Appold Market Watch - Week 13 to 17 November 2023
Market Update & Industry News - Week ending 17 November 2023
JP Morgan and Apollo Global Management, in conjunction with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), unveiled a proof of concept using Avalanche's blockchain technology for managing investment funds. The objective is to create a simplified central hub for asset managers and clients to invest in assets and funds.
Appold View: Another significant announcement for JP Morgan. The project focuses on the tokenisation of assets and funds for accessibility in the private markets. It has been coined a “proof of concept” with no clear time frame as yet, despite some competition emerging.
Digital asset exchange and clearinghouse, Cboe Digital, announced it would launch trading and clearing in margined Bitcoin and Ether futures on the 11th of January 2024. Cboe Digital will become the first US-regulated crypto native combined exchange and clearing house to enable both spot and leveraged derivatives trading on a single platform.
Appold View: This is a significant announcement with a traditional exchange business allowing the trading and clearing of both Spot and Futures contracts on digital assets. The additional benefit for Cboe is that they already have a large book of existing institutional market participants and exchange members, improving their chances of this being the institutional venue of choice for trading digital assets as regulatory certainty improves.
Standard Chartered’s Venture Capital Arm, SC Ventures, reported the launch of a new tokenisation platform that will enable the creation of a tokenised Singapore dollar government bond fund for accredited investors. The Libeara platform also partnered with FundBridge Capital, a Singapore organisation for fund managers. Standard Chartered joins multiple global financial services providers by offering tokenised assets, including HSBC, which announced last week it would offer tokenised gold to its clients.
Appold View: The SC Ventures exposure to blockchain activity continues to expand with an investment into asset tokenisation solutions. As with their Zodia custody and markets business, this is an arm’s length transaction but one which could ultimately be absorbed into the capital markets division of the bank in the future as institutional adoption grows.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a note stating a delay to the decision concerning Hashdex spot Bitcoin ETF and Grayscale’s futures-based Ether ETF. Over a dozen US companies have applied for SEC approval of digital asset-based ETFs but have all been delayed and final decision deadlines pushed back into 2024.
Appold View: This is not unexpected based on the number of applicants and SEC plans to have a very measured approach before a market-predicted, mass-approvable process in 2024. It will be interesting to see the total number of applicants prior to the inevitable approvals.
