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Japanese Banking Giant SMBC Explores Stablecoin Use With Ava Labs, Fireblocks

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Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMBC), one of Japan’s largest banking groups, is the latest financial giant to delve into stablecoins as the market for the $230 billion asset class is soaring with regulations being laid down globally.

The banking group signed an agreement with Avalanche blockchain development firm Ava Labs, digital asset security company Fireblocks and IT service provider TIS to explore the commercialization of stablecoins in the country, according to a Wednesday press release.

The collaboration will focus on developing a framework for issuing and circulating stablecoins, analyzing regulatory requirements and identifying practical applications, the release said. One key area of interest is using stablecoins for settling tokenized financial and real-world assets (RWA) such as government bonds, corporate debt and real estate. The timeline for potential commercial rollout has not been specified.

Stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to fiat currencies like the Japanese yen or U.S. dollar, are a booming crypto sector, growing nearly 50% to $228 billion over the past year. They have become an integral part of global digital asset markets, and are also increasingly popular for remittances and payments as a faster and cheaper alternative to traditional banking rails. A wide variety of entities, ranging from global asset manager Fidelity Investments to U.S. state Wyoming, are making steps to enter the market.

Read more: CoinDesk Weekly Recap: Stablecoins, Stablecoins, Stablecoins

Japan has been spearheading efforts to regulate stablecoins, recognizing them as electronic payment instruments in 2023 with the revised Payment Services Act. Most recently, stablecoin issuer Circle launched its $58 billion USDC token in the country with financial giant SBI Holdings’ subsidiary last month after obtaining regulatory approval.

SMBC has previously engaged in digital asset initiatives, including establishing a digital asset custodian in 2022 and testing security token issuance with asset tokenization firm Securitize in 2021.

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Bitcoin, XRP, ETH Steady as BTC ETFs Attract $590M Inflows

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Bitcoin and broader crypto markets were little changed in the past 24 hours with exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tracking the asset attracting over $590 million in inflows on Monday, extending a six-day streak.

That marked a week of inflows for the first time since late March, coming as bitcoin’s appeal as a safe-haven asset continues to gain favor among investors. BlackRock’s IBIT led flows at $970 million, while Ark’s ARKB lost $200 million. BTC held above $94,000 in Asian morning hours on Tuesday, a resistance level whose break traders say could clear the path to a move toward $100,000.

XRP, ether (ETH), Cardano’s ADA and BNB Chain’s BNB remained flat, while Solana’s SOL was down 2%. Monero (XMR) dropped 8.5% after a sudden 40% surge on Monday, a move that came as a hacker swapped over $330 million of BTC to the privacy-focused token, per prominent blockchain sleuth ZachXBT.

Among mid-caps, Nexo (NEXO) zoomed 8% after announcing it would return to the U.S. after a two-year regulatory hiatus with a focus on AI applications.

Some traders eye data releases in the week ahead for cues on positioning, with market sentiment generally dented after U.S. tariffs.

“Bitcoin and the broader crypto market have sustained gains made last week. Right now, traders are waiting for GDP, unemployment data, and a number of other economic data indicators set to be released in the US this week, so not much has changed yet,” Jeff Mei, COO at BTSE, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message.

“The US dollar continues to dip, as institutional investors diversify their holdings into other currencies. This could explain why demand for Bitcoin has been strong as well,” Mei added. The widely-tracked dollar index, a measure of the greenback against six global currencies, is down nearly 6% in the past month — its biggest fall since 2022.

Elsewhere, a correlation between bitcoin and an increase in M2 money supply is gaining traction among some traders. However, responses to viral online posts overlaying the two charts appear to be overblown in their eventual impact on prices.

M2 supply is the total amount of money in an economy, including cash, checking accounts, savings accounts, and other easily accessible funds. Bitcoin prices can rise if M2 increases because people may buy BTC to protect their wealth from inflation. Conversely, if M2 shrinks, bitcoin prices might drop since investors shy away from riskier bets.

“One of the recent and prevailing narratives suggests that BTC is about to break higher as a delayed reaction to the increase in M2 money supply,” Augustine Fan, head of insights at SignalPlus, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message.

“While we are not strict subscribers to this view as there are a lot more nuances behind the data, we are bullish on BTC in the medium term due to expectations of monetary and fiscal easing in response to tariff-driven slowdowns,” Fan added.

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Bitcoin-Friendly Poilievre Loses Seat as Carney’s Liberals Win 2025 Election

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Bitcoin-friendly Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will no longer be a Member of Parliament after losing his seat in an election which saw Mark Carney’s Liberal Party secure enough seats to form at least a minority government.

Data from Elections Canada, reported by the CBC, shows Poilievre lost his Ottawa-area seat to Liberal Brunce Fanjoy on Monday night after a 5-week election cycle triggered by Carney, the current Prime Minister, last month.

Results from Pierre Poilievre's Ottawa-area riding of Carleton (CBC)

Overall, the Liberal party took approximately 162 seats as of 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time, which is enough to form a minority government.

This is fewer than recent polls forecast, which projected that a Carney-led Liberal party would hit majority government territory — 172 seats — given the threats U.S. President Donald Trump made to the country’s sovereignty and the punitive tariffs the White House was directing northward.

However, CBC News noted as of midnight that votes were still coming in and it is not yet clear if the Liberals will win enough seats to form that majority government.

If present results stand under the U.K.-inspired Westminster system under which Canada operates, the Liberals would need the support of another opposition party, such as separatist-minded Bloc Quebecois, or the left-leaning New Democrat Party to pass bills in the House of Commons.

A Conservative-led non-confidence motion, should it have the support of another party, would be sufficient to trigger another election — though its far too early for this to be considered.

Unlike the United States, where crypto played an important role in moving the needle on winning Congressional races, and helping put Trump back in the White House, it seemed to be a muted affair in Canada.

While both Carney and Poilievre have discussed crypto in the past, the issue didn’t come up for either campaigns even though it was an important issue for many Conservative Members of Parliament.

On Polymarket, a contract asking bettors to predict the next Prime Minister of Canada crossed the $100 million mark (in U.S. dollars) in volume, and a dozen other election related questions had close to another $100 million in volume collectively.

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Bitcoin Holds Tight Despite Dismal Economic Data, Rising India/Pakistan Tensions

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Bitcoin (BTC) fell early in the U.S. trading session, but mostly held firm as poor macroeconomic news rolled in.

The top cryptocurrency late in the day was trading just below $95,000, up 0.5% over the past 24 hours. The CoinDesk 20 — an index of the top 20 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization excluding memecoins, exchange coins and stablecoins — was roughly flat over the same time frame.

Crypto stocks like Coinbase (COIN), Strategy (MSTR) and the miners were losing modest ground after big gains last week. Notable exceptions included Janover (JNVR) and DeFi Technologies (DFTF), ahead 24% and 6.5%, respectively even as SOL — the token which both companies are aggressively accumulating — fell about 3% during the U.S. day.

Meanwhile, gold rose almost 1% and the dollar index fell 0.6%. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq each peaked into the green late in the session after earlier dipping more than 1%.

The Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index, a typically little-noticed economic data point, plunged to -35.8 from -16.3 last month — much worse than analysts’ expectations of a -14.1 print and the worst performance since COVID upended the world economy.

“Pretty horrible Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey. Level hits the lowest since May 2020,” Joe Weisenthal, co-host of the Odd Lots podcast, posted on X. “All the comments are about tariffs and policy uncertainty. Add it to the list of bad soft/survey data.”

Hostilities between India and Pakistan might also have added to market jitters, with Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif claiming that an Indian military incursion into Pakistan was imminent. Last week 26 people were killed in a terrorist attack in Pahalgam, a popular tourist destination in Indian-controlled Kashmir. The two countries have exchanged fire since.

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