Crypto news

All the latest developments in digital assets from across the globe

BOCI, UBS partner in first HK tokenised structured notes

Bank of China International (BOCI) has successfully issued CNH200 million (US$ 28 million) fully digital structured notes, making it the first Chinese financial institution to issue a tokenised security in the country’s special administrative region.

The product was originated by UBS and placed to its clients in Asia Pacific, marking a long-term collaboration between BOCI and UBS in the space of digital structured notes as the interest in fully regulated digital asset products increases in the Apac region.

‘High-frequency issuance activity can benefit from vast efficiency gains through the use of blockchain technology, which will ultimately bring advantages to investors,’ said Aurelian Troendle (pictured), global head of MTN trading, UBS.

The Swiss bank had issued a US$50m tokenised fixed rate note in December 2022 under English and Swiss law, digitised on a permissioned blockchain.

By issuing these digital securities, both BOCI and UBS have taken new steps in terms of applicable law and blockchain types. This transaction marks the first product of its kind in Asia Pacific constituted under Hong Kong and Swiss law and tokenised on the main Ethereum blockchain, successfully introducing regulated securities onto a public blockchain.

BOCI which was the first Chinese financial institution to issue structured notes overseas is also at the forefront of developments in the crypto space as the first Chinese issuer to offer fully digitalised structured notes.

‘Working together with UBS, we are driving the simplification of digital asset markets and products, for customers in Asia Pacific through the development of blockchain-based digital structured products, designed specifically for customers in Asia Pacific,’ said Ying Wang, Deputy CEO at BOCI. We are encouraged by the evolution of Hong Kong's digital economy and are committed to promoting the digital transformation and innovative development of Hong Kong's financial industry.”

UBS is seeking to expand its tokenization services across structured products, fixed income, and repo financing through UBS Tokenize, a dedicated business line specialised in security tokens using blockchain technology.

Gate adds cap prot shark fin to gate wealth

Gate.io, a cryptocurrency exchange based in the Marshall Islands, is launching Shark Fin Boost and Shark Fin Wealth, two new principal-protected investment products with a potential return of up to 14%. The new products will seek to deliver stable and guaranteed returns for BTC, ETH , and USDT investments. They will be available on Gate Wealth , Gate.io's dedicated wealth management platform - Gate Wealth offers both products on seven-day terms on BTC, ETH , and USDT investments.

The Shark Fin Boost provides a guaranteed return of at least 7% but can go as high as 14% and features no minimum investment requirement. On the other hand, the Shark Fin Wealth structure offers the same investment assets and terms but requires higher minimum investment amounts of 10,000 USDT, 0.5 BTC, or 10 ETH for their respective assets. The guaranteed annualised returns are as high as 3.5% but can reach up to 14%, depending on the asset.

Shark Fin Boost and Wealth are part of a suite of structured investment products offered on the Gate Wealth platform.

Launched in April, 2023, Gate Wealth is designed to provide professional investors access to ‘comprehensive and customised wealth management services to global crypto investment users, especially individual investors, institutional investors, high-net-worth individuals, and other wealth and asset managers’.

Gate Wealth features 100% fund mapping to ensure the safety of funds and offers a wide range of investment tools and structured products with stable income and considerable return rates.

The platform led by Han Lin (pictured) also provides customised product solutions to meet users' needs for income and asset protection and leverage ratio, making it easy for users to browse and find a variety of investments that fit their goals.

Digital asset based ETP AuM up by 60% YTD

Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) with digital assets as underlying collateral have seen a 59% growth in total assets under management (AuM) since the begininig of the year, according to Fineqia International.

The AUM increase was at a 37% premium to the underlying value of digital assets, which grew slower at 43% since the beginning of the year. This can be attributed to the price rise of main digital assets that underpin ETPs such as bitcoin and ethereum vis-à-vis smaller alternative coins, as well as capital inflows into these listed products.

‘The tide is higher now than at the beginning of the year, and it has lifted most ships,’ said Fineqia CEO Bundeep Singh Rangar (pictured). ‘The market is holding steady at this higher watermark.’

The 43% price gain since the beginning of the year overshadowed a three percent decrease in AuM in the month of May, to US$31.7 billion from US$32.6 billion, and the five percent monthly decline in the overall value of crypto assets to US$1.14 trillion from about US$1.20 trillion.

The total value of the crypto market at the end of May this year was 13% lower than that at the end of May last year, marking the smallest year-on-year decrease so far this year.

Bitcoin (BTC) dropped seven percent in May, declining to US$27,200 from US$29,200 recorded on April 30. The AuM of ETPs holding BTC correspondingly decreased by four percent, reaching US$21.7 billion from US$22.6 billion.

Ethereum (ETH) decreased two percent in value, dropping to US$1,875 from about US$1,910. ethereum (ETH) denominated ETPs grew 1.6% increase in AUM, however, reaching US$7.6 billion on May 31, compared with US$7.5 billion a month earlier.

ETPs representing alternative coins decreased 8.6%, and those with a basket of cryptocurrencies declined 2.6% in AUM.

The number of tracked ETPs stood at 154 as of the end of May.

VersiFi to launch partner-powered prime services platform

VersiFi has launched a new partner-powered prime services platform for digital assets to minimise counterparty risk .

The plug-and-trade solution includes an institutional-grade technology platform and ecosystem of regulated exchanges, liquidity providers, custodians and lenders, to offer a full-service prime brokerage solution without the single-firm counterparty risk.

‘The digital asset sector, particularly in the US, finds itself at an inflection point and has a choice to make,’ said Sameer Shalaby (pictured), VersiFi's founder, president and CEO.

‘For there to be widespread adoption amongst asset managers the market structure needs to resemble that found in TradFi to minimise counterparty risk, where there is a separation of responsibilities between exchanges, custodians and lenders.’

According to Shalaby, the new solution offers a unifying technology platform ‘that enables independent yet seamless access to these discrete core functions to support customers while laying the proper foundation for regulatory oversight,’ said Shalaby.

The VersiFi platform, currently in development and expected to officially launch by Q3 of 2023, will bring together the entire ecosystem of regulated exchanges, liquidity providers, custodians and lenders to provide clients with a full-service, regulatory-compliant solution that streamlines the trading lifecycle.

VersiFi was founded in 2022 by veteran entrepreneur Shalaby who previously was president and CEO of Hazeltree Fund Services, a global provider of treasury solutions to alternative asset managers.

DeFiReturns rollsout v2 with advanced analytics

Pods, a provider of institutional-grade structured products for crypto assets, has announced the launch of a new version of its DeFiReturns. According to the firm, DeFiReturns v2 launches after months of development and rigorous testing with the reimagined app replacing the earlier MVP version that only allowed users to check and compare real realised returns across multiple DeFi protocols.

The crypto firm added that the upgraded DeFiReturns app heralds a new era in the DeFi sector as it will allow users to compare historical returns, real returns and not just projected APYs across platforms such as Uniswap and Curve.

Users can also gain insight into DeFi investing and use that to maximise their earning potential, stated the firm.

According to platform, the newly launched version offers these capabilities by integrating new tools and features including a ‘fine-tuned’ user interface that makes the application easier to navigate and use.

‘DeFiReturns v2 allows users to leverage an intuitive interface to easily check and compare returns across protocols,’ it said.

The new app includes advanced analytics for strategies with rewards, which means users can view their accumulated yield, with or without rewards, as well as a ranking of all the top performing strategies over the past 30 days.

‘With this app users can achieve things like finding the top 3 strategies for Ethereum (ETH) and USD Coin (USDC),’ stated the firm.

State Bank to introduce digital currency, CBBCs

Pakistan is on its way to introducing its own digital currency, according to a senior official of the central bank – State Bank of Pakistan.

Shoukat Bizinjo (pictured), additional director, digital financial services group, SBP, said the regulator was looking at callable bull/bear contracts (CBBCs) as a potential route for launching digital currencies and for investors to use structured investment products that mirror the performance of underlying assets without requiring to pay the entire cost of ownership of those assets.

‘The SBP is reviewing and consulting with other central banks in this regard,’ he said.

The official also revealed that state bank is currently in talks with regional business leaders to launch digital money in the country following recent developments in e-banking by Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs) which have introduced e-money wallets for customers and firms, with other digital payment tools like prepaid cards and contactless payment choices.

There are 12 EMIs in the country in various stages of acquiring licenses from the central bank.

CS-backed platform aims at tokenisation, deploys Polygon blockchain

Taurus SA, a Swiss-based digital asset infrastructure provider, has fully integrated the Ethereum platform Polygon blockchain across its custody and tokenisation platform in a move to allow banks, brands, and issuers to issue, book and service any tokenised assets via Polygon, in a fully automated way.

‘Building on Polygon, one of the leading blockchain ecosystems, is a natural step for Taurus. Our banking, consumer goods and sports & entertainment clients can now benefit from low fees and faster transactions for any tokenisation use cases: equity, debt, structured products, funds, NFTs,’ said Victor Busson (pictured), CMO and head of strategic partnerships at Taurus.

Taurus is seeking to capitalise on regulatory frameworks related to tokenised securities being clarified in key financial centres recently with Europe leading the way.

According to Busson, most tier one financial institutions are entering the space and building capabilities to manage tokenised securities with ‘blockchain-agnostic and tokenagnostic infrastructure’.

Deploying on Polygon allows common clients to leverage Polygon’s large ecosystem, low transaction fees, and high throughput while benefiting from Ethereum layer-1 security, said Busson.

‘The tokenisation of real-world assets is a no-brainer at the root of the idea. The challenge is and always has been to build sufficiently advanced infrastructure to enable it,’ said Colin Butler, global head of institutional capital at Polygon Labs.

In February, Credit Suisse led a US$65 million Series B for Taurus with participation from Deutsche Bank and other financial institutions.

Taurus is targeted at the banking segment and has more than a 60% market share in Switzerland.

Coinbase targets institutional investors with new BTC, ETH futures

US-based cryptocurrency exchange

Coinbase has launched new Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) futures through its regulated derivatives exchange ‘specifically targeted towards institutional investors’.

The exchange’s institutional-sized contracts for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) will be sized at 1 Bitcoin and 10 Ethereum respectively.

The decision to launch these products was prompted by feedback received after the introduction of the exchange’s nano Bitcoin (BIT) and nano Ether (ET) contracts.

The exchange led by Brian Armstrong (pictured) recently announced its intentions to launch a derivatives exchange in Bermuda as part of its global expansion strategy. The exchange’s initial offering will enable traders to speculate on the prices of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) through perpetual futures contracts with 5X leverage.

Coinbase’s recent move to expand globally with its derivatives exchange comes at a time when the crypto exchange is grappling with regulatory uncertainties surrounding digital asset trading in the US.

Yield App boosts crypto accessibility with open banking solution

Estonia-based digital wealth platform Yield App has partnered with Volt, a global realtime payments gateway, to offer additional GBP and EUR on-ramps via Faster Payments Service (FPS) and SEPA Instant credit transfer scheme.

Yield App customers can now buy cryptocurrency in real time directly with their bank, thanks to the integration of Volt's pan-European open banking solution.

With connections to 1,800+ banks across the continent, the two-step process enables customers to authorise transactions with just face ID or biometric authentication from their banking app.

The partnership is a strategic move by Yield App to ensure its customers have a seamless experience when accessing the platform's full suite of products, which bridge the gap between traditional finance and decentralised finance through crypto structured products and its core earn offerings.

Building upon the foundations of legacy payment solutions, open banking-powered on-ramping has emerged as the faster, easier and more secure way to invest, offering an enhanced payment experience fit for the digital age, said Gero Piskov (pictured), card and payments manager at Yield App.

‘It's time for the industry to embrace open banking solutions so that retail crypto investors aren't left outside in the cold, said Piskov.

New crypto ETP provider in Sweden, Ribbon launches onchain altcoin options

Virtune has become the first regulated digital asset manager in Sweden to launch crypto ETPs on Nasdaq Stockholm in collaboration with index provider Vinter, issuing agent Nordic Issuing, market maker Flow Traders and Coinbase as custodian. The new Virtune Crypto Top 10 Index ETP (VIR10) offers exposure to up to 10 leading cryptocurrencies in one single product via the Virtune Vinter Crypto Top 10 Index (VVTOP10).

The ETP, which is 100% physically backed by cryptocurrencies and fully collateralised, will be available in Swedish krona for the Swedish investors and in euros for the rest of the Nordic investors. The product holds two ISINs to cater for each currency, SEK (SE0020052207) for Swedish investors and EUR (SE0020052215) for euro investors.

The underlying index has an allocation to 10 cryptocurrencies with a maximum weight of 40% per cryptocurrency to promote diversification, providing a balanced and diversified investment alternative.

The underlying basket will only comprise cryptocurrencies that are approved by Nasdaq and will be rebalanced monthly to ensure that remains up to date and aligned with current market conditions.

'This product caters to institutional investors and experienced crypto enthusiasts while also serving as an excellent entrylevel product for those new to crypto investments,' said Christopher Kock (pictured), CEO of Virtune.

Virtune is a registered financial institution by the Swedish FSA and withholds an approved EU Base Prospectus for issuing crypto ETPs in Europe.

Ribbon's decentralised exchange Aevo unveils altcoin options trading

The Ethereum-based structured product firm Ribbon Finance's decentralised exchange Aevo has begun offering options tied to alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins), a crypto term used to describe digital assets other than bitcoin (BTC) and sometimes even ether (ETH).

Aevo users can now trade options linked to Lido's LDO, Pepecoin (PEPE), Sui's SUI, Arbitrum's ARB, Litecoin (LTC), Aptos (APT) and other tokens which could earlier only be traded through an over-the-counter (OT) desk.

Users can pick the options strike price and tenure of these options and get instant quotes from crypto market makers Galaxy, GSR and OrBit Markets.

Currently, Aevo users can only buy options and hold the same till expiry or square off before the expiry, but the firm has plans to allow users to write options with customised margins and counterparty of choice.

Market makers would need to post collateral, approximately 30% of the notional trade size, in the form of dollar-pegged stablecoin USDC, Ribbon Finance's CEO Julian Koh said.

Ribbon launched Aevo last year to allow ether investors to trade options onchain.