UK hedge fund reportedly plans to invest $84M in crypto

The firm’s co-founder Alan Howard already has a personal stake in One River Digital Asset Management's crypto ventures. Brevan Howard, a U.K.-based asset management firm, is reportedly planning to directly invest in digital assets after more than a year of exposure to the crypto space. According to a Bloomberg report, Brevan Howard Asset Management will be allocating 1.5% of the $5.6 billion in its main hedge fund to crypto — roughly $84 million. A source with knowledge of the matter said two co-founders of crypto investment firm Distributed Global, Johnny Steindorff and Tucker Waterman, would be leading Brevan Howard’s foray…

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Insurance Giant AXA Allows Swiss Clients to Pay for Services With Bitcoin

The French multinational insurance firm AXA is now allowing clients in Switzerland to pay for services in bitcoin. The newly added support is part of the company’s “digital future” and stems from customer demand for crypto payments. AXA Supports Bitcoin Payments In Switzerland AXA has announced it is the first all-lines insurer in the country of Switzerland to accept bitcoin (BTC) for bill payments. At the end of 2019, AXA conducted a study and asked people 18 to 55 about what they thought about cryptocurrencies. The study had shown that many respondents already held digital currencies and others were also…

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Blackrock CEO says crypto ‘may become a great asset class’ but is no substitute for currency

Larry Fink said he hadn't been seeing great institutional demand for crypto within Blackrock's circles. Despite the successful rollout of Coinbase's stock on Wednesday, Blackrock CEO Larry Fink still expressed some concerns over the institutional adoption of crypto. In an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday, Fink said he was "encouraged by how many people were focusing" on crypto and the narrative surrounding it, but he seemed to imply his views were largely unchanged in the wake of a major cryptocurrency exchange going public.  "[Crypto] may become a great asset class, and I do believe this could become a great…

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Experts debate whether NFTs really need blockchain

Crypto YouTuber EllioTrades and law professor Edmund Schuster debated the value of NFTs and the role of blockchain in digital collectibles. At the BlockDown 2021 conference, EllioTrades, a crypto YouTuber and co-creator of the Superfarm NFT project, joined a debate about the value of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, with Edmund Schuster, associate professor of law at the London School of Economics. By definition, NFTs are unique pieces of digital content brought and moved online using blockchain tech, the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). As a core feature of NFTs, blockchain ensures digital scarcity and authenticity…

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Switzerland’s largest insurer AXA starts accepting Bitcoin as payment

All private AXA customers now have the option to pay insurance premiums for any non-life insurance products in Bitcoin. Europe's second-largest insurance firm AXA has become Switzerland's first all-line insurer to offer its customers the option to pay their bills with Bitcoin (BTC), facilitated through a collaboration with the established cryptocurrency broker Bitcoin Suisse. Bitcoin payments will be accepted for nearly all AXA products except for life insurance, due to regulatory barriers to the latter.  AXA has cited the accelerated digital transformation of the global economy during the coronavirus pandemic as being a key factor in its choice to integrate…

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Finance officials pour cold water on cryptocurrency amid Coinbase celebrations

Economic gatekeepers are rounding on cryptocurrency as media attention intensifies amid the Bitcoin boom and Coinbase listing. Finance officials from both sides of the globe are taking the opportunity to criticize the value and utility of cryptocurrencies as media focus intensifies on the space following Coinbase’s direct listing on the Nasdaq. Bank of Korea governor Lee Ju-yeol said cryptocurrencies had “considerable limitations” as a method of payment, following a monetary policy meeting on Thursday, reports local outlet KBS World. While asserting that it was difficult to accurately value cryptocurrencies due to their volatile price fluctuations, Lee said the BOK had…

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Dubai’s economic department to roll out blockchain-based corporate KYC

Dubai’s Department of Economic Development wants to accelerate the total adoption of UAE KYC — the national Know Your Customer standard running on blockchain technology. Dubai’s Department of Economic Development, or “Dubai Economy,” and the Dubai International Financial Centre are working to expand their Know Your Customer platform to financial institutions across the United Arab Emirates. The DIFC made the planned project expansion known via an announcement published on its website on April 6. According to the communique, both organizations have signed an agreement to put the necessary modalities in place to extend the KYC platform across the UAE. The project was…

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Lockheed Martin adopts blockchain for supply chain management in Switzerland

The defense contractor has secured access to SyncFab’s supplier intelligence platform to help manage OEMs in Switzerland. United States aerospace and defense contractor Lockheed Martin has signed an agreement with SyncFab, a Silicon Valley distributed manufacturing platform, to streamline supplier capabilities across Switzerland, offering yet another tangible use case for blockchain technology.  Under the new agreement, SyncFab will provide Lockheed Martin with direct access to its parts procurement and supply chain platform, which is built on top of the company's blockchain. The secure supplier intelligence platform connects Original Equipment Manufacturers, or OEMs, to Swissmem members, allowing OEMs to match with…

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Enterprise blockchain solutions rally as businesses get hip to crypto

XRP, Stellar and XinFin see tremendous growth as enterprise solutions that offer cross-border solutions and serve the unbanked gain traction. The mainstream adoption of blockchain technology continues to pick up steam as stories like Microstrategy using Bitcoin (BTC) to pay bonuses for its board of directors and Topps announcing plans to release nonfungible token collectible trading cards make headlines on a almost daily basis.  As more companies and organizations explore what the integration of blockchain technology can do for them, tokens that offer enterprise solutions and provide simple ways for interested parties to explore and use distributed ledger technology have seen triple-digit…

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MicroStrategy announces Bitcoin bonuses for board of directors instead of cash

Cash is out of the board room and Bitcoin is in, as MicroStrategy announces it will pay director bonuses in BTC instead of dollars. Business intelligence firm MicroStrategy announced on April 11 that its board of directors will now receive bonuses in Bitcoin (BTC) instead of cash. A modified 8-K form filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission revealed MicroStrategy’s decision to dispense with cash bonuses, and instead use Bitcoin to compensate those on the company’s board. The modified filing states: “Going forward, non-employee directors will receive all fees for their service on the Company’s Board in bitcoin…

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Topps baseball cards maker and MLB will issue official NFTs

A set of Topps Series 1 Baseball non-fungible token collectibles will be issued by the major card maker in partnership with Major League Baseball and MLB Players Inc. A set of non-fungible tokens is set to be issued by the United States' leading trading card maker Topps in partnership with Major League Baseball and MLB Players Inc. Topps' flagship annual baseball card collection, now to circulate in NFT form, reflects the company's pivot towards a digital transition and awareness of the growing and significant appeal of blockchain-based collectibles.  To help bridge between the traditional and digital worlds of collectors, artwork from…

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Mass adoption could take crypto toward centralization

With mass adoption comes the danger that cryptocurrency could lose one in all its core price propositions: decentralization. This is the year cryptocurrency finally starts to interrupt into the thought. From Elon Musk and Tesla finance in and acceptive Bitcoin (BTC) to the recent non fungible token craze, the times of blockchain school being the domain of cypherpunks and coders square measure behind USA. Still, the technology has approximately advanced to the stage wherever the typical person can feel snug victimisation. and also the longer the usability of cryptocurrency takes to achieve the amount wherever it connects with nontechnical users,…

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How the digital yuan stablecoin impacts crypto in China: Experts answer

Here’s what crypto and blockchain industry experts from China think about the digital yuan and how it has affected the blockchain space. This is part one of a multipart series on blockchain and crypto in China. China has been discussing the possibilities of national digital currency for half a decade, and the Chinese digital yuan project — referred to as the Digital Currency Electronic Payment, or DCEP — has years of history. Back in 2014, the People’s Bank of China set up a research group “to study digital currencies and application scenarios.” The research team was conducting a digital currency…

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DeFi’s critical missing piece: Credit scores

Traditional finance is built not on collateral but on reputation, and DeFi will grow by following suit. Over the last 12 months, the remarkable growth in decentralized finance has been driven by one thing: the ability of users to earn strong yields on their crypto assets by lending, staking and providing liquidity. Depending on your risk appetite, gains from DeFi investments can run tens or even hundreds of times higher than standard returns in the traditional markets. Even if those kinds of yields don’t last forever, DeFi offers significant promise to transform the financial markets in the long term. At…

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WWE Set to Auction NFTs Around Lengendary Wrestler The Undertaker

Professional wrestling and media company, the World Wrestling Foundation (WWE), has joined the non-fungible tokens (NFT) bandwagon, as the company is looking to launch its first-ever NFTs centered on the retired legendary wrestler, Mark William Calaway,  popularly known as The Undertaker.  The Undertaker NFTs to Launch Ahead of Wrestlemania  In a press release published on Read More

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Badger DAO integrates with institutional DeFi gateway Fireblocks

The Bitcoin-on-Ethereum project gets a major institutional breakthrough via Fireblocks. In a blog post today, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Badger DAO announced a forthcoming integration with Fireblocks, a digital asset storage, management, and DeFi on-ramp for institutional investors.  “We’re excited to announce a strategic partnership between Fireblocks and BadgerDAO to enable their 200+ institutional clients to securely hold Badger assets on their platform and put their Bitcoin to work through the Badger protocol,” reads the post. BadgerDAO founder Chris Spadafora said that the integration will help make Badger’s vaults and products more accessible to institutional investors, and not just the…

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DeFi’s money markets are finally luring in institutional investors

The explosive growth of DeFi’s money markets over the last few years has finally gotten the attention of institutional investors. Bitcoin’s bull run from last year has caused even some of its biggest skeptics to soften their stance. From economists to hedge fund managers, the world is opening itself up to technology, and at the center of this movement is decentralized finance, or DeFi. While the market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has hit $2 trillion, worth as much as Apple, it’s the promise of DeFi — a small corner of the blockchain industry today — that’s grabbing the attention of…

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State Street to provide tech for institutional Bitcoin trading platform

State Street-owned FX platform Currenex will provide its infrastructure for the Pure Digital cryptocurrency exchange. State Street, the second-oldest operating bank in the United States, is moving into the cryptocurrency industry by agreeing to provide its technology for a new crypto trading platform. Currenex, a forex technology provider owned by State Street, has entered into an agreement with crypto firm Puremarkets to provide its trading infrastructure and tech for the new crypto trading platform Pure Digital. Announcing the news Thursday, Pure Digital said that it will also collaborate with State Street to further explore the digital currency trading industry. According…

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Tesla’s landlord accepts crypto; will Elon Musk pay rent in Bitcoin?

Elon Musk will accumulate Bitcoin, but will he spend it? The Tesla CEO now has the chance to pay his rent in BTC following its adoption by the real-estate firm he uses. After becoming a corporate pioneer in cryptocurrency adoption, Elon Musk could be about to take the next step and begin paying rent in Bitcoin (BTC). While no announcement has been made by the “Technoking” himself, news broke on April 7 regarding a partnership between Los Angeles real-estate firm, Caruso Properties, and the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, founded by the Winklevoss twins. Following the partnership, Caruso will accept Bitcoin payments for…

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Football star Tom Brady to launch his own NFT platform

Autograph will target some of the world's biggest names in sports, entertainment, fashion and pop culture. Six-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady is backing a new major development in the nonfungible token industry by launching his own NFT platform. The new NFT platform, dubbed Autograph, will target some of the biggest figures in sports, entertainment, fashion and pop culture, and provide a tool for unique digital collectibles, a Brady told CNN on Tuesday. The platform is expected to launch this spring. Autograph CEO Dillon Rosenblatt said that the platform will bring together “some of the world’s most iconic names and brands…

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