Did Joshua Ashley Klayman, one of the US’ top blockchain attorneys, cost herself a partnership in a prominent global law firm, because she chose to focus on the novel field of blockchain and smart contracts, because was female, or because she got pregnant and took three maternity leaves? Those are among the many questions that […]
FREE WEBINAR: The Crypto Asset Market: What Fund Managers Should Know Before Investing
Hosted by CrossTower Save the Date: November 4, 2020 Time: 4:30 PM EST Contact: events@crosstower.com Cryptoassets aren’t just for retail investors any more. Hedge fund managers and some traditional fund managers have been buying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a buffer against inflation and market volatility has led to far higher returns on investment for […]
Race to the Patent Office for Syndicated Loan Blockchain
The results of a behind the scenes battle brewing between blockchain technology startup Hashlynx and mega-bank Bank of America to win a patent for a distributed ledger-based technology platform could end up determining how the operational difficulties inherent in the US$2 trillion paper-intensive syndicated loans market are eliminated and by whom. Whoever is awarded a […]
National Banks as Digital Asset Custodians: Big Deal or Not?
When it comes to picking a custodian for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, the US Office of the Comptroller’s decision to green light national and state banks might not be that much of a gamechanger for every fund manager. At least not in the short-term. Currently, investors holding cryptocurrency can keep their cryptocurrency in a […]
Etrading Software; Bloomberg-Kaiko Vie for Crypto ID Authority
If equities, bonds, and OTC derivatives have identification codes why shouldn’t digital assets? That’s the premise Etrading Software and the team of Bloomberg and Kaiko are betting on by recently throwing their hats in the ring to provide ID codes as the new registration authority for digital token identifiers (DTIs) expected to go live sometime […]
Prime Brokerage Enters Crypto Market, Sort Of
First it was digital asset custodians. Now it is aspiring prime brokers who are grabbing the spotlight in the evolution of the cryptoasset market as it tries to become an institutional investor-friendly industry, but with regulations still so murky cryptoasset prime brokers can only be pale reflections of their traditional prime brokerage peers. Although institutional […]
Opportunity Zone Fund Admin: Can Blockchain Do the Trick?
Blockchain is finding a new opportunity in middle and back-office operations for opportunity zone (OZ) fund managers, but can it outperform the current alternative fund administrators? One Arizona entrepreneur certainly thinks so. Co-founded and part-owned by Nico Willis, chief executive of cost-basis technology provider Networth Services, new fund administrator Agora AltX uses Hyperledger Fabric’s permission-based […]
SEC: Old Transfer Agent Rules Apply to New Blockchain
The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s decision to register blockchain-enabled transfer agents has resurrected the issue of how it can apply securities laws to a nascent unproven technology. San Francisco-based Securitize has laid claim to being the first “agent” registered by the SEC to have developed an open-source blockchain based protocol for shareholder recordkeeping with […]
Cryptoasset Valuation: Fair Value or Fair Game?
Fair value– the term used by accountants to refer to the correct valuation of assets for financial reporting purposes — shouldn’t be taken at face value by fund managers or investors when comes to cryptoassets. Anyone who comes to the table unprepared for a potential dispute is foolish as shown in a recent lawsuit involving […]
Crypto-Miners: Are They Broker-Dealers or Math Geeks?
If it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck, right. But does it quack? That’s the question broker-dealer Templum Markets has raised to the US Securities and Exchange Commission about crypto-miners which has polarized the crypto-community into deciding whether they should be regulated as broker-dealers. Fueling the debate are conflicting interpretations of the Securities and […]