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Bitfinex Securities Is Taking a Different Approach to RWAs, Launches Two New Products in the U.K.

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These days, the mention of blockchain-based real world assets (RWAs) conjures up traditional finance institutions, like BlackRock, presiding over billions of dollars in tokenized money market funds.

But the original promise of crypto was about opening up finance opportunities to anyone. That’s the ethos Bitfinex Securities is sticking to with its latest tokenized equity issuances: two alternative finance products in the UK, one focused on community banking debt, the other on litigation relating to mis-sold car finance claims.

Announced on Wednesday, Bitfinex Securities’ “TITAN1” product will allocate 5 million british pounds ($6.8 million) into subordinate debt issued by Castle Community Bank, a firm supporting loans to financially excluded customers in Edinburgh, Scotland.

This alternative debt product will provide investors with a 20% dividend per annum (net of fees), which will be paid quarterly for up to 10 years, with non-callable provisions for the first 5 years, according to a press release.

The second structure, “TITAN2, will invest 100 million british pounds ($136 million) into litigation financing related to car finance mis-selling claims in the UK, a market expected to generate billions in compensation.

Funds will be deployed through equity-linked notes and Investors will receive a 50% share of the claims recovery proceeds split proportionately among investors, Bitfinex Securities said.

Both listings will be accessible to investors as tradable tokens via Bitfinex Securities’ secondary market. The tokens have been issued on the Liquid Network, a side chain of Bitcoin developed by technology firm Blockstream, where transfers require issuer authorization, with a whitelist system ensuring compliance standards and jurisdictional requirements.

Looking back in time, Bitfinex Securities’ foray into tokenized RWAs pre-dates by some years the current trend for blockchain-based financial assets issued by institutions like BlackRock or Franklin Templeton.

The firm started out with niche products like a tokenized bitcoin mining hashrate contract linked to Blockstream, followed by a number of bond issuances, including the first tokenized U.S. Treasuries offering in the nascent crypto hub of El Salvador, bringing T-Bill investments to individuals and organizations who were previously unable to access these products.

Jesse Knutson, head of operations at Bitfinex Securities, takes a philosophical view of the current tokenization trend.

“We want to be able to help people bridge that gap to investors,” Knutson said in an interview. “Whether it’s a company or a bond issuance, or whatever it is, to raise capital and kind of fill that gap that’s left by banks in many parts of the world that just aren’t willing to lend, or where people struggle to get access to capital.”

Fresh off a digital assets panel in London alongside BlackRock and UK asset manager Schroders, Knutson said there’s something of a bias in the ecosystem towards fixed income. Most of the focus is around money market funds, where people tend to buy and hold to get a yield, so there’s just not a lot of trading, he said.

“A big part of this is about disintermediation, and I think that’s something the institutional guys don’t quite get,” Knutson said. “When you look at the details of what they’ve actually done, it’s typically left hand to right hand. It’s the same kind of people. It’s going through depositories, it’s going through transfer payment agents, all of the normal kind of parts of the traditional ecosystem, which I don’t think are technologically probably necessary.”

Read more: How the Next Wave of RWAs is Becoming Crypto’s Real Edge

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Coinbase Outpaces S&P 500 With 43% June Rise as Stablecoin Narrative Grows: CNBC

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Shares of Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) rose 43% this month, making the firm the top performer in the S&P 500 since it joined the index at the end of last month.

June’s run is already the stock’s best since November and caps three straight monthly gains. Coinbase’s shares reached their highest level since their public debut.

COIN hit a $382 high this week before enduring a slight correction, ending the week at $353 and seeing a slight 0.7% drop in after-hours trading to $351.

The wider S&P 500 index rose roughly 5% in June as geopolitical tensions eased.

Washington’s progress on the GENIUS Act, Congress’s first rulebook for dollar-pegged stablecoins, helped shift investor focus from trading fees to stablecoin revenue.

The bill brightened the outlook for Circle, whose shares hit a record high and saw its market cap near that of Coinbase this week.

Coinbase keeps all yield on USDC balances held on its platform and nearly half of other USDC income, equal to about 99 percent of Circle’s revenue, giving shareholders indirect exposure at no added cost, CNBC reported Friday, citing analysts including Citizens’ head of financial technology research Devin Ryan.

Trading, however, remains subdued. Average daily volume on Coinbase has drifted lower since April.

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Robinhood Launches Micro Bitcoin, Solana and XRP Futures Contracts

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Robinhood (HOOD) has introduced micro futures on bitcoin (BTC), solana (SOL) and XRP in the United States., expanding its existing crypto futures offering for its nearly 26 million funded accounts.

Micro contracts need far less collateral than full-size futures, letting traders take directional positions while committing a smaller slice of capital.

The contracts offer traders more flexibility to bet on a cryptocurrency’s future price direction or hedge current positions given their smaller size.

The launch rounds out a futures suite that began with BTC and ETH in January. It also comes weeks after the firm closed its $200 million purchase of Bitstamp and finalized a $179 million deal for Canada’s WonderFi.

Robinhood’s data shows that crypto notional volumes have exploded upward over time, reaching $11.7 billion in May. The figure marks a 36% rise month-over-month, and a 65% growth year-over-year.

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Why is XRP Up Today? Trio of Catalysts Sees Token Outperform Wider Crypto Market

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XRP climbed 5.5% to $2.19 in the last 24 hours after a trio of catalysts converged to help the cryptocurrency outperform the wider cryptocurrency market.

One of the catalysts was launch of XRP micro futures on Robinhood. The contracts offer traders more flexibility to bet on the cryptocurrency’s future price direction or hedge current positions given their smaller size.

Regulatory fog also thinned. On Friday, Ripple withdrew its cross-appeal in its long-running U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit. The SEC sued Ripple back in 2020 over its XRP sales, alleging these violated securities laws. The SEC is expected to drop its own appeal, leaving last year’s ruling, ordering Ripple to pay a $125 million civil penalty to the SEC, intact. The move could lift a lid that had kept some investors on the sidelines.

On-chain data rounded out the bullish setup. The XRP Ledger logged over a 1.1 million active addresses over the past week according to crypto analyst Ali Martinez, who cited Glassnode data.

XRP’s rise saw it outperform the wider crypto market, with the broader CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index rising 1.7% in the last 24 hours.

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