Schlagwort: crypto business

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Superstate secures $14M Series A round co-led by CoinFund

  • Superstate announced it raised $14 million in its Series A funding round.
  • The round was co-led by CoinFund and Distributed Global, and attracted participation from several venture capital firms.
  • Superstate will use the money to expand the team, finance private funds.

Superstate, an asset management firm looking to modernise infrastructure for investment funds via blockchain technology, has announced it raised $14 million in its Series A funding round.

The funding round was co-led by CoinFund and Distributed Global, with participation from Galaxy Ventures, Arrington Capital, Breyer Capital, Road Capital, CMT Digital, Folius Ventures, Modular Capital, Nascent, Hack VC and Department of XYZ.

The firm plans to utilise the capital injection to hire new talent as they look to expand the team. According to a news release on Wednesday, the financing will also go towards private funds targeted for institutional investors.

A post highlighting the funding round on X noted that resources will also be expended on “a framework for compliant, tokenized, publicly registered investment funds.”

In June this year, Superstate filed for regulatory approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to create a short-term government bond fund on the Ethereum blockchain. 

Superstate was co-founded by Robert Leshner, the founder of decentralised finance (DeFi) platform Compound.

The post Superstate secures $14M Series A round co-led by CoinFund appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Germany’s Commerzbank granted crypto custody licence

  • Commerzbank has become the first full-service bank in Germany to receive regulatory approval for a crypto custody licence.

Commerzbank, among the top four largest banks in Germany, has taken a huge step towards providing its clients access to secure digital assets custody. This is after it became the first full-service bank in the country to receive a crypto custody licence from the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).

The regulatory approval was granted pursuant to the German Banking Act (KWG), Frankfurt-based Commerzbank said in an announcement on Wednesday.

Commerzbank eyes crypto custody

According to the details shared in the press release, the licence allows the bank to develop its digital asset services solutions, including one that specifically targets crypto assets.

“Now that we have been granted the licence, we have achieved an important milestone. This highlights our ongoing commitment to applying the latest technologies and innovations, and it forms the foundation for supporting our customers in the areas of digital assets,” Dr Jörg Oliveri del Castillo-Schulz, the COO of Commerzbank, noted.

Providing custody for crypto assets will allow the bank to serve a wide range of customers, including from the burgeoning blockchain technology industry. 

As CoinJournal reported, Germany’s top bank Deutsche Bank announced a patnership with Swiss-based crypto firm Taurus in September. The collaboration allowed the bank to offer custody solutions for digital assets and tokenized financial instruments.

The post Germany’s Commerzbank granted crypto custody licence appeared first on CoinJournal.

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IMF MD asks for global preparation for central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)

  • IMF’s Georgieva urges global readiness for CBDCs at Singapore FinTech Festival.
  • CBDCs are a potential cash replacement, enhancing resilience, and promoting financial inclusion.
  • IMF introduces CBDC handbook and acknowledges BIS’s role in global digital finance experiments.

In a compelling address at the Singapore FinTech Festival, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva urged nations to ready themselves for the eventual deployment of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Georgieva expressed optimism despite acknowledging that the widespread adoption of CBDCs is still on the horizon, with approximately 60% of countries currently exploring these digital currencies in some capacity.

CBDCs as a replacement for Cash

Georgieva underscored the potential of CBDCs to replace traditional cash, offering heightened resilience in advanced economies and fostering financial inclusion in underbanked communities. According to her, CBDCs can coexist with private money, as a secure and cost-effective alternative.

The IMF head emphasized the crucial role of technological infrastructure in CBDC projects, emphasizing personal data protection and considering the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance national digital currencies. She particularly stressed the importance of CBDCs being designed to facilitate cross-border payments, addressing the current issues of expense, slowness, and limited accessibility. 

Georgieva’s argument comes amid fears that CBDCs risk attracting money launderers and cyber criminals.

IMF’s CBDC virtual handbook and collaborative efforts with BIS

During the event, Kristalina Georgieva introduced the IMF’s CBDC virtual handbook, marking a milestone in the ongoing discourse around the global adoption of digital currencies. She also acknowledged the pivotal role of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in supporting the public sector’s experimentation with digital money.

In recent initiatives, the IMF has actively engaged in analysing necessary crypto regulations, presenting a crypto-risk assessment matrix (C-RAM) aimed at helping countries identify potential risks in the cryptocurrency sector.

The collaborative effort of the IMF and BIS, as exemplified in the Synthesis paper, was unanimously endorsed by the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Communique in October, indicating growing global interest and commitment in shaping the future of digital finance.

The post IMF MD asks for global preparation for central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) appeared first on CoinJournal.

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OKX partners with Komainu and CoinShares for institutional segregated asset trading

  • OKX teams up with Komainu and CoinShares for institutional asset trading.
  • CoinShares trades on OKX, while Komainu safeguards assets, mitigating counterparty risks.
  • The collaboration establishes a legally robust mechanism, enhancing the reliability of institutional transactions.

In a strategic move aimed at fostering institutional adoption of digital assets, cryptocurrency exchange OKX has entered into a partnership with custody provider Komainu and asset manager CoinShares.

This collaboration, designed to facilitate round-the-clock trading of segregated assets, addresses a crucial concern for institutional traders—counterparty risks.

The partnership comes right on the heels of another OKX partnership with Polygon that saw OKX launch a ZK-powered L2 network built with Polygon CDK.

Mitigating counterparty risks with a traditional touch

In this innovative partnership, CoinShares will execute trades on the OKX exchange, while Komainu, functioning as a third-party custody provider, safeguards the collateral assets. The segregation of assets and the involvement of trusted custodians aim to mitigate counterparty risks, providing institutional traders with a level of assurance mirroring traditional financial market practices.

According to Sebastian Widmann, head of strategy at Komainu, this step is essential to attract institutions to adopt digital assets. By acting as independent, trusted, and regulated custodians for collateral assets, Komainu seeks to instil confidence in institutional clients throughout their trading lifecycle.

Lennix Lai, Chief Commercial Officer at OKX, emphasizes that while secure custody solutions, regulatory frameworks, and deepening exchange liquidity are in place, counterparty risk remains a significant hurdle for institutional traders. The collaboration aims to provide a legally robust mechanism for the mutual management of assets, demonstrating expertise in negotiating complex tripartite agreements covering collateral, security, and legal risks—critical aspects for institutional investors.

This partnership aligns with the ongoing trend in the crypto industry, focusing on enhancing infrastructure and risk management practices to attract traditional finance investors. As institutional interest continues to grow, initiatives like these contribute to creating a more reliable landscape for institutional transactions in the digital asset space.

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OKX launches ZK-powered L2 network built with Polygon CDK

  • OKX is collaborating with Polygon Labs to launch a new ZK-powered layer 2 network.
  • X1 will become OKX’s native network and utilise OKB for gas fees.
  • OKX also joins other platforms as a core contributor of the Polygon CDK.

OKX and Polygon Labs are collaborating on a new zero knowledge-powered layer 2 network, whose testnet was announced today.

The Ethereum-based ZK network is built using the Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK) and utilise the native OKX token OKB for gas fees. X1 becomes OKX’s new native network, the firm said in an announcement.

OKX becomes core contributor to Polygon CDK

As part of the partnership, OKX becomes a core contributor to the Polygon CDK. Other than that, the crypto exchange will invest its engineering resources in developing “the technology stack for Ethereum scaling solutions.”

“X1 will be a key pillar of our efforts to educate and bring our users on-chain and into the world of Web3. This scalable and accessible network is perfect for developers, who can build on X1 to deliver user-friendly world-class consumer Web3 applications, all while maintaining interoperability with other networks and ecosystems,” said Jason Lau, OKX’s chief innovation officer.

“By collaborating with Polygon Labs, we look to bring more builders, more use cases, and ultimately the mass adoption of Web3,” he added.

Polygon Labs unveiled the Polygon CDK for ZK-powered L2 chains on Ethereum in late August, promising developers and enterprises more scalability and unified liquidity.

Some of the blockchain platforms and firms looking to tap into the technology include Astar, Canto, Gnosis Pay, and IDEX.

The post OKX launches ZK-powered L2 network built with Polygon CDK appeared first on CoinJournal.