Most digital asset markets were outperformed by traditional assets in December following a market-wide decline, but market activity remains high.
According to the latest CryptoCompare Asset Report, ETH's price retreated the most (-20.6% to $3,676), reflecting the wider financial uncertainty associated with Omicron and its effect on inflation.
The returns of the top five crypto assets over the last week were as follows - BTC (-10.01%), ETH (-18.11%), BNB (-17.13%), SOL (-19.07%), and ADA (-14.39%).
Despite the recent market movements, the top cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation saw strong returns in 2021, all returning over 50%. This is above competing, traditional assets such as gold, which had negative returns of 3.8% in 2021. Similarly, traditional stock indices such as the S&P500 and Nasdaq 100 returned just 26.9% and 21.4.7% in 2021.
However, with higher returns comes significantly higher volatility – in December, the investigated crypto assets had volatilities between 65.3% (BTC) and 112% (ADA), compared to just 20.6% and 28.8% for the two market cap indices.
Julius Baer-backed crypto bank fuelled with CHF110m investment
Seba Bank, a Finma licensed digital assets banking platform, has secured a successful Series C funding round, raising CHF110m (US$119.4m).
The round was co-led by a consortium of specialised blockchain and fintech investors, comprised of Altive, Ordway Selections and Summer Capital, as well as DeFi Technologies, a NEO listed leader in decentralised finance which cloed a CHF25m investment in the Swiss digital assets bank. Alameda Research, a global cryptocurrency quantitative trading firm and liquidity provider, as well as core partner of FTX, also participated in the round.
The round was significantly oversubscribed: existing investors, including Julius Baer, increased their positions in the funding round.
Seba Bank is currently supporting over 25 markets globally. The company appointed an Apac CEO earlier this year to solidify its presence in Hong Kong and Singapore; and has also opened a dedicated office in Abu Dhabi.
Seba Bank rolled out a cross asset platform for crypto actively managed certificates (AMCs) in early December 2021.
Seba Bank was launched as a fully licensed Swiss digital bank in 2019 to offer a range of services in the areas of asset management, trading, custody and financing. The bank has brought to market several indices and structured certificates including certificate linked to the Seba Crypto Asset Select Index and the first dual currency certificate on BTC/USD that sells put options on BTC/USD.
Leonteq releases Polygon play
Leonteq has launched three open end trackers linked to Polygon a platform for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development backed by Binance and Coinbase.
Polygon aims to provide faster and cheaper transactions on Ethereum using Layer 2 sidechains, which are blockchains that run alongside the Ethereum main chain with pretty much the same functionality such as smart contract support. Users can deposit Ether to a Polygon smart contract, interact with them within Polygon, and then later withdraw them back to the Ethereum blockchain.
‘Polygon transforms Ethereum into a full-fledged multi-chain system akin to other networks such as Polkadot, Cosmos or Avalanche while benefiting from Ethereum’s security, ecosystem and openness,’ according to Leonteq.
The new tracker is available for trading on the SIX Swiss Exchange in CHF, euro and US dollar and have an administration fee of 1.50% pa.
Leonteq now offers tracker certificates and other structures on 25 digital assets.
21Shares lists Terra ETP in Switzerland
Crypto exchange traded product (ETP) provider 21Shares has announced the launch of its first product in 2022 – a new ETP tracking the value of Terra.
Terra is a public blockchain protocol deploying a suite of algorithmic decentralised stablecoins which underpins an ecosystem that brings DeFi to the masses.
Terraform Labs developed the Terra network in 2018 by Daniel Shin and Do Kwon who now acts as the company’s CEO and is a former Microsoft and Apple software engineer. Terra is funded by Binance, Arrington XRP, Polychain Capital, and Huobi Capital, to name a few.
Luna, the native token of the Terra blockchain, has risen almost 8,000% over the last year. As of January 2022, Terra is the second largest ecosystem in crypto with $18.81 billion in total value locked (TVL).
The launch comes as the Swiss firm reported net outflows of -US$6.69m on its range of ETPs in the past week. As of January 2022, 21Shares manages more than US$2+ billion in 22 cryptocurrency ETPs and 83 listings.
Algorand, FTX and Terra ETNs launched
US-based asset management company VanEck has launched three crypto exchange-traded notes (ETNs) tracking native tokens of the Algorand blockchain, Bahamian-based cryptocurrency exchange platform, FTX and blockchain protocol, Terra respectively.
The VanEck Algorand (VALG), VanEck FTX ETN (VFTX) and VanEck Terra ETN (VLUN) are listed on Boerse Stuttgart.
The ETNs will track the performance of their underlying tokens from indexes created by America-based MicroVision (MVIS) company, a subsidiary of VanEck that develops indices and offers information on these assets such as their prices.
While there are already similar products on the market tracking Terra (LUNA) and Algorand (ALGO), from 21Shares, the VanEck FTX (VFTX) is the world’s first tracker offering exposure to the FTX token.
Invesco lists bitcoin ETP on Six Exchange
Invesco Digital Markets has entered the Swiss digital assets market as a new issuer of crypto ETPs. With the Bitcoin ETP listed by Invesco, there are now a total of 225 ETPs and structured products with cryptocurrencies as underlyings offered for trading at Six Swiss Exchange.
‘Trading in passive products with cryptocurrency underlyings is enjoying growing popularity among institutional and private investors,’ Christian Reuss, head Six Swiss Exchange. ‘Structured products and ETPs offer a convenient and well established investment process to do so.’
Invesco is an ETF issuer at Six Swiss Exchange since 2004, currently offering 96 ETFs and ranks among the top five ETF issuers on the exchange in terms of trading turnover in 2021. Since 2010, Invesco further acts as an ETP issuer on Six Swiss Exchange with three listings. The ETF issuer has become the ninth crypto ETP issuer at Six Swiss Exchange which offer 108 crypto ETPs.
2021 was a record-breaking year for products with cryptocurrencies as underlyings on Six Swiss Exchange. Trading turnover in these products passed the 8-billion mark for the first time and reached CHF8.6 billion (US$9.3 billion), which is more than seven times (+673%) the previous year's figure (CHF1.1 bn). The number of transactions saw a seven-fold growth compared to2021 - in total, 354,542 trades were carried out in crypto products, an increase of 634% compared to 2020 (48,300).
Five out of the top 10 crypto products by trading turnover 2021 are on bitcoin, according to the exchange.
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