15th September 2023 > > Crypto adoption.

tl;dr

Institutional adoption of cryptos continues.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

pressure will be strong until most of the recent hot money has departed the stage, potentially setting us up for a liquidity crunch. We can add into that mix speculation that Tesla will restart its BTC buying program again now that clean energy usage exceeds 50%, the bar previously set by Elon Musk.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Huobi

Huobi ranks third on my list of favourites for centralised cryptocurrency exchanges. Fees are low, especially those for withdrawals, and you are never left with residuals, which does appeal to one of my psychological flaws (quieten down at the back now, there’s no need for that).

But can anyone explain the rationale for rebranding to HTX?

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Brave

Brave browser – a clone of Chrome – pays you a small amount in cryptos every month for ad pop ups if you wish to receive them.

These pop ups are far less intrusive than the ads you see elsewhere, and ads from websites are (generally) blocked.

But its USP is that it stops your browsing being tracked.

I am pretty much fully loaded for AVG’s antivirus and the various add-ons. Within seconds of using Chrome, or heaven forbid the devil’s version known as Edge (such a stupid name, one can almost imagine a rock guitarist adopting it), AVG immediately tells me about how many tracking attempts it has blocked.

And it is lots.

…

Brave browser.

You know it makes sense.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Crypto adoption

Deutsche Bank has announced a partnership with Taurus, a Swiss-based crypto custodian. Deutsche had previously taken part in a $65mm Series B round of funding for Taurus.

Paul Maley, Global Head of Securities Services, explains the thinking behind this tie-up with Taurus:

"As the digital asset space is expected to encompass trillions of dollars of assets, it’s bound to be seen as one of the priorities for investors and corporations alike. As such, custodians must start adapting to support their clients."

I like the use of that word “trillions” though I would have preferred a qualifier such as “many”. And the focus on responding to customer needs.

This partnership will allow Deutsche to integrate Taurus’ custodial systems and offer a trading platform for cryptos. This functionality is aimed at institutional investors, from whom Deutsche are seeing demand for crypto product offerings.

But it doesn’t stop there. As readers already know, Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, has identified tokenisation as a major growth area. And this is something that Taurus can provide to clients of Deutsche Bank. Taurus CEO Lamine Brahimi outlines the longer-term plan:

“The partnership focuses on cryptocurrencies, but we are well known for going beyond cryptocurrencies. So, where it sees fit, the bank will be able to tokenize assets and provide asset servicing.”

Crypto adoption, right here, right now.