J.P. Morgan has joined the roster of leading financial firms to invest in TRM crypto compliance and risk management technology.

The TRM Labs platform is used by financial institutions, cryptocurrency businesses, regulators, and law enforcement agencies to monitor cryptocurrency transactions for suspicious activity and to trace the movement of stolen or other illicitly obtained funds.

TRM's Transaction Monitoring solution allows financial institutions and cryptocurrency businesses to meet anti-money laundering (AML) regulatory requirements and manage reputational and operational risk. The platform also provides cross-chain analytics, which allows detection and investigation of high-risk activity across multiple blockchains, providing unique insight into money laundering techniques increasingly used by sophisticated threat actors.

We need a globally consistent regulatory framework - Debbie Toennies, J.P. Morgan

‘TRM’s vision to drive security and integrity in crypto ecosystems through sophisticated analytics solutions aligns with our ambitions for building blockchain products at J.P. Morgan that are compliant and secure,” said Umar Farooq, CEO, Onyx by J.P. Morgan.

The US bank which has spent the last six years exploring the possibilities and applicability of blockchain technology, is also calling for new rules to give banks certainty in handling crypto assets on behalf of big customers who want to enter the market.

According to Reuters, Debbie Toennies, head of regulatory affairs at J.P. Morgan corporate and investment bank, said during a panel discussion at a recent event held by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (Isda) that some very large players like hedge funds and investment funds are looking to banks to act as their intermediaries to hedge their exposures to crypto assets.

‘We need a globally consistent regulatory framework,’ she said. ‘It's important that we get to a solution as quickly as possible. The real risk to all of our economies is that if we don't get to a solution that allows banks to engage with our clients in a hedged way, this activity will go outside the regulatory perimeter, and I am concerned about financial stability.’

BSE debuts Bitcoin, Ethereum ETNs

The Bulgarian exchange has listed eight crypto ETNs tracking Bitcoin and Ethereum prices on BSE International.

With the launch of the first crypto ETNs, BSE joins a number of European exchanges such as Deutsche Borse, Euronext and SIX, which started trading in these instruments two years ago.

‘With the new products of BSE International, we meet the increased market interest in crypto instruments,’ said associate Professor Dr Manyu Moravenov, executive director of BSE. ‘With BSE International crypto ETNs, investors are not committed to creating own crypto wallets or cryptographic keys, while receiving guarantees that the instruments they choose are systematically regulated and regulatory compliant.’

The launch of the new crypto ETNs is part of BSE’s partnership with Deutsche Borse and market maker Tradegate, which will ensure the liquidity of the instruments.

The products available on BSE include the BTCetc - Bitcoin Exchange Traded Crypto
VanEck Vectors Bitcoin ETN, ETHetc – ETC Group Physical Ethereum ETP, VanEck Vectors Ethereum ETN, 21Shares Bitcoin ETP, 21Shares Ethereum ETP, WisdomTree Bitcoin, and WisdomTree Ethereum.

DeFi Technologies, Seba Bank partner in ETP venture

DeFi Technologies has announced that it intends to launch an exchange traded product (ETP) venture with Seba Bank to offer investment solutions in crypto assets.

Under the partnership, Seba Bank will provide a variety of services as a fully regulated Swiss crypto bank with a core capability in digital assets which combined with the distribution capabilities of DeFi Technologies wholly owned subsidiary Valour, ‘will create a new power house for digital assets in Europe for both institutional and retail clients’.

‘Through the new asset backed program, we have the possibility to launch new products that enables us to access more markets and the institutional capital,’ said Russell Star, CEO of DeFi Technologies.

The first product to be launched under the new brand will be an asset backed product for the European market.

‘The institutional adoption of digital assets continues to grow at pace, with investors looking to trusted, regulated counterparties in order to securely and successfully incorporate digital assets into their operations,’ said Guido Bühler, CEO of SEBA Bank.

Valour releases new crypto ETPs

Valour, the ETP provider owned by DeFi Technologies has launched the Valour Terra (LUNA) SEK and Valour Avalanche (AVAX) SEK on the Nordic Growth Market (NGM) ‘with other exchanges soon to follow’.

The new ETPs offer access to retail and institutional investors to the native tokens of the Terra and Avalanche networks.

The Valour Terra (Luna) ETP (ISIN CH1114178804) tracks the performance of Luna, the native token of the Terra protocol, a leading decentralized and open-source public blockchain protocol for algorithmic stablecoins.

Using a combination of open market arbitrage incentives and decentralised Oracle voting, the Terra protocol creates stablecoins that consistently track the price of any fiat currency and the Terra ecosystem is a quickly expanding network of decentralized applications. Luna is among the top ten cryptocurrencies in the world by market capitalisation, currently at US$27.5 billion.

The Valour Avalanche (AVAX) ETP (ISIN CH1114178788) tracks the performance of AVAX, the native token of the Avalanche platform. 

Avalanche is an open, programmable smart contracts platform for decentralized applications aiming to rival Ethereum due to its high speed. Avalanche's core innovation is that it is composed of three blockchains rather than the usual one, enabling the distribution of tasks to help keep the Avalanche platform agile while achieving decentralization, security and scalability. AVAX is among the top 15 cryptocurrencies in the world by market capitalization, currently at US$18.3 billion.

Valour offers fully hedged digital asset ETPs with low to zero management fees on four European exchanges including Uniswap (UNI), Cardano (ADA), Polkadot (DOT) and Solana (SOL) ETPs, as well as Valour's flagship Bitcoin Zero and Valour Ethereum Zero products, which are completely fee-free.

Most providers of crypto ETPs charge up to 2.5% in management fees.

21Shares lists new crypto ETPs on Euronext Paris and Amsterdam

Crypto ETP provider 21Shares has listed three new crypto ETPs tracking Decentraland, AAVE and FTX Token on Euronext Paris and Amsterdam.

The 21Shares Decentraland ETP (ISIN: CH1161102699 tracks the performance of Decentraland, the first decentralized and user-owned virtual reality platform that allows users to create, experience, and monetise content and applications including purchase of virtual land. As of today, more than $180m of land sale has been sold.

The Aave ETP (ISIN: CH1135202120) tracks the proce of Aave, a decentralized finance platform with open-source, non-custodial liquidity market protocol. Aave’s open-source network allows users to interact with an API or directly with smart contracts on the Ethereum network, ensuring greater transparency and efficiency.The 21Shares FTX Token ETP (ISIN: CH1145930983) tracks the price of FTX, a crypto derivatives exchange that offers products like derivatives, options, volatility products and leveraged tokens and is the 3rd biggest exchange token with a daily trading volume of US$2.5bn+. The token FTT allows users to stake FTT, get trading fee discounts and participate in the community government voting.

As of February 2022, the firm manages more than US$2+ billion in 28 cryptocurrency ETPs and over 100+ listings including the world’s only ETPs tracking Binance, 4 Crypto Index Baskets, and two ETPs with investor staking rewards (Tezos and Solana).

The Decentraland and FTX Token ETPs were also listed on BX Swiss last week.