DeFi: former GS traders build decentralised i-bank

The round of funding was led by Founders Fund, the venture capital firm founded by Peter Thiel, and Pantera Capital.

The new capital will allow Ondo to build out its team and support new product launches including its multi-chain expansion. The DeFi company is building a decentralised investment bank focused on connecting stakeholders in the DeFi ecosystem, including decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), institutions and retail investors. As its first offering, the company built a ‘primitive’ for decentralised structured products that offer choice between downside protection and enhanced returns.

Structured products are a common part of traditional finance that’s well suited for the lower-cost execution of decentralised finance - Nathan Allman, Ondo Finance

Nathan Allman, founder and CEO of Ondo Finance, said the company will also use the US$20m round to expand its structured products offerings, with ‘some new product launches that will make it much easier for passive investors to obtain broad exposure to DeFi yields at a customised risk level’.

‘Structured products are a common part of traditional finance that’s well suited for the lower-cost execution of decentralised finance,’ he said.

Ondo is quickly expanding to other use cases, such as its liquidity-as-a-service (LaaS) offering, which matches DAOs with underwriters to provide liquidity for a DAO's native token, so that its users can easily trade its token in decentralised exchanges. Ondo has partnered with more than ten DAOs including Terra, Frax, and Fei, and has seen more than US$200m in liquidity deposited into its protocol.

Over the next few months, Ondo plans to launch several additional products including vaults that bundle yields from algorithmic stablecoins as well as vaults that aggregate yield across different blockchains.

These new vaults will help build momentum for the company to grow its current ecosystem and user base. To increase demand, Ondo is expanding its product compatibility with other protocols such as Curve and Convex. To broaden capital supply, Ondo seeks to make its offerings more accessible through integrations with crypto exchanges, web2 fintechs and custodians.

Bitpanda goes public with crypto securities in Germany

Austria-based crypto company Bitpanda has announced expanding its portfolio and offering four more exchange-traded notes (ETNs).

With its latest product expansion, Bitpanda will be offering another digital financial product for private investors as well as for institutional investors. In addition to investments in Bitcoin tokens, investments in Solana, the firm is now offering Cardano, Ethereum, and PolkaDot tokens to self-directed investors.

The company now offers a total of five exchange-traded notes (ETNs), which are initially listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

Bitpanda Crypto Trackers are intended to enable private and institutional investors to make investments without a crypto wallet. These are fully collateralised ETNs that track the price of the relevant cryptocurrency and are traded in EUR. The administration fee for the new crypto trackers is 1.49% yearly.

The Austrian fintech introduced the first cryptocurrency bond Bitpanda Bitcoin ETC in December 2021 to offer the EUR as a product currency. 

Hashdex debuts Nasdaq Crypto Index ETP in Europe

Brazilian crypto-focused asset manager Hashdex has launched its first ever product in Europe - the Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index Europe exchange-traded product (ETP) is available on the SIX Swiss Exchange under the ticker symbol SIX: HASH SW.

The Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index Europe ETP tracks the Nasdaq Crypto Index Europe (NCIE), an index designed to measure the performance of the overall digital asset market while remaining reflective of the ETP listing standards at specified European exchanges. The NCIE was specifically designed to be dynamic in nature, broadly representative of the market, and readily trackable by both institutional and retail investors.

Digital assets are eligible for inclusion in the NCIE if they satisfy specific criteria in line with current qualified requirements, including meeting a minimum standard of liquidity and trading volume, as well as being supported by digital asset exchanges and custodians approved by Nasdaq. The NCIE currently includes Avalanche, Bitcoin, Cardano, Ethereum, Litecoin, Polkadot, Polygon and Solana

Hashdex and Nasdaq have a long-standing relationship as partners in the crypto space, having previously co-developed the Nasdaq Crypto Index (NCI), which benchmarks the institutionally investable crypto market. The NCIE is an extension of the effective methodology established by the NCI, and has been refined in line with European eligibility requirements at SIX and XETRA.

21Shares goes BOLD

Cryptocurrency exchange traded products (ETPs) provider 21Shares has listed the 21Shares ByteTree BOLD ETP (BOLD), the world's first ETP that combines Bitcoin and Gold, on the SIX Swiss Exchange.

BOLD has been developed in partnership with ByteTree Asset Management, a UK specialist provider and manager of alternative investment strategies. BOLD's core investment objective is to deliver protection against inflation via optimized risk adjusted exposure to Bitcoin and Gold with assets weighted in inverse proportion to their risk.

The 21Shares ByteTree BOLD ETP will track a new customised benchmark/index comprising Bitcoin and Gold via monthly rebalancing. The weighting at launch is 18.5% Bitcoin and 81.5% Gold.

BOLD combines the best of the old and new worlds of finance, said Charlie Erith, CEO at ByteTree Asset Management. As the oldest asset class, Gold has historically delivered portfolio protection in an inflationary environment and Bitcoin is regarded as the digital equivalent of Gold, considering its growing adoption as a store of wealth.

"The BOLD investment strategy is a unique approach to blending a high return digital asset with a traditional store of value, with a low correlation to equities and bonds,” said Erith.

SEC doubles down on crypto assets, cyber enforcement

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has allocated 20 additional positions to the unit responsible for protecting investors in crypto markets and from cyber-related threats.

The newly renamed Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit (formerly known as the Cyber Unit) in the Division of Enforcement will grow to 50 dedicated positions.

By nearly doubling the size of this key unit, the SEC will be better equipped to police wrongdoing in the crypto markets while continuing to identify disclosure and controls issues with respect to cybersecurity, said SEC Chair Gary Gensler.

Since its creation in 2017, the unit has brought more than 80 enforcement actions related to fraudulent and unregistered crypto asset offerings and platforms, resulting in monetary relief totaling more than US$2 billion.

The expanded Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit will leverage the agency’s expertise to ensure investors are protected in the crypto markets, with a focus on investigating securities law violations related to crypto asset offerings; crypto asset exchanges; crypto asset lending and staking products; decentralised  finance (DeFi) platforms; non-fungible tokens ("NFTs"); and stablecoins.

Cboe Global Markets Completes Acquisition of ErisX, Entering Digital Asset Market

Cboe Global Markets has completed the acquisition of Eris Digital Holdings (ErisX), a regulated futures exchange and clearinghouse and an operator of a US based digital asset spot market.

The acquisition will allow Cboe to enter the digital asset spot and derivatives marketplaces through a digital-first platform developed with industry partners to focus on regulatory compliance, data and transparency.

Cboe plans to operate the ErisX business as a subsidiary with Thomas Chippas, chief executive officer of ErisX, remaining as head of the digital asset business, reporting to Chris Isaacson, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Cboe.

In addition to operating the existing spot, derivative and clearing platforms, Cboe also intends to develop and distribute a range of digital asset data products. Based on actionable bid and offer prices from the spot crypto market, Cboe Digital plans to develop a benchmark data stream to help market participants evaluate the appropriateness of crypto execution prices.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, however the company noted that the purchase price is not material from a financial perspective.