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Morgan Stanley acquired 10.9% stake in business intelligence firm MicroStrategy, a firm that has made massive investments in Bitcoin over the past several months. In August, MicroStrategy made Bitcoin its primary reserve asset, and more recently MicroStrategy announced a $400 million securities offering with the stated purpose of raising funds to buy more Bitcoin. As of December 21, the firm had stockpiled 70,470 Bitcoin.

BlackRock Financial Management posted a job ad for a VP-level blockchain lead to create and implement strategies designed to drive demand for the firm's offerings and enhance the value proposition to clients of the firm's investments and technology offerings. The candidates must have experience in: articulating the technological foundations of blockchain technology including cryptographic hash functions, distributed network consensus mechanisms, and public-private key cryptography; devising and articulating fundamental valuation methodologies for crypto-assets; evaluating game theory and decentralizing governance models associated with blockchain technology; and working with key drivers of blockchain networks' design and their impact on the four key dimensions of blockchain performance including speed, scalability, privacy, and security.

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.

The SkyBridge Bitcoin Fund, aimed at accredited investors, who can subscribe directly to it with a minimum investment of $50,000. It charges a 0.75% expense ratio, allowing it to stay competitive with similar products. Fidelity is serving as its principal custodian, and the fund's NAV will be calculated weekly based on the Bloomberg Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Fixing Rate (XBT). Redemptions can be made at the end of every quarter with 30 days notice.

Genesis, Coinbase and BitGo, three of the largest digital asset platforms, have moved into the crypto prime brokerage space, as the importance of the function to attract institutional investors becomes abundantly clear. The combination of lending, custody, trading services and settlement agency services - among others - is crucial for institutional investors who do not want to deal with the current complexities of the digital asset market in its current form.

"Crypto asset manager CoinShares has reported that investment inflows into institutional cryptocurrency funds surged last week, and the majority of it was Ethereum. The report states that of the $245 million crypto inflow last week, 80% of it or $195 million was invested into Ethereum ahead of the launch of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Ethereum futures contracts on February 8. Comparatively, Bitcoin had $41.9 million of the weekly flows, with a year-to-date total of $2.02 billion."

BlockFi launched its new Bitcoin Trust that was registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) late last month. The Trust will issue shares through private placements, and the value of the shares will reflect the value of BTC held by the trust (minus expenses and other liabilities). Initially, trust shares will be made available to global institutions and other qualified investors. Later on, access will be expanded to include accredited individual investors in the United States. https://blockfi.com/the-blockfi-bitcoin-trust-offers-a-new-way-to-invest-in-bitcoin

Deutsche Bank is developing a fully integrated custody platform for institutional clients and their digital assets providing seamless connectivity to the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem. It will introduce a secure connected bridge between digital assets and a customer's traditional banking services, manage the array of digital assets and fiat holdings in one easy-to-use platform, and create the gateway for value added services either supplied by the custodian or via third-party providers, and ensure the safety and accessibility of assets for clients by offering an institutional-grade hot/cold storage solution with insurance-grade protection. A proof of concept has been completed and the bank and is aiming for a minimum viable product in 2021, while exploring global client interest for a pilot initiative. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Cryptocurrency_Uses_Cases_2020.pdf

Cointerpoint Global, a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley Investment Management with $150 billion in assets under management, is reportedly exploring whether the cryptocurrency would be a suitable option for its investors.

According to Morgan Stanley's Chief Global Strategist Ruchir Sharma, "even if Bitcoin's price pops, as it has before, the rush of 2020 can't be dismissed as an irrational mania. Cryptocurrencies are still young, they still face growing pains. But they also promise speed, transparency, and low fees that traditional payment channels cannot match. They satisfy a growing demand for a digital alternative to gold, an asset likely to protect investors from massive money printing and the threat of inflation. To younger investors, "crypto" already evokes digital, stable and good, not shadowy and sinister. The rest would be well advised to recognize that the currency world is changing, or risk being left behind."

Chief investment officer Rick Rieder said Blackrock has "started to dabble a bit" into crypto investments. He described the volatility of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) as "extraordinary" but acknowledged that many investors were looking for "places that appreciate under the assumption that inflation moves higher as debts are building... Holding some portion of what you hold in cash in things like crypto seems to make some sense to me, but I wouldn't espouse a certain allocation or target holding."

The total value of Grayscale's crypto-assets under management reached $36.5 billion, of which $30.1 was in the Bitcoin Trust and $5.3 in the Ethereum Trust. Grayscale bought 116,174 Ethereum during the last 4 weeks, and 12,450 worth nearly $22.5 million on February 9.

The Ontario Securities Commission has reportedly cleared the launch of the Purpose Bitcoin ETF, making it the first to gain regulatory approval in North America.

Osprey Fund's bitcoin trust is now available to retail investors via the over-the-counter (OTC) market. The fund was formed two years ago, and Osprey applied to register the trust with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the middle of last year. This fee structure makes the fund cheaper than Grayscale Bitcoin Trust but more expensive than other new funds like CrossTower's master-feeder bitcoin fund.

A key feature of Grayscale trusts is that there is no way to redeem the underlying crypto, at least for now. So when BTC or ETH is deposited into the trusts it stays there indefinitely. The lack of redemption options plus high institutional demand has created an interesting side effect: crypto trusts are becoming large supply sinks that lock up cryptoassets and effectively take them out of circulation, reducing the overall liquid supply.

The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has approved the Evolve Bitcoin ETF Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) just days after the regulator greenlit the Purpose Bitcoin ETF. The approval paves the way for a listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). As is the case with Purpose, Cidel Trust Company, a subsidiary of Cidel Bank Canada, is the Evolve's custodian, and Gemini is serving as sub-custodian.

A new poll of finance managers by Gartner Finance finds that a majority are not planning to hold bitcoin as a corporate asset. In their responses, most of the 77 finance leaders interviewed cite bitcoin's volatility as one characteristic of the crypto asset that is "extremely difficult to mitigate."

In regulatory filings published on SEDAR, the Purpose Bitcoin ETF disclosed that the OSC had issued a receipt for its long-form prospectus. To offer securities to the public, an investment fund must first receive approval from the OSC for a preliminary prospectus, after which a final prospectus can be submitted. If the final prospectus is approved, the securities can be publicly issued. Under the passport model, an investment fund approved by its principal regulator gains automatic access to capital markets in other provinces and territories, subject to continuous disclosure requirements.

According to Osprey Funds CEO Greg King, the fund isn't set up to compete with the likes of Grayscale. Instead, King wants the Osprey Bitcoin Fund to make investing in Bitcoin easier for people who-while they may have had limited exposure to the market previously-have never fully embraced cryptocurrencies.

Purpose Bitcoin ETF, North America's first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), got off to a stellar start in its debut on the Toronto Stock Exchange, with investors exchanging $165 million worth of shares. "The U.S. currently has several active filings for a Bitcoin ETF, including the ones from VanEck Associates and Bitwise Asset Management, but the price swings notorious in cryptocurrenies and allegations of industry manipulation remain hurdles to regulator approval."