Second Mover Advantage | March 1st-15th
TradFi has never been the most innovative sector. Banks and other financial institutions are generally burdened by a very large structure of physical and human resources and live under the heavy scrutiny of legislation. In their case, the smartest way to innovate is probably by being the best second. Let others break the ice and learn from them.
Here is a list of the recent initiatives by and for traditional financial institutions worth watching.
VanEck’s new NFT platform SegMint highlights TradFi’s keen interest in Web3 tokenization (March 4th)
Van Eck, the issuer of one of the 11 approved ETFs, recently launched Segmint, “a self-custodial NFT marketplace and digital assets platform.” SegMint allows KYCd users to store and fractionalize their NFTs — pretty degen, if you ask me.
SegMint’s Lock & Key Model simplifies the process of managing self-custodied assets by introducing a straightforward solution for sharing access and ownership. Imagine having a secure vault where you can store your digital assets, and then effortlessly issue keys to others, granting them shared ownership without compromising security. This model not only enhances accessibility, but also provides additional protections for shared assets.
Deutsche Börse launches regulated spot platform for crypto assets (March 5th)
Deutsche Börse Group, one of the world’s leading exchange organisations, has launched the Deutsche Börse Digital Exchange (DBDX), a crypto spot platform for institutional clients. DBDX offers a fully regulated and secure ecosystem for trading, settlement and custody of crypto assets that leverages the existing connectivity to market participants.
The first trades (euro to ETH) have already taken place (source).
Figment, Apex to List Ether and Solana Staking ETPs on SIX Swiss Exchange (March 7th)
The ETPs will provide investors exposure to Ether and Solana prices and additional staking rewards, including maximum extractable value (MEV), while bypassing complexities involved in staking as individuals. Staking yields will be reinvested into the ETPs to enhance their performance.
Figment and Apex have found a way to approach staking yields to traditional markets.
Wyoming Grants DAOs New Legal Structure (March 8th)
Gov. Mark Gordon signed a bill into state law that adds to Wyoming’s growing codes for DAOs, which were already cleared to establish themselves as limited-liability corporations there. Now DAOs can also secure themselves as unincorporated nonprofit associations.
When hostile regulators claim that crypto refuses to comply with the law, they rarely acknowledge the absence of legal frameworks to comply with. Wyoming is opening the gated for DAOs to become legal entities.
With Mastercard, MetaMask Tests First Blockchain-Powered Payment Card (March 11th)
MetaMask is testing a Mastercard payment card, which it says is the first entirely on-chain card. Issued by Baanx, the card will let users spend crypto “on everyday purchases, everywhere cards are accepted,”
VISA and MasterCard didn’t let the bear run scare them, so they continued working on pilot programs and crypto integrations. This credit card is still barely a rumor, but it is a strong indicator of the possible growth vector for credit card issuers within crypto.
Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon and Others Test Enterprise Blockchain for Tokenized Assets (Mar 12th)
Digital Asset and leading market participants completed the Canton Network pilot, a first-of-its-kind program demonstrating the interoperability of twenty-two independent distributed ledger applications (dApps) in the capital markets domain. The successful execution of over 350 simulated transactions proved how a network of interoperable applications can seamlessly connect to enable secure, atomic transactions across multiple parts of the capital markets value chain. It also demonstrated the potential benefits of using such a network to reduce counterparty and settlement risk, optimize capital, and enable intraday margin cycles.
Friendly reminder: permissioned blockchains miss the benefits of true decentralization.
