The BOE launched a call for applications on the UK’s Digital Marketplace on Dec. 9. The proof-of-concept wallet just needed basic features including a registration procedure, a mechanism to change data, and a way to show balances, transactions, and alerts. The project will create an iOS and Android app, a wallet website, a merchant website, and the back-end infrastructure to service the website and applications and store user data and transaction history. Source: Bank of England The BOE wants to “sharpen functional criteria for both the Bank and private sector” and make the CBDC output “more ..read more

Just days after Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao warned of more regulatory scrutiny in the aftermath of the FTX crash, Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary urged for a greater emphasis on openness and adequate supervision when dealing with virtual assets. Financial Secretary Paul Chan emphasised the significance of being “steady and careful” in fostering the growth of the Hong Kong virtual asset market. A poster that accompanied Chan’s post, approximately translated: “While actively embracing innovation, there must be a regulatory package that adapts and keeps pace with the times to properly manage ..read more

Following last week’s Merge event, the carbon footprint of the Ethereum blockchain is estimated to be reduced by 99%. According to a Bitwise research published on Tuesday, by framing staking as a service for retail and institutional investors, the improvement might have a big influence on the crypto economy. According to the business, long-term investors might earn 4%-8% through Ether (ETH) staking, while J.P. Morgan analysts predict that staking returns across PoS blockchains could treble to $40 billion by 2025. Users who stake crypto assets get benefits referred to as yields from transaction ..read more

According to a new analysis from the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA), the Ethereum ecosystem has evolved to the point where companies may utilise the network to address real-world issues. The paper highlights how the Ethereum network has developed to become one of the most valuable public blockchains, with use cases ranging from supply chain management to payment systems used by organisations such as Visa and PayPal. Despite this, the EEA research notes that the fast expansion of the Ethereum ecosystem has produced a number of issues for businesses, particularly in terms of energy consumpti ..read more

Institutional investors almost doubled the money they poured into venture capital over the past year and a significant proportion of those funds went into the crypto and blockchain space. According to a report published by Galaxy Digital Research in January 2022, venture capital firms invested almost $33 billion into startups active in the crypto and blockchain technology sectors. The venture capital invested in crypto in 2021 was higher than all previous years combined. In 2021, deal count also stood at an all-time high of more than 2,000, almost twice as many as the year before. Venture capi ..read more

Traditional hedge funds are warming to the idea of crypto investments, with continuously larger numbers wanting exposure to the space. According to a report by EY conducted in May 2021, almost one in four (22%) hedge fund managers is looking to increase exposure to crypto-related assets in the next one or two years. While the average portion of the hedge funds’ total Assets under Management (AuM) invested in digital assets is only at 3%, 84% of respondents have aimed to deploy more assets into crypto by the end of 2021. Among others, the emergence of institutional infrastructure in the crypto ..read more

As institutional interest in the crypto assets space is increasing steadily, family offices present an interesting case when it comes to the adoption of crypto. On the one hand, a family office’s main goal is to preserve the family’s wealth for generations to come, meaning they could take a more conservative approach to investing – usually family offices set fairly conservative benchmarks for their return on investment. The goal is often to preserve wealth by beating inflation; generating large amounts of alpha is not the priority. On the other hand, single family offices can be ..read more

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) will enter the digital asset market in Q1 of next year, conducting a trial to explore how it may play a role in the still nascent asset tokenization market. SWIFT is a Belgian-based cooperative that serves as an intermediary and settlement executor of financial transactions between banks worldwide. Linking over 11000 institutions across 200 countries, SWIFT is uniquely positioned to explore the future of tokenized securities, according to Thomas Zschach, SWIFT’s Chief Innovation Officer. Besides SWIFT, the other participa ..read more

After officially allowing the trading of crypto assets in the Dubai World Trade Centre free zone in September, the Middle East is now taking more serious steps toward supporting the virtual asset ecosystem and the tech space at large. Authorities in the United Arab Emirates are planning to establish a designated zone in the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) from which businesses and institutions dealing with digital assets will be able to offer their products and services. The aim is for the DWTC to become a “comprehensive ecosystem for cryptocurrencies and providers of related services”, accor ..read more

2021 was a fast-moving and highly interesting year for the crypto space, with great momentum unfolding in its adoption, notably institutional adoption with family offices and asset managers showing a growing interest. But what will 2022 hold for cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance? Here we will take a look at 8 of the major trends we will keep a close eye on in the year to come. Trend 1: Increasing Institutional Adoption of the crypto infrastructure In 2021, the institutional adoption of crypto and DeFi has experienced a clear rise, especially in the second half of the year, and ..read more