Monat: Oktober 2022

Veröffentlicht am

21shares launches first spot bitcoin ETP in the Middle East

The new spot bitcoin ETP will list and trade on Nasdaq Dubai, 21Shares said in a press release.

21Shares, a leading provider of cryptocurrency exchange traded products (ETPs), has expanded its product range to the Middle East, the company said in a press release on Wednesday.

The ETP issuer’s entry into the fast-growing Middle East market comes with the launch of 21Shares Bitcoin ETP, the region’s first physically-backed Bitcoin ETP.

21Shares continues expansion

21Shares’s new spot BTC exchange traded product will trade on Nasdaq Dubai under the ticker ABTC and will have the same characteristics as the 21Shares Bitcoin ETP Europe, according to the announcement.

“Our expansion into the UAE is a major milestone in 21Shares’ international growth plans. Coming from the Middle East myself, the region is exceptionally important to me and, as a company, we are committed to providing regional investors with safe and secure access to cryptocurrency-backed products,” Hany Rashwan, CEO and co-founder of 21Shares said in a statement.

21Shares’ move into the Middle East comes a few weeks after parent company 21.co launched and raised $25 million at a $2 billion valuation to become the largest crypto unicorn in Switzerland.

“Cryptocurrencies are fast becoming the asset of the future for investors and wealth managers around the world, as global crypto adoption and investment levels continue to accelerate at pace – and the Middle East is a major accelerator of this growth,” said Sherif El-Haddad, the Head of Middle East for 21Shares.

As CoinJournal reported, EL-Haddad joined 21Shares in August as the crypto ETP issuer expanded its reach across Europe and the Middle East.

Over the past year, and despite the crypto winter, 21Shares has expanded its innovative products suite, with launches including the world’s first USD Yield ETP, crypto exchange traded funds (ETFs) in Australia and pioneered the  and the Bitcoin and Gold ETP on the SIX Swiss Exchange.

In June, 21Shares unveiled its Crypto Winter Suite, which as CoinJournal also reported, offered a product set tailored to help investors navigate the bear market.

The post 21shares launches first spot bitcoin ETP in the Middle East appeared first on CoinJournal.

Veröffentlicht am

Blockchain.com secures Singapore license

Blockchain.com has received an in-principle regulatory approval from the Singapore Monetary Authority (MAS).

Blockchain.com, a leading cryptocurrency exchange and wallet provider, has received regulatory approval to offer its services in Singapore.

In an announcement on Wednesday, the crypto company said it has secured approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). 

The in-principle approval is for the Major Payment Institution License for Digital Payment Token services, the company noted in a blog post.

Singapore’s growing importance as a crypto hub

The preliminary approval sees Blockchain.com Singapore joins Coinbase that received a similar approval on Tuesday, 11 October, 2022, and Crypto.com as major crypto exchanges to be granted regulatory approval in the country.

Blockchain.com considers Singapore a crucial market, with the city-state offering an attractive ecosystem for advancing the exchange’s institutional customer base. Singapore is SouthEast Asia’s biggest economy and growth within the crypto sector has continued amid a regulatory push from MAS.

In a comment, Blockchain.com CEO and co-founder Peter Smith said the Singaporean authorities’ licensing will help drive further innovation in the crypto sector.

“Blockchain.com commends the Monetary Authority of Singapore on its transparent regulatory process that prioritizes crypto industry oversight while allowing innovation to thrive.”

Blockchain.com plans to continue growing its institutional client base, with the Singapore office a key component going forward.

There are more than 84 million Blockchain.com wallet holders, the exchange’s website shows. The users are spread across 200 countries from where they can buy, sell and earn different types of cryptocurrencies.

The post Blockchain.com secures Singapore license appeared first on CoinJournal.

Veröffentlicht am

Zuckerberg’s metaverse bet is turning sour

Meta honcho Mark Zuckerburg is a pantomime villain.

When Facebook announced last year that they were rebranding as “Meta”, in a signal of intent about where they believed the industry at large was heading, it disappointed some.

“How dare they take the metaverse name”, many decried. Yet with the nebulous concept of metaverse now being referred to more as Web3, this chatter has died down a bit.

Meta vision struggling

But what exactly is going on with Meta, and their push to kick off the new age of social media?

Zuckerburg’s announcement did nothing to quell the slew of selling, as Facebook’s share price today trades at $129, a nasty 59% plunge since the rebrand announcement.

Nearly a year to the day of the Meta rebrand, Zuckerburg’s utopian vision of some Ready Player One type of virtual reality world has never seemed so far off.

Thousands of employees are working on this goal, but the results thus far have been underwhelming, to say the least. This week, internal memos were leaked, which the Verge reported on.

They were, I’m sure you agree, sombre in tone.

“Why don’t we love the product we’ve built so much that we use it all the time”? Meta’s VP of Metaverse, Vishal Shah, asked.

“The simple truth is, if we don’t love it, how can we expect our users to love it?” he added.

“The aggregate weight of papercuts, stability issues, and bugs is making it too hard for our community to experience the magic of Horizon” another quote read, referring to Meta’s virtual reality game.

Metaverse tokens lagging market-wide

The fall in metaverse tokens in the year since is stark. Of course, cryptocurrency tokens market-wide have fallen off a cliff, but the scale at which metaverse-related tokens have dropped is nonetheless worrying.

Looking at the nine tokens within the CoinMarketCap top 100 which are classified as “metaverse” related, the average decline since Meta’s rebrand is daunting. I plotted them in the graph below:

Even more concerning is the dropoff in users of these games. While there appeared to be misreporting around the active users on Decentraland – with alarming data suggesting 38 daily active users turning out to be exaggerated – the fact of the matter is that engagement in these metaverse games has collapsed in line with token prices.  

What happens now?

For Zuck, it’s been a tough time. He even fell out of the top 10 richest people in the US this week, yet another bitter pill to swallow.

In all seriousness, the struggles of the vague but seductive metaverse are concerning. Games are struggling to be made with the standard of conventional non-blockchain games. With token prices through the floor, the play-to-earn model has suffered as a result, as without the potential for large earnings, these games are just…less fun.

It will be interesting to see how Zuck and Meta build from here. But for the time being, their metaverse bet thus far has been ill-advised.

The post Zuckerberg’s metaverse bet is turning sour appeared first on CoinJournal.