Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
Investments news
- CI Global Asset Management said it has filed and obtained a receipt for a preliminary prospectus for CI Galaxy Ethereum ETF (exchange-traded fund) to be traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. “When launched, it is expected to be the first ETF in the world to invest directly in ether,” they said, without specifying when this ETF might be launched. ETHX will invest directly in ETH with its holdings priced using the Bloomberg Galaxy Ethereum Index.
- “In a multi-asset portfolio, investors can likely add up to 1% of their allocation to cryptocurrencies in order to achieve any efficiency gain in the overall risk-adjusted returns of the portfolio,” JPMorgan Chace & Co. strategists said in a note Wednesday, as reported by Bloomberg. However, per the strategists, cryptocurrencies are investment vehicles and not funding currencies.
- Qualified custodian Anchorage said it has raised an USD 80m Series C, led by GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, with participation from a16z, Blockchain Capital, Lux, and Indico. “This new capital will allow us to rapidly scale to meet the rising demand for participation in the digital asset space, particularly among corporations and traditional financial institutions,” they added.
- CoinShares, a European digital asset investment house with over USD 4bn in assets under management, announced the launch of an initial public offering of 3,364,403 shares directed to the public in connection with the intended listing of its shares on Nasdaq FirstNorth Growth Market in Stockholm.
- Galaxy Digital Holdings said it expects to report comprehensive income for the fourth quarter of 2020 to exceed USD 325m, representing a sequential quarter-over-quarter increase of over 650%. “The primary drivers of these results include appreciation in the value of the company’s digital assets and other principal investments, as well as increased counterparty trading volumes and revenues,” the digital asset-focused investment company said.
- Sorare, a digital collectible football platform, received EUR 40m (USD 49m) in Series A financing, led by Benchmark, with additional funding from Accel and new business angels, EU-Startups reported. The financing brings Sorare’s total funding to EUR 48m, and will be used to fuel the growth of its community, accelerate the hiring of a world-class team and launch a mobile application, it added.
- The Japanese blockchain accelerator and consultancy Hashport has agreed an M&A deal to buy the promising Tokyo-based crypto wallet startup Fressets, in a transaction that will finalize on March 1. According to Nikkei, Hashport bought up 100% of Fressets’ shares and has announced it will merge with the latter, which has made a name for itself by developing crypto wallets for corporate clients. The accelerator stated that intends to create a series of new “competitive services” amid what Nikkei termed “fierce competition in the cryptoasset sector.”
- Spain’s “first crypto hedge fund” has launched – in Malta. Per Infobae, the fund is the brainchild of the alternative investment company Avenue Investment Crypto, fronted by the investor and crypto advocate Martín Huete. The fund was created back in 2019, but had not yet been “commercialized” until now. The media outlet noted that the minimum stake for investors was just over USD 122,000, with its masterminds claiming it was aiming to raise some USD 122m before the end of 2021.
- STOKR, an EU-based digital marketplace for alternative assets, announced the launch of Italian car manufacturer Mazzanti’s security token offering (STO) on its investment platform. “The offering for select European countries is capped at EUR 999,999, the proceeds of which Mazzanti will use towards the development of a special edition of its coveted hypercar Evantra Millecavalli R,” they said in an emailed announcement.
CBDCs news
- After Jerome Powell, the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve (Fed), told Congress that developing a digital dollar is a “high priority project for us,” but added that there are “significant technical and policy questions” on Tuesday, next day, Fed researchers released a report titled “Preconditions for a general-purpose central bank digital currency,” detailing just what some of those questions might be, Axios reported.
Exchanges news
- The Japanese court-appointed trustee to the Mt. Gox bankruptcy, Nobuaki Kobayashi, said that the creditors of Mt. Gox will be asked to vote to agree or disagree with the Draft Rehabilitation Plan. The specific method and timing of voting on the Draft Rehabilitation Plan will be announced to rehabilitation creditors via MT. Gox’s website and other means, the trustee said.
- The Japanese crypto exchange and blockchain firm DeCurret has announced that it will start down another crypto-related business avenue: crypto mining hardware sales. The firm stated that its move was a first for a Japanese crypto exchange company, and stated that it would be targetting smaller mining outfits or home miners, rather than industrial-scale outfits. The Tokyo-based firm stated that it would begin by selling Bitmain-produced Antminer S19 (95TH) bitcoin (BTC) miners, and added that if demand was too high, it would limit orders to a maximum of five devices per person.
Blockchain news
- Block.one, the developer of EOS, joined LACChain, an alliance focused on accelerating the development of blockchain ecosystem in Latin America and the Caribbean. “Block.one becomes a strategic partner in providing technical expertise, supported by existing infrastructure providers EOS Costa Rica and EOS Argentina, to empower local entrepreneurs and governments using EOSIO to improve economies, supply chains and infrastructure,” LACChain said.