Utrust Price (UTK)

What Is Utrust (UTK)?

Utrust is a payments processor that enables merchants to accept cryptocurrencies in addition to fiat currencies. The company also offers consumer-facing products such as Hold, a cryptocurrency wallet and payment app. According to its whitepaper, Utrust seeks to drive mainstream adoption of digital currencies and intends to become the "crypto-contender to PayPal."

In addition to supporting payments using major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) as well as smaller-cap coins, Utrust developed its own native token, UTK, which was released in December 2017 as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. UTK can be used as a zero-fee way to make payments, and the company plans to introduce UTK staking.

Utrust was first announced in August 2017 and officially launched with its first partner in June 2019.

Who Are the Founders of Utrust?

Utrust was founded in 2017 by Nuno Correia, Roberto Machado, Filipe Castro and Artur Goulão. According to Correia, Utrust was founded with the mission of being "the first payment system to let regular people use digital currencies in their daily life."

Prior to Utrust, Correia founded several business-to-customer companies. He first became interested in crypto in 2012, particularly in its applications for cross-border finance. He started with the company as CEO before transitioning to chairman in February 2020.

Machado has previous experience in product strategy for companies such as AT&T, Betfair and Uphold, in addition to his involvement with several startups. In 2012, he founded Subvisual, a startup development company.

Castro was previously involved in the development of electronic payment systems. He has given dozens of talks at blockchain events including BlockShow and Payexpo. He has also served as a mentor/advisor for venture builder Innovation Ventures.

Goulão has a background in the payments sector and also served as head of development at a Swiss cybersecurity company. Most recently, he co-founded CodingLibra, a provider of technology solutions around Facebook's upcoming stablecoin project Diem, formally known as Libra.

What Makes Utrust Unique?

According to co-founder Correia, the use case of Utrust lies in its ability to combine multiple cryptocurrencies and blockchains into one ecosystem that is simple to use for both merchants and customers. He also said that the platform is distinct from others because it offers a proprietary buyer protection service, fast transactions, low volatility — the platform can immediately convert crypto payments to fiat — a one-stop-shop native wallet, and a strong adherence to regulatory requirements.

Utrust has announced a number of partnerships with various companies including travel booking service Travala, e-commerce platform OpenCart, record label Kompakt and others. In April 2020, it announced it was selected to join business-to-business accelerator Alchemist Accelerator. Utrust has said that its future plans to grow the business and increase adoption of UTK include the further automation of the platform, the introduction of a stablecoin and increasing customer benefits.

In October 2020, Utrust revealed that it will be introducing "reverse staking" — the company's take on staking in which rather than receiving greater rewards the longer one does not use their coins, users receive cash back in the form of UTK when they make transactions via the platform.

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Stay up to date on the latest in payments innovations with the CoinMarketCap Blog.

How Many Utrust (UTK) Coins Are There in Circulation?

Utrust has a total maximum supply of 500 million tokens. While the company initially planned to issue 1 billion tokens, it later decided to permanently reduce its total supply by burning 50% of its tokens.

UTK was first made available for purchase during a private presale and public initial coin offering that took place in August 2017 and November 2017, respectively. Fifty million UTK (10%) was sold during the presale, raising $1.5 million. An additional 100 million UTK (20%) was reserved for private investors, to be vested for 12 months; 50 million UTK (10%) was set aside for marketing and bounties; and 50 million UTK (10%) was retained by Utrust to be diluted in 2% per year during the subsequent five years. The remaining 250 million UTK (50%) was allocated to its public ICO.

According to its whitepaper, Utrust has a built-in deflationary measure that decreases the total token supply over time. When a user pays with a cryptocurrency on the platform, a small percentage of the transaction fee is used to buyback and burn UTK, thus reducing its supply. In an April 2020 Q&A session, Utrust co-founder Correia stated that the specifics of the token burn mechanism were still being worked out.

How Is the Utrust Network Secured?

UTK is an ERC-20 token issued on the Ethereum blockchain, meaning that any transactions made with the cryptocurrency are validated and secured by the Ethereum mainnet using its Ethash proof-of-work consensus algorithm. This means that miners compete among each other to add new blocks to the blockchain, and a majority of nodes in the network must confirm a record for it to be posted.

The initial smart contract behind the UTK token was audited by cybersecurity firm Positive in November 2017. The audit found that it was "of excellent quality."

In September 2020, cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin was hacked, which resulted in the theft of over $275 million worth of cryptocurrencies. Nearly 54 million UTK was stolen during the incident, which represented around 12% of its circulating supply. In response, Utrust deployed a new smart contract and initiated a token swap process through which Utrust exchanged all existing UTK tokens, with the exception of those stolen, for newly minted ones. The new smart contract was audited by cybersecurity company Red4Sec before it was deployed.

Where Can You Buy Utrust (UTK)?

UTK can be purchased on cryptocurrency exchanges such as OKEx, Binance, Bithumb Global and Bilaxy, among others. It can be traded against fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar and the South Korean won, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether, and the stablecoin Tether (USDT).

Are you interested in buying UTK or other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin? CoinMarketCap has a simple, step-by-step guide to teach you all about crypto and how to buy your first coins.