UBS Has A Crypto Plan, Ethereum ETF + More News

Linas Kmieliauskas
Last updated: | 2 min read

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
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Source: iStock/Rafael_Wiedenmeier

Banking news

  • Swiss banking giant UBS Group AG is in the early stages of planning to offer wealthy customers digital currency investments and is exploring several alternatives, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the plan. Per the report, any investment offering would be a very small portion of the clients’ total wealth because of the volatility, while options include investing through third-party investment vehicles.

Investments news

  • US-headquartered investment manager VanEck Associates aims to launch the first US exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking Ethereum (ETH). According to the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission the VanEck Ethereum Trust would value ETH off the MVIS CryptoCompare Ethereum benchmark rate. Three ETH ETFs already debuted in Canada in April.
  • Babel Finance, a crypto financial service provider, said it completed its strategic Series A fundraising of USD 40m. The round was led by Zoo Capital, Sequoia Capital China, Dragonfly Capital, BAI Capital, Bertelsmann, and Tiger Global Management, with follow-on participation from existing investors.
  • NFT and DeFi store DappRadar said it has raised USD 5m in a Series A funding event led by investors such as Prosus Ventures, Blockchain.com Ventures, and NordicNinja VC. The funds will be used to “enhance platform functionality and promote widespread dapp adoption,” they said.
  • Tokenization specialist Xcad Network has raised USD 3.9m in a private funding round, led by blockchain technology and venture builder Zilliqa. According to an emailed announcement, the funds are meant to help create a DeFi plugin for YouTube that will allow content creators to tokenize themselves and earn money. Users will also be able to get rewards for watching and engaging with their videos. Additionally, the company means to build an NFT marketplace for YouTubers.
  • Blockchain data provider Covalent has sold USD 10m worth of its native coin CQT in a CoinList token sale, according to an emailed statement. The coin will serve as a staking asset for validators, but also as voting rights on their governance forum, they said.

Mining News

  • Crypto mining company HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. said it has sold its Norwegian subsidiary Kolos Norway AS to the local municipality Narvik. “This allows the Company to focus on its datacentres located in Sweden and Iceland which mine Ethereum continuously on the cloud,” the company said.

Blockchain news

  • Crypto platform Crypto.com today announced that the Ethereum Virtual Machine support on their Crypto.com Chain will launch on July 14th. Per the company, this will allow “for rapid porting of apps & smart contracts from other EVM-compatible chains like Ethereum.”