Announced yesterday (Oct 31), New Zealand’s innovation institute has officially awarded a $330,000 grant to NZ-based crypto wallet, Vimba. Formerly known as MyCryptoSaver (and MyBitcoinSaver), Vimba aims to allow users to purchase cryptocurrencies easily by setting up automatic purchases.

The $330,000 grant has been awarded by Callaghan Innovation, the New Zealand government’s innovation group.

This grant is not easy to get – only 355 grants were approved in the last fiscal year. The grant, called a “R&D Project Grant” by Callaghan, will be used by Vimba to list more cryptocurrencies and add multi-signature functionality to their wallets. At the moment Vimba only supports bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH), but more offerings should be on their way soon.

Vimba takes a unique approach to cryptocurrency and instead of focusing on trading, aims to be more of an investment vehicle. They do this by emphasizing dollar cost averaging: an investing strategy executed by making scheduled purchases into an asset, which effectively lowers the investor’s average dollar cost.

Vimba has been well received by the community, and CEO Sam Blackmore says:

Even over the past year, in a bearish crypto market, our user base has remained very stable.

This unique approach combined with the government’s backing could mean big things for Vimba.

“This is a truly significant investment from Callaghan Innovation and a real show of faith in the future of this very exciting asset class,” said Sam Blackmore, CEO of Vimba. He continues:

we believe Bitcoin will at least reach the market cap of gold as it is a more efficient, more accessible, more secure version of that rare asset. For it to reach the market cap of gold, one Bitcoin would be worth around $600,000 — more than 60 times what it’s worth today.

New Zealand and Crypto

Vimba is not the only cryptocurrency exchange from New Zealand. Cryptopia, small-cap altcoin focused exchange, is also based in New Zealand, and processes about $3M worth of volume every day.

This is not the first time the New Zealand government has shown its interest in cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, they proclaimed that cryptocurrencies are taxable property “like gold,” clearing the air on how they should be reported.