Coral Raises $20M to Develop Executable NFT Wallet

Coral, a Solana-based developer, has finished a strategic funding round with $20 million to go toward building a wallet for NFTs, a Coindesk report said.

Called Backpack, it will be the company’s first “flagship product.” This product will specifically work with executable NFTs. NFTs are usually digital assets with underlying smart contracts proving ownership. An executable NFT makes it so the user owns the right to execute a tokenized computer code, making it so the user can launch an application. That could simplify onboarding, which is often a pain point for crypto.

Armani Ferrante, Coral’s founder, said decentralized ownership goes back to smart contracts and evolves through mostly centralized things like apps and websites. Backpack’s point is to decentralize the UI layer.

“We can move from smart contracts, go up the stack to the UI layer, where we can have decentralized ownership of code and provide all the developer tooling to make that happen,” Ferrante said. “Backpack serves as the native system, analogous to the iPhone, that allows people to use and interact with all of these applications in a native and secure way.”

Backpack has rolled out a private beta as of Monday (Sept. 26).

PYMNTS has written that NFTs could also be used in home buying with the escrow accounts.

Read more: Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts Can Cut Escrow Costs, Prevent Mortgage Fraud

This could tap into one of the core functions of the smart contracts, where two people agree on a sale, the buyer locks ether into a smart contract paying off automatically when conditions are met. They can also be set up so that the funds are returned if conditions aren’t met in time.

Homebuyers are paying on average 1% to 2% of the purchase price of the home — so buying a $250,000 could cost $2,500 to $5,000 for a middleman who only really holds onto the buyer’s down payment until sale terms are met.

Altisource, a real estate and mortgage industry services provider, said the security of blockchain could cut down on the need for intermediaries.