During the month of May, the crypto market witnessed a major crash as prices dropped over 50% in Bitcoin and over 70% in many alts. What was the cause? There were many theories including Tesla’s reversal of accepting Bitcoin payments and yet another rumoured China ban. Are we still in a bull market? Only time will tell. But data points to the fundamentals improving day by day, the ecosystem and new users continuing to grow, and banks and financial institutions accelerating their adoption of digital assets.
On a more macroeconomics level, the VIX Index fear gauge of Wall Street (which tends to trade higher when bearish sentiment is strong) after spiking up to 27.50 mid-May, cooled down to trade around 18, only 3 points away from its 52-wk low. The NASDAQ-100 is trading only 2.50% lower than its all-time high, investors seem to be still risk ON on the traditional assets, which is a good sign for digital assets which are considered riskier.
Hex Trust is adopting Chainalysis KYT (Know Your Transaction), the compliance solution, for real-time transaction monitoring, and Chainalysis Reactor, the investigative tool, for enhanced due diligence. This collaboration will enable Hex Trust to add an additional layer to our already robust compliance features for our proprietary platform, Hex Safe, providing financial institutions peace of mind for their digital asset transactions.
Chainalysis recently closed its Series D funding, raising $100 million with a more than $2 billion valuation. Chainalysis serves as a strategic partner to financial institutions, governments, and cryptocurrency businesses around the world, providing data, software, and expertise on sophisticated cryptocurrency crime and money laundering tactics, techniques, and procedures.
“Chainalysis is thrilled to partner with such a trusted name in digital asset custody. With financial institutions increasingly looking to invest in cryptocurrency, this is the optimal time for trusted partners like Hex Trust to invest in their compliance technology.” — Ulisse Dellorto, Managing Director of APAC for Chainalysis
The partnership coincides with the recent market surge for NFTs in the digital asset space. For Convergence Finance, partnering with Hex Trust is pivotal to building a protocol that democratizes investment access to attractive assets not typically available to the retail investor in a way that is safe, responsible, and secure for all DeFi users.
Earlier this year, Hex Trust introduced the industry’s first fully licensed NFT custodial offering, ‘NFT Safe’, for multiple blockchain standards, including the most popular Ethereum based standards, ERC-721 and ERC-1155.
“At our core, we want to offer assets that users want to trade, current market sentiment shows appetite for NFTs. Having secure custody for NFTs is imperative to being able to offer fractionalized NFT exposure for our users. As a protocol, prioritizing partnerships with premier partners is a fundamental part of our roadmap looking ahead.” — Oscar Yeung, Co-Founder of Convergence Finance
Our CEO, Alessio Quaglini, was recently interviewed by Forkast News covering several different topics including:
- Why more big investors are now seeking interest and yields in DeFi
- How smart contracts hedge against traditional markets
- Why businesses will integrate non-fungible token (NFT) standards
- How custodians pave the way for a regulated market
- Blockchain bringing new business models to financial markets
Click here to watch the interview.
What will happen to your Bitcoin keys and crypto wallets when you die? Southeast Asia’s largest bank, DBS will now take care of it all for the super-wealthy. Here’s Alessio Quaglini commenting on the topic on Forkast News.
Click here to watch.
Hex Trust sponsored the ‘NFT & DeFi Summit 2021’ by Willow in Taipei, Taiwan. It was the first-ever summit in Taiwan where industry leaders discussing today’s hottest topics in NFTs and DeFi. Taiwan is a booming crypto market and we’re plugging in deep into their ecosystem. Our Head of Sales & Business Development, Calvin Shen, joined a panel at Willow’s Happy Hour discussing ‘crypto integration with traditional financial institutions’. Calvin Shen also spoke on the panel: ‘Custody for NFTS, how to keep your collections safe?
Learn more about the event.
We gave away Hex Trust Community NFTs during the Willow NFT & DeFi Summit 2021. Created by Ty Wright, an award-winning Look Development Technical Director at Sony Pictures Imageworks, he specializes in generating high-end computer graphics for feature film, live events and social media. He is most known for his work on Spiderman — Into The Spider-Verse, which won a Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film.
Click here to learn more.
Hex Trust participated in our global partner, IBM’s Think! conference. Our CEO, Alessio Quaglini, spoke on the panel called “Is your CFO Afraid of Bitcoin?” alongside Peter DeMeo, Digital Assets Global Leader, IBM and Alisa DiCaprio, R3.
Click here to watch the recording.
It’s a pleasure to introduce Giorgia to the Hex Trust community. Click here to read a recent Q&A interview to get to know her.
We’re delighted to have onboarded Amber as our community manager who has years of experience in blockchain and building communities across the world. Click here to read a recent interview with her. Amber’s currently representing Hex Trust at Bitcoin 2021 in Miami, reach out if you’ll also be attending and want to meet.
Forkast News: DBS Bank rolls out crypto estate planning for the ultra-rich
Asset Servicing Times: Diving into digital
The Asset: Hex Trust teams up with crypto crime expert
Blockchain News: Hex Trust Partners with Chainalysis to Provide a Compliance-focused Custody Solution for Financial Institutions
Altcoin Buzz: Top Crypto News: 05/04
Institutional Asset Manager: Hex Trust partners with Chainalysis to provide a compliance-focused custody solution for financial institutions
Ex-Head of China’s Digital Yuan effort says CBDCs could operate on Ethereum. The former head of the digital currency initiative at the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) said central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are set to become more “smart” and could one day operate on blockchain networks like Ethereum.
DBS Bank issues $15M Digital Bonds through DBS Digital Exchange. Multinational Singapore-based bank DBS has issued a S$15 million (US$11.3 million) digital bond in its first security token offering (STO). According to a press release, the DBS Digital Bond, issued via its Digital Exchange (DDEx), has a sixth-month expiry and a coupon of 0.6% per annum.
PayPal will let customers withdraw crypto. “We want them to be able to take the crypto they acquired with us and take it to the destination of their choice,” says Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal Exec.
Bank of Mauritius plans CBDC pilot in 2021. “CBDCs will be here to complement, and to address gaps that the traditional monetary system is not able to fulfil,” Bank of Mauritius Governor Harvesh Seegolam said. After publishing guidance on issuing security tokens, the country has also established a legal framework for digital currency custodians, including licensing structures.
If you’d like to learn more about our digital asset custody services, schedule a demo, or explore partnering with us, please reply to this email or reach out at:
