Japan-based banking giant Nomura, announced today that its digital assets subsidiary, Laser Digital, has made a strategic investment in Infinity, a non-custodial interest rate protocol built on Ethereum.
Infinity’s wholesale exchange, the first of several planned infrastructures, provides inter-exchange clearing, fixed and floating rate markets, as well as enterprise-grade risk management utilizing hybrid on-chain/off-chain infrastructures that deliver transaction efficiency, security, and scalability.
Infinity is a pioneering interest rate protocol that forms the basis for benchmark rates, institutional-grade lending, borrowing, and risk management in DeFi. The money market exchange protocol was founded by ex-Morgan Stanley Head of Structuring, Kevin Lepsoe.
“Infinity is building critical infrastructure for DeFi, and its protocol enabling price discovery and management of risk within DeFi is transformative for institutions, Infinity’s groundwork paves the way for institutional flows on-chain, new levels of rates, and risk innovation, and we are keen to support their advances in the hybrid finance space.” – Olivier Dang, Head of Ventures at Laser Digital
Laser Digital was recently unveiled by Nomura to spearhead its digital asset ambitions and is chaired by Steve Ashley, who previously led Nomura’s wholesale division, with Dr. Jez Mohideen as its CEO. Headquartered in Switzerland, Laser Digital’s investments are focused on DeFi, centralized finance (CeFi), web3, and blockchain infrastructure.
The investment comes as the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) published guidelines for crypto exposures in December 2022, with bank-prescribed risk weightings for tokenized assets to be treated on par 1:1 with their analog counterparts. The guidelines for banks come into effect on 1 January 2025.
With USD $300 trillion of credit securities outstanding and multiples of that in the loan, derivative, and equity markets, the new guidelines portend a major wave of tokenization across financial and real assets.
Presently in Beta, the Inifinity mainnet is scheduled to launch by the end of Q2 2023.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine took center stage last month. The issue not only changed the global political landscape but also the economies of both countries. The financial infrastructure in Russia and Ukraine shattered in the past few weeks, but, for different reasons.
While the financial system in Ukraine broke down due to Russia’s aggression, Russia itself suffered severely due to economic sanctions. In the recent mayhem, crypto came to the rescue for Ukraine. Not to replace the existing financial system, but to support the humanitarian aid efforts and recovery initiatives. According to Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the country has received a total of almost $100 million in crypto donations.
Ukraine has already spent nearly $15 million worth of crypto donations on military supplies. The nation has received crypto support in a wide range of digital currencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Apart from donations, the adoption of crypto assets has also increased in the country amid demolished banking system in the region.
On the other hand, the usage of cryptocurrencies climbed in Russia as well. The Ruble-denominated volumes are soaring. Reason? “Rising Sanctions”. Just in the past week, financial services giants like PayPal and Western Union suspended operations in Russia. In an effort to circumvent sanctions, Russians are moving towards digital assets for daily transactions. But, is it that easy to avoid sanctions through crypto? The answer is “No”. Especially under increasing regulatory pressure on the crypto ecosystem.
However, the bottom line is that the adoption of crypto assets is surging in Russia and Ukraine. To dig deeper into the details about the rising use of digital assets in both countries, Finance Magnates sat down with prominent crypto stakeholders to have their opinion.
“Once again, cryptocurrencies have demonstrated their value through a series of unfortunate events for human lives. The Ukrainian and Russian economies lie in shambles for different reasons. In the first two weeks of conflict, cryptocurrency was used as a tool of peace and war, but chiefly as an instrument that empowers individuals amidst a clash of nations,” Brian Pasfield, CTO at Fringe Finance, said.
“This is not the first armed conflict in the cryptocurrency age. Yet, it is proving to be the first in which cryptocurrency will be able to fulfill its intended role of returning power to individuals,” he added.
Crypto in Limelight
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought cryptocurrencies into the limelight. It gave them more exposure in the media and among individuals in Russia and Ukraine who were looking to protect their assets from the effects of war. Cryptos have brought another dimension to the geopolitical equation as they have acted as an alternative to the traditional financial system to a certain extent when the latter seemed to fail in both Russia and Ukraine,” Daniel Takieddine, CEO MENA at BDSwiss, explained.
Takieddine mentioned that the authorities in Ukraine have made significant efforts in the past few weeks to make the crypto community realize the magnitude of the issue.
Need for Regulation
According to Takieddine, it is important for global regulatory authorities to introduce clear crypto regulations.
“The popularity of digital assets during the conflict has also brought up the need for adequate regulation. In this regard, European and American authorities sped up the process of creating a regulatory framework in order to make sure that Russia would not be able to use cryptocurrencies to circumvent sanctions,” Takieddine added.
Potential of Crypto
“The role of digital currencies in the Russia-Ukraine conflict represents the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the inherent capabilities of the nascent asset class to make a difference in social conflicts. The current situation once again shows how to complete dependence on traditional finance can put people in a hopeless situation. I believe it is worth considering crypto as an independent decentralized finance system that will be above sanctions and serve all sides, as it is currently doing in this Eastern European conflict, for the common good,” Daniele Casamassima, the Chief Executive Officer at Pure, said.
Alternative Assets
The recent surge in the adoption of crypto reinforced the idea of digital currencies as alternative assets. Joaquim Matinero Tor, a Blockchain Associate at Roca Junyent, said: “Due to this war in Ukraine we’ve seen that cryptos are good as alternative assets. The foreign minister of Ukraine asked for donations in BTC, ETH & other cryptos. This change of paradigm has shown the world that it’s a real alternative when things go wrong, and people started believing that such a “wallet” protects all their savings and investments,” Tor noted.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine took center stage last month. The issue not only changed the global political landscape but also the economies of both countries. The financial infrastructure in Russia and Ukraine shattered in the past few weeks, but, for different reasons.
While the financial system in Ukraine broke down due to Russia’s aggression, Russia itself suffered severely due to economic sanctions. In the recent mayhem, crypto came to the rescue for Ukraine. Not to replace the existing financial system, but to support the humanitarian aid efforts and recovery initiatives. According to Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the country has received a total of almost $100 million in crypto donations.
Ukraine has already spent nearly $15 million worth of crypto donations on military supplies. The nation has received crypto support in a wide range of digital currencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Apart from donations, the adoption of crypto assets has also increased in the country amid demolished banking system in the region.
On the other hand, the usage of cryptocurrencies climbed in Russia as well. The Ruble-denominated volumes are soaring. Reason? “Rising Sanctions”. Just in the past week, financial services giants like PayPal and Western Union suspended operations in Russia. In an effort to circumvent sanctions, Russians are moving towards digital assets for daily transactions. But, is it that easy to avoid sanctions through crypto? The answer is “No”. Especially under increasing regulatory pressure on the crypto ecosystem.
However, the bottom line is that the adoption of crypto assets is surging in Russia and Ukraine. To dig deeper into the details about the rising use of digital assets in both countries, Finance Magnates sat down with prominent crypto stakeholders to have their opinion.
“Once again, cryptocurrencies have demonstrated their value through a series of unfortunate events for human lives. The Ukrainian and Russian economies lie in shambles for different reasons. In the first two weeks of conflict, cryptocurrency was used as a tool of peace and war, but chiefly as an instrument that empowers individuals amidst a clash of nations,” Brian Pasfield, CTO at Fringe Finance, said.
“This is not the first armed conflict in the cryptocurrency age. Yet, it is proving to be the first in which cryptocurrency will be able to fulfill its intended role of returning power to individuals,” he added.
Crypto in Limelight
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought cryptocurrencies into the limelight. It gave them more exposure in the media and among individuals in Russia and Ukraine who were looking to protect their assets from the effects of war. Cryptos have brought another dimension to the geopolitical equation as they have acted as an alternative to the traditional financial system to a certain extent when the latter seemed to fail in both Russia and Ukraine,” Daniel Takieddine, CEO MENA at BDSwiss, explained.
Takieddine mentioned that the authorities in Ukraine have made significant efforts in the past few weeks to make the crypto community realize the magnitude of the issue.
Need for Regulation
According to Takieddine, it is important for global regulatory authorities to introduce clear crypto regulations.
“The popularity of digital assets during the conflict has also brought up the need for adequate regulation. In this regard, European and American authorities sped up the process of creating a regulatory framework in order to make sure that Russia would not be able to use cryptocurrencies to circumvent sanctions,” Takieddine added.
Potential of Crypto
“The role of digital currencies in the Russia-Ukraine conflict represents the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the inherent capabilities of the nascent asset class to make a difference in social conflicts. The current situation once again shows how to complete dependence on traditional finance can put people in a hopeless situation. I believe it is worth considering crypto as an independent decentralized finance system that will be above sanctions and serve all sides, as it is currently doing in this Eastern European conflict, for the common good,” Daniele Casamassima, the Chief Executive Officer at Pure, said.
Alternative Assets
The recent surge in the adoption of crypto reinforced the idea of digital currencies as alternative assets. Joaquim Matinero Tor, a Blockchain Associate at Roca Junyent, said: “Due to this war in Ukraine we’ve seen that cryptos are good as alternative assets. The foreign minister of Ukraine asked for donations in BTC, ETH & other cryptos. This change of paradigm has shown the world that it’s a real alternative when things go wrong, and people started believing that such a “wallet” protects all their savings and investments,” Tor noted.
Stablecoins and their use in decentralized finance (DeFi) have played a key role in the 2021 cryptocurrency bull market because allow investors to participate in the ever-growing number of protocols that offer high yield staking pools and they ease the process of transacting without needing to use a centralized exchange.
One project that has seen a significant amount of adoption thanks to its focus on creating a truly decentralized ecosystem and asset-backed stablecoin is the Abracadabra.money DeFi protocol and its native SPELL token.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $0.0114 on Oct. 15, the price of SPELL rallied 178.55% to establish a new record high at $0.035 on Nov. 1 as its 24-hour trading volume spiked to $109.82 million.
SPELL/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Three reasons why SPELL is attracting the attention of DeFi users are the growth of Magic Internet Money (MIM) as a fully decentralized, cross-chain capable stablecoin, numerous cross-chain integrations that have expanded the MIM and SPELL’s reach throughout the ecosystem and the token’s governance and tokenomic structure.
Decentralized stablecoin growth
One of the biggest factors attracting the attention of active DeFi users is Abracadabra’s native Magic Internet Money stablecoin which is a fully collateralized and minted by depositing interest-bearing assets on the DeFi protocol.
The growing popularity and adoption of MIM can be seen by the increasing total value locked on Abracadabra, which reached a record $4.15 billion on Nov. 1 according to data from Defi Llama.
Total value locked on Abracadabra.money. Source: Defi Llama
There has also been steady growth MIM’s circulating supply, which stands at $1.933 billion according to data from CoinMarketCap. The most recent expansion is in large part due to the expansion of assets that can be pledged as collateral to mint MIM, which now includes popular tokens like Shiba Inu (SHIB), FTX Token (FTT), wrapped Olympus (OHM) and Fantom (FTM).
Cross-chain integrations extend SPELL’s reach
A second reason inv are taking a closer look at SPELL is its expanding ecosystem which has recently added cross-chain support for multiple blockchain networks including Fantom and the Binance Smart Chain (BSC).
BSC is the most recent addition to the Abracadabra ecosystem after the community voted to add support for the network in a vote that closed on Oct. 30.
♂️!
A new governance proposal is out to decide whether we should deploy https://t.co/gHWEQJMoOc on #BSC!
Other blockchain protocols currently supported by Abracadabra include Ethereum (ETH), Arbitrum and Avalanche (AVAX), and the platform also benefits from multiple cross-protocol partnerships including integrations with Convex Finance (CVX), Yearn Finance (YFI), Curve Finance (CRV) and SushiSwap (SUSHI).
Related: Magic Internet Money races past $1B, sets sights on MakerDao
Favorable tokenomics and a decreasing circulating supply
Another factor catching the eye of DeFi investors is the tokenomic structure of SPELL which includes governance votes on emissions to control inflation.
The team behind SPELL regularly monitors the emission schedule across the various DeFi pools in its ecosystem to ensure that new tokens are being minted and utilized in the most beneficial way for the protocol and holders.
Due to increasing adoption and the uptick in price price, a large number of tokens originally set to be minted are no longer needed so the team decided to decrease the emission schedule by 20% beginning on Nov. 1. This effectively removed 8.7 billion SPELL tokens from the current circulating supply.
Going forward, the outlook for the project remains bullish and the team also has plans to further integrate SPELL and MIM to the Fantom ecosystem and also offer new staking opportunities in Arbitrum and Avalanche.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Poly Network, a cross-chain DeFi protocol, recently suffered a $600M hack — the largest DeFi exploit in crypto history. Mudit Gupta, security researcher and SushiSwap dev, breaks down the attack, explaining how it occurred, why the hacker is returning the funds, and what Poly Network should do next. Show highlights:
how Poly Network works
what specific mechanism the hacker attacked on Poly Network
why many people (including myself) had never heard of Poly Network before the hack
how “keepers” failed to protect Poly Network
why a failed transaction was the key to pulling off the hack
what SlowMist claims to have discovered about the hacker
what could be motivating the hacker to return the stolen funds
how the hacker is communicating with Poly Network
why Tether was able to freeze funds while USDC and BSC allowed the hacker to get away with their tokens
how Poly Network should handle negotiations with the hacker
