x
British Pension Fund First to Add Bitcoin to Balance Sheet
British pension specialist Cartwright said Monday that a UK pension fund bought Bitcoin, allocating 3% of its portfolio to the asset.
A UK pension fund has put Bitcoin on its balance sheet—in the first move of its kind in the country.
Pensions advisory firm Cartwright announced Monday that it had told an unnamed client in the UK to make a 3% allocation to the leading cryptocurrency.
The firm said that it made the recommendation because of Bitcoin’s long-term gains. The cryptocurrency has risen in price by nearly 100,000% since 2013, CoinGecko data shows.
“Trustees of the unnamed scheme choose to make a 3% Bitcoin allocation, reflecting the scheme’s relatively long investment time horizon,” the announcement said.
Cartwright’s director of investment consulting at Cartwright, Sam Roberts, said that he hoped the “strategic move” would be followed by others.
“We are proud to have led this groundbreaking move,” he said, “which we hope will be the start of a trend for institutional investors in the UK to catch up with their increasing number of peers and competitors around the world who are already taking advantage of Bitcoin’s unique attributes.” Read More
Arkham launches crypto perpetuals exchange
Analysts expect crypto products to proliferate after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's Nov. 5 US election win.
Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence has launched a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, according to a Nov. 6 announcement.
The exchange will reportedly target retail traders and compete with existing platforms such as Binance.
It will integrate Arkham’s research and feature live on-chain audits and proof-of-reserve (PoR), Arkham said in a post on the X platform.
Trading will commence next week, but the exchange will not be available to people in the United States, Arkham said.
The crypto derivatives market is exploding, largely driven by trading activity from retail investors. Read More
Crypto Wallets As Digital Identities – The Future of Personal Data in Web 3.0
Digitalization is everywhere, and it’s not an exemption for finance. Crypto wallets, though slowly, penetrate our lives actively – their usage is steadily growing.
Their main function is to store cryptocurrency. But today, crypto wallets actively go beyond that main function and transform into a tool for a digital identity.
This isn’t a fiction – it’s a real possibility, especially considering the growing number of connected devices.
Today, information about us and our identities is spread across centralized platforms like Google, Facebook and other major tech giants.
Every time we sign up for a new app or service, we end up handing over personal data – name, email, birthday and other details.
These companies collect and monetize data, and often, we understand nothing about what they are doing with it later.
The consequences of this approach are disturbing. Data breaches have become almost an everyday practice. Read More
Coinbase wrapped Bitcoin deploys on Solana, aimed at growing DeFi market
The deployment will allow utilization of Bitcoin in Solana’s burgeoning DeFi ecosystem, according to Coinbase.
America’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, deployed its version of wrapped Bitcoin on the layer-1 blockchain Solana as it seeks to expand the adoption of the asset in decentralized finance (DeFi).
“This is the first token Coinbase has issued on Solana, and with it, we’re excited to bring easy access to BTC,” the company said in a Nov. 7 post on X.
Coinbase added that cbBTC will take the form of a Solana Program Library (SPL) token, a Solana-based token that can represent both fungible and non-fungible assets.
“The token is backed 1:1 with Bitcoin and allows users to utilize Bitcoin in Solana’s DeFi ecosystem,” it added.
It listed several Solana-base decentralized exchanges and DeFi protocols that cbBTC will be available on, including Jupiter, Meteora, Kamino Finance, Raydium, Phoenix, Jito and Drift.
“Bitcoin is king, and the vision is for Kamino to be one of the largest cbBTC venues in DeFi,” said the team behind the Solana-based lending, liquidity and leverage protocol. Read More
The Top Five Cryptocurrency Exchanges by Trading Volume And Its Significance
The world's financial landscape is undergoing a profound transformation driven by innovative approaches to economic exchange. This shift is influenced by technological progress worldwide and impacts various aspects of society. The traditional boundaries of finance have been erased, as transactions are no longer limited by physical presence or geographical constraints. The nature of commerce has also undergone a significant shift, with the rise of digital assets and the increasing popularity of buying and selling liquid assets that exist solely in the digital realm.
Cryptocurrency is a popular digital asset that is increasingly used for transactions and debt settlement on a global scale. Given the rapid advancements in the crypto industry and the growing government interest, cryptocurrency is anticipated to replace traditional fiat currencies eventually. In addition to serving as a form of payment, crypto tokens can also be exchanged with one another.
The emergence of cryptocurrency trading has given rise to a specialized market that operates through online exchanges. These exchanges facilitate the buying and selling to engage in transactions within the cryptocurrency space. Without these platforms, it would be highly challenging for individuals to participate in the market, highlighting their crucial role in modern finance.
These exchanges, which play a vital role in the cryptocurrency market, can be centralized, decentralized, regulated, or deregulated. A key metric for evaluating their importance is the total trading volume of transactions executed on these platforms over a specific timeframe. Essentially, trading volume gauges the level of market activity, revealing the number of participants engaged in buying and selling and their willingness to take risks on price fluctuations. Read More
Unstoppable Domains integrates Monero usernames with Cake Wallet
The partnership allows Cake Wallet users to use .xmr domains in their blockchain interactions.
Blockchain domain provider Unstoppable Domains has partnered with Cake Wallet, an open-source wallet, to launch a new top-level domain specifically for Monero users, the companies announced.
Unstoppable Domains said the new .xmr domains will allow Cake Wallet and Monero users to send and receive tokens using human-readable addresses instead of long, alphanumeric strings. The company said it expects the change to support wider adoption of Monero by simplifying the user experience.
With the partnership, Cake Wallet will support .xmr usernames on its platform, allowing users to create unique digital identities for their blockchain interactions.
Providing Monero users with more privacy:
The announcement said .xmr domain users can manage assets and interactions across various networks, including Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and non-EVM chains.
Unstoppable Domains chief operating officer Sandy Carter said the partnership goes beyond simplifying onboarding. Carter said:
“It’s about providing Monero users with the privacy and security they expect while giving them greater control over their digital identities,” Read More
Eclipse, the first Ethereum L2 based on Solana launches mainnet
The launch of Eclipse is one of the most hyped network launches of the year, with the hybrid blockchain project securing over $65 million in funding prior to its launch on Nov. 7.
Eclipse, the first layer-2 network that combines Ethereum and Solana into one blockchain, has gone live.
Eclipse allows users to transact on Ethereum faster and more cheaply, using the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) to execute transactions. Like other Ethereum L2s, the network bundles transactions and settles them on the Ethereum mainnet.
The Eclipse Foundation said that it has added automated market maker Orca, lending protocol Save and “other top projects” into the network.
Eclipse added at the Nov. 7 launch that its network offers 60 decentralized applications (DApps) and service providers across several sectors, including decentralized finance (DeFi), consumer apps and gaming. Read More
Telegram is becoming a one-stop app like China’s WeChat — Bitget CEO
According to DemandSage, Telegram boasts approximately 950 million monthly active users and has raised over $4 billion since its launch.
Telegram and the separate, decentralized Open Network have the potential to elevate the messaging platform into an all-encompassing application that includes social media, payments, finance, entertainment, gaming, and communication capabilities — much like China’s popular WeChat app.
According to Gracy Chen, the CEO of exchange and wallet provider Bitget, Telegram’s symbiotic relationship with the independent Open Network and its crypto trading features distinguishes the application from competitors and positions it for massive growth. The CEO told Cointelegraph:
"I think the crypto adoption is definitely something that makes telegram stand out among other social media, and that's indeed one of the reasons we want to be closer to The Open Network ecosystem."
The Bitget CEO also cited the meteoric adoption of Telegram in emerging market economies — particularly among young people in Africa as further evidence of the application’s potential to become an everything app used by billions of individuals. Read More
Magic Labs, Polygon launch crosschain smart wallet for AggLayer
Newton’s testnet went live on Polygon’s AggLayer, promising a crosschain solution for smart wallets.
Magic Labs and Polygon Labs announced a crosschain smart wallet as protocols move to address liquidity fragmentation in the blockchain space.
According to a Nov. 7 announcement, the companies launched the Newton testnet, a wallet solution for the crosschain settlement layer AggLayer. The solution promises to enable liquidity sharing across multiple blockchains, “like how HTML or HTTP introduced standards to create a seamless internet experience.”
Newton is built with Polygon CDK — or cloud development kit — and plans to offer chain-abstracted smart wallets, free tooling, access to global liquidity and cross-chain launches from “a single command line.”
Liquidity fragmentation occurs when assets and trading volumes are spread across multiple platforms or blockchain networks, creating inefficiencies in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. This dispersion leads to higher trading costs and slower transaction speeds, complicating cross-chain interactions and increasing costs for users.
Tackling this issue is essential for improving DeFi’s efficiency and reliability. It’s no surprise that this problem has caught the attention of several protocols and venture firms in 2024. Read More
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
Featured Image Source: Pixabay
