russell, the Lord Mayor of the city of London, was also present at the event. While delivering his speech, he lauded blockchain technology, saying if the first Lord Mayor, Henry Fitz Ailwin, appointed 1198, were to be alive, he would have thought of the technology as q sort of new castle defense system.

The Lord Mayor said London would continue to be a world leader in financial innovation and in producing tech talents.

“We have generated over76,000 FinTech jobs and closed deals in the sector worth more than £2.9 billion in 2019, which helps us support regulation standards globally,” Rusell said.

The mayor further said the Crypto Awards event brought together London’s talent and global leadership in innovation.

Richard Ells, the CEO and Founder of Electroneum blockchain technology, also had the opportunity of addressing the attendees of the event. He said cryptocurrency is trying to proffer solution some of the problems of the world where about 1.7 billion people are unbanked.

“Electroneum, for example, has made it easy for people to earn cryptocurrency and through our AnyTask freelance platform that does not require sellers of tasks to have a bank account, hundreds of people are now supplementing their income. We’ve created a whole new way for people to buy technical skills at ridiculously low prices,” Ells said.

Ells said Anytask is of great benefit to the unbanked population who do not have access to other freelance platforms. He added that 40,000 sellers have signed up since the launch of the platform in February 13.

“There is a logo designer in Pakistan. He is unbanked, so he cannot use Fiverr. He is disabled, struggles with work, and he’s so excited to be on AnyTask,” Mr. Ells added. “He’s been really busy since AnyTask went live, his skills are superb and charges only US$10 for a logo design. He is only one of loads of stories of people in developing countries who are benefitting from AnyTask.”