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The Avalanche Foundation has announced a new $220 million investment fund, named Blizzard, that it hopes will attract developers focused on decentralized finance (DeFi), enterprise applications, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and culture. The program will also assist promising projects with equity investments, token purchases and other kinds of operational support. Outside funding came from Polychain Capital, Three Arrows Capital, Dragonfly Capital, CMS Holdings, Republic Capital, R/Crypto Fund, Collab+Currency, Lvna Capital and Finality Capital Partners.

UBS Asset Management issued a pilot tokenized money market fund on the Ethereum public blockchain. It is one of the controlled pilots that are part of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Project Guardian. During the first pilot transactions, UBS Asset Management executed fund subscriptions and redemption of the tokenized fund represented as a smart contract. It plans to work with more partners and explore other investment strategies in further live pilots. UBS used its own UBS Tokenize platform.

China's central bank digital currency (CBDC) project has reached the roughly 100 billion yuan ($14 billion) transaction mark during its pilot phase. "Multiple e-government service platforms have opened digital renminbi payment services, supporting online and offline channels to handle various public utility payments, using digital renminbi to issue tax rebate funds, special funds for monthly medical insurance payment, funds for helping people in need, and 'specialized, special and new' enterprise support funds, etc." Going forward, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) plans to launch the cross-border payments between Hong Kong and mainland China, following the principle of "anonymity for small amounts and traceability of large amounts" to protect the user's personal data.

According to Chainalysis, In 2023, illicit addresses sent $22.2 billion worth of cryptocurrency to services, versus the $31.5 billion sent in 2022. Some of this drop may be attributed to an overall decrease in crypto transaction volume. However, the drop in money laundering activity was steeper, at 29.5%, compared to the 14.9% drop in total transaction volume. However, there was a big increase in the volume of funds sent to cross-chain bridges from addresses associated with stolen funds, and a substantial increase in funds sent from ransomware to gambling platforms, and in funds sent to bridges from ransomware wallets.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hinted that bitcoin's price volatility may mean it's not yet ready to support an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The note called bitcoin is a "highly speculative" asset, and warned that investors in mutual funds that trade bitcoin futures may be taking on more risk than they're aware of. Going forward, SEC staff will "consider whether, in light of the experience of mutual funds investing in the Bitcoin futures market, the Bitcoin futures market could accommodate ETFs." https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/staff-statement-investing-bitcoin-futures-market

Fintech firms are having a banner year 2021. During Q1 2021, venture capital-backed Fintechs secured $22.8 billion, which notably makes it the largest-ever funding quarter for Fintech companies since 2018, according to data from CB Insights. Mega-rounds of $100 million and more represented almost 70% of total funding internationally.

Grayscale has 10 funds and currently manages $25 billion in crypto-assets, up from $2 billion a year ago. The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust has accumulated more than 3% of the total Bitcoin supply, and it is seeing participation broaden out of the hedge fund segment to other institutions, pensions and endowments. Grayscale's funds operate as trusts that hold growing hoards of crypto-assets that are not redeemable by investors. Holders can sell their shares in most of the trusts in the secondary market.

Price discrepancies between the same assets on different exchanges, which have long been arbitraged away in stock and bond markets but still exist in crypto, also offer traders a way to make money. But achieving those returns has often proved a bumpy ride for hedge fund investors. A 39 per cent drop in the price of bitcoin on March 12 caught many funds by surprise, leading to large losses and some fund closures, particularly among those running high levels of risk.

According to the latest KPMG Pulse of Fintech report H1 2023 was difficult for the fintech market globally, with both total funding and the number of deals dropping. There was increasing focus on operational efficiency, sustainable cash flows, and profitability. Crypto funding declined in the wake of sector challenges, combined with increasing focus on broader blockchain solutions. However, there is rapidly growing interest in potential use cases for generative AI, particularly in cybersecurity, insurtech, and wealthtech.

Built on R3's Corda platform, FundAdminChain aims to bring the distributors, transfer agents, custodians and other intermediaries involved in the buying and selling of units in a fund onto a distributed ledger. The blockchain is targeting transfer agencies and messaging, to begin with, and then aims to build out into asset services. https://www.coindesk.com/ex-r3-execs-new-mission-run-100-trillion-fund-trade-on-private-blockchains.

Prime Factor Capital is the first crypto hedge fund approved as a full-scope alternative investment fund manager by the UK FCA. The firm will abide by European regulations under which the firm will be allowed to hold more than EUR 100 million in assets under management.

A series of PBoC rulings in 2017 and 2018 have stopped bigtech payment operators profiting from interest income earned by depositing customers' surplus payment funds. Instead, surplus payment funds now need to be placed with the PBoC and secure no interest in return - it had previously mandated that only certain percentages needed to be held with the central bank. The PBoC asked payment companies to deposit 100% of customer funds with the central bank by January 2019.

A number of Morgan Stanley's institutional funds may gain exposure to bitcoin in the form of cash-settled futures or a Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing names twelve funds considering some kind of bitcoin investment or exposure strategy. The filing also indicates that as much as 25% of their respective assets could be put towards bitcoin products. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/836487/000110465921044979/a21-8652_27497.htm

The Bank of England unveiled a new type of omnibus account as part of its real-time gross settlement (RTGS) service. Under the new model, an operator of a payment system can hold funds in the omnibus account to fund their participants' balances with central bank money. An omnibus account co-mingles funds from different entities for the purposes of wholesale settlement. The new type of account is not limited to wholesale transactions such as buying gilts, but can be used to settle transactions on behalf of customers, such as a small business paying a supplier.

A supermajority of El Salvador's legislature voted in favor of President Nayib Bukele's proposal for the nation to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. The bill will mandate all businesses to accept bitcoin for goods or services, but the government will act as a backstop for entities that aren't willing to take on the risk of a volatile crypto-asset. The government will set up a $150 million trust fund at the Development Bank of El Salvador to instantly convert bitcoin to U.S. dollars to assume merchants' risk. The Development Bank's trust fund would sell some of the bitcoin it receives for dollars to replenish the fund.

U.S. Bank Global Fund Services will offer a new cryptocurrency custody product for customers with the engagement of a sub-custodian for fund servicing. U.S. Bank has been selected to administer NYDIG's ETF bitcoin fund, pending U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approval.

Morgan Stanley has told its financial advisors that the bank is launching access to three funds that enable ownership of bitcoin. Two of the funds on offer are from Galaxy Digital, while the third is a joint effort from asset manager FS Investments and bitcoin company NYDIG. Morgan Stanley considers it suitable only for people with "an aggressive risk tolerance" who have at least $2 million in assets held by the firm. Investment firms need at least $5 million at the bank to qualify for the new stakes.

According to Equity Crowd Expert, 2020 was a gangbuster year for UK crowdfunded securities offerings. In total, £332 million was raised, led by Crowdcube and Seedrs who are in the process of merging operations and who were responsible for 90% of the offerings. 433 campaigns were funded, versus 2019's 403 offerings. Crowdcube and Seedrs shared the market almost equally with Crowdcube booking the most funding and Seedrs listing the slightly more offerings. Offerings received a bit of a government boost via the Future Fund that supported 11% of offerings during the year.

The bitcoin fund from Canada's 3iq Corp (QBTC), listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, has reached over C$1 billion in market capitalization. https://3iq.ca/the-bitcoin-fund/

"We analyze the new UFR proposal in more detail in this article. Whilst the introduction of the new method would currently lead to lower funding ratios, it should also make it easier for pension funds to stabilize their UFR funding and interest rate hedging ratios over time."