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Cowen Digital has brought on dozens of clients in six months of existence — and amid the frosty crypto winter, to boot.

The digital arm of Cowen recently announced two crypto-native hires for the team. With a core team now established, the firm expects to eventually expand the division to more than 100 people. That doesn’t include the approximately 40 people within Cowen that have supported the project.

Cowen Digital, created in March, is growing quickly to tap the fast-moving demand for digital asset investment opportunities. The interest is coming from traditional hedge funds but also from crypto-native funds that have done well in a bear market and are looking for access to traditional financial infrastructure.

“It’s a unique opportunity, I think it’s massive, I think there is true demand from our customer base as well as a whole new customer base of companies and funds that are strictly in digital, and that’s why we’re doing it,” said Drew Forman, managing director and head of Cowen Digital, in an interview last week. “The institutional demand is there and I think the interest is 10 times what the current demand is.”

The company is aggressively putting its money where its mouth is. It built Cowen Digital as a separate company as it’s currently impossible to trade crypto inside a broker-dealer, and is getting licensed across the U.S., Canada and the UK to transact in the crypto spot market.

Last year, a Cowen affiliate made a strategic investment in Digital Prime Technologies, which creates software to expand brokerage capabilities in the digital asset sector, while Cowen Digital made a strategic investment in infrastructure provider PolySign, which aims to offer instant and automatic settlements for crypto assets. Cowen Digital led PolySign’s Series B round, followed by a further Series C in June where Cowen Digital also participated in the $53 million fundraise alongside Brevan Howard and GSR Soros.

Those investments are already paying off, according to Forman.

“We’re already starting to see the fruits of our labor,” said Forman, who bought bitcoin in 2012 at $100.

And there’s plenty more to come. That Cowen is a staid, century-old investment bank is part of the lure for both traditional finance players and their crypto native counterparts. Next year, Forman expects to see more adoption coming from Cowen’s current 2,500 or so clientele.

“The big asset managers are probably three to 12 months from actually launching crypto strategies,” and are vetting vendors like Cowen, he said.

Forman said the trend of talent from current tech firms moving into web3 tech firms will translate into better user experiences, and that’s going to lead to “a massive pick up of investment banking activity and adoption,” he said.

Next up for Cowen Digital will be the launch of a lending product leveraging its Digital Prime investment in the coming weeks. The company also intends to roll out its swaps and derivatives products in the fourth quarter.

“When I think about how everything in the future could be tokenized, it is mind-blowing to imagine the capabilities needed to support the explosion in institutional demand for digital assets,” he said.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Quick Take

• Marathon Digital Holdings reported earnings on August 8, 2022 
• Mined 707 BTC, +8% YoY and (44%) QoQ from 655 BTC and 1,259 BTC respectively 
• YTD through July 31, 2022 produced 2,038 BTC, a +58% YoY compared to YTD July 31, 2021
• 10,055 BTC current holdings, reflecting ~$199mm as of this writing 
• Reported a ($191.6mm) net income compared to ($108.9mm) in Q2’21 
• Challenging quarter as energy prices increased due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Bitcoin’s price tumbled from November 2021 all-time highs
• In addition to macro headwinds, Marathon faced downtime, maintenance and regulatory setbacks in Q2’22 

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Decentralized credit platform Credix said it has secured a $11.25 million Series A round as it seeks to expand in Latin America.

Credix is a Solana-based credit marketplace that matches institutional investors with fintechs in emerging markets. It launched in Brazil in 2021 and hopes to start operations to Mexico and Colombia later this year, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. 

Also participating in the round were Valor Capital Group, Victory Park Capital and ParaFi Capital. The chairman of Itaú Latam, part of the region’s biggest bank, Itau, Ricardo Villela Marino also participated as a private investor. Credix’s latest raise builds on a $2.5 million seed round it secured in late 2021, which ParaFi also participated in. 

Credix, which describes itself as “a next-generation credit infrastructure to give borrowers in emerging countries access to previously untapped capital,” provides opportunities for investors to underwrite individual deals or passively invest through a lower-risk liquidity pool. Fintechs using the platform receive funds in stablecoins, which they then convert to local currency to lend.

Emerging markets tend to have low credit penetration, with traditional financial institutions unwilling to finance businesses and individuals perceived to be higher risk. That’s created ample opportunity for fintech projects to flourish. Last year, investment in fintech in Latin America reached $5 billion over 120 deals, up from $2 billion and 82 deals the year earlier, according to KPMG.

“We are unlocking global debt capital markets,” Credix founder and CEO Thomas Bohner told The Block. “DeFi allows us to pool capital more effectively, smart contracts drive waterfalls and automated payment flows, tokenization provides for increased transparency and payment provenance.”

More than 25 funds are using Credix’s platform, which according to the company has enabled more than $20 million in financing.

“We believe Credix is rebuilding an antiquated system through blockchain technology and solving a real-world problem at a critical time for the industry,” ParaFi Capital Managing Partner Ben Forman said. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

21.co, the parent company of crypto investing firm 21Shares, has raised $25 million in a funding round led by Marshall Wace.

The fundraising brings the company’s post-money valuation to $2 billion, making it “Switzerland’s largest crypto unicorn,” the company said in a release. Other investors in the round include Collab+Currency, Quiet Ventures, ETFS Capital and Valor Equity Partners. 

21Shares announced its newly formed parent company on Tuesday alongside the funding round. 

Founded in 2018, the investment firm is now the world’s largest issuer of cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs).  

Amun Holdings, which owned both 21Shares and token-provider Amun, announced a fundraising round back in May 2021 with backers including Morgan Creek Digital and Ark Investment Management’s CEO Cathie Wood. 

21.co is now designed to unite 21Shares with Amun and other upcoming crypto projects, 21.co co-founder Hany Rashwan told The Block. He said 21.co’s product stack is like Amazon Web Services, helping other asset managers and customers bring products to market.

The firm ended 2021 “on a nine-figure revenue run rate and has seen sustained inflows, even during down markets,” according to the release.

The new round – which was closed amid 2022’s struggling crypto markets – will be used to drive growth through expansion into key markets, product launches and hiring. 

The investment firm has already been expanding its operations in Europe and the Middle East. The firm appointed Sherif El-Haddad to lead its market operation in the Middle East in August. It also made several key hires in Europe from leading investment banks, like JPMorgan and Barclays. 

The United Arab Emirates is quickly becoming a crypto hub with many leading crypto companies securing approval to operate in Dubai. In March, the city set up the Dubai Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) to oversee digital asset regulation. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Ethereum developers have activated Bellatrix, an upgrade to prepare the Beacon Chain for The Merge. 

The Bellatrix upgrade was activated at epoch 144896 on the Beacon Chain at 11:34 AM UTC today. Before the Bellatrix upgrade could go through, Ethereum nodes had to update their client software versions. 

Included in the graffiti — text written by validators onto the blockchain — on multiple slots was the phrase, “Welcome to the New Beginning.” This is the same text that was in the fourth block after the Beacon Chain was launched.

The Beacon Chain has functioned as a proof-of-stake network running parallel to Ethereum and it currently lets users stake ether (ETH). Bellatrix was officially the last step before The Merge, which will combine the Beacon Chain with the main blockchain.

While Bellatrix is not The Merge itself, it’s a necessary step to prepare Beacon Chain for the consensus switch switch. The Bellatrix upgrade was the hard fork upgrade that introduced what’s called “execution payload,”  a parameter that’s so far been missing on the Beacon Chain. This parameter is needed for validators to start creating mainnet blocks.

The final step is called Paris, which will trigger The Merge. Beacon Chain (consensus layer) validators will take over from proof-of-work miners to start finalizing Ethereum’s mainnet blocks.

The Paris upgrade is expected next week around September 14 to 15. The exact time of the upgrade will depend on when the proof-of-work Ethereum mainnet hits a specific on-chain metric, called the Total Difficulty Terminal, of 58750000000000000000000.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Sony Music has filed a trademark application for its Columbia Records logo to be used for NFT-backed media and music and podcast production. 

The company, whose label represents international superstars such as Adele, Lil Nas X and Harry Styles, made the filing at the end of August, according to a tweet from trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis. 

The application suggests Sony is considering using NFTs as a kind of token gate to authenticate fans for downloadable audio and video recordings and for live performances — a move that would bring NFT authentication for the music industry somewhat mainstream. 

The Block contacted Sony Music about the potential scope of the initiative but had not heard back before publication time. 

This is not the first time Sony Music has flirted with the idea of using NFTs to further its business interests. Earlier this year the Solana-based music NFT marketplace Snowcrash announced it had partnered with both Sony and Universal Music Group. At the time, the platform said it plans to release Bob Dylan and Miles Davis NFTs later this year. 

Sony’s label RCA Records also expanded into China earlier this year. The enterprise has billed itself as a web3 venture which looks to back artists experimenting with streaming, gaming, VR, AR, NFTs and the metaverse.

Sony also backed a $5 million fundraise for Audius, a blockchain-based music streaming platform with over six million monthly users.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Crypto investment platform Bitpanda has added commodities to its platform, allowing users to trade oil, natural gas, aluminum and wheat along with cryptocurrencies, stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

According to an announcement today, users will be able to gain exposure to exchange-traded commodities (ETCs) via derivatives contracts. Bitpanda will hold the ETCs. Unlike its metal investment feature, users are not able to buy shares in the physical asset.

Bitpanda said the new products will allow users to bet on “short-term” price movements in commodities. With inflation surging around the world, the firm pointed out that commodities can protect investors’ portfolios in such an environment.    

“I’m excited we’ve been able to add commodities to the platform at a time when inflation is biting into people’s savings,” CEO and co-founder Eric Demuth said in a statement. “Bitpanda customers can now bet against their gas bill and benefit from the short-term price movements of key commodities like oil, natural gas, corn, wheat and many more.” 

The product launch follows its previous moves to further expand its product line. In July, it launched four new thematic crypto indices based on the areas of decentralized finance, the metaverse, infrastructure and smart contracts. The Block also reported that the fintech firm launched an exchange-traded note (ETN) tracking the price of bitcoin last year. 

The company has also recently drastically downsized amid a downturn in the crypto market which has seen the price of bitcoin drop below $20,000. In June, the company cut staff numbers from about 1,000 to 730. The Block later reported that Bitpanda’s chief product officer, Lukas Enzersdorfer-Konrad, told staff there would be no mass layoffs, three weeks before axing a third of its workforce. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Binance is moving to prioritize its own stablecoin, BUSD, over several others on its cryptocurrency exchange.

The company announced Monday a “BUSD Auto-Conversion” that will start on Sept. 29 to “enhance liquidity and capital-efficiency for users.” 

Binance is introducing the conversion for users’ existing balances and new deposits of USDC, USDP and TUSD stablecoins at a 1:1 ratio. USDC is the second-largest stablecoin by total supply, and the USDC/USDT pair saw the 11th highest volume on Binance in the last 24 hours.

“With effect from 2022-09-29 03:00 (UTC), users will trade with a consolidated BUSD balance on the Binance Platform that reflects their balances of these four stablecoins (BUSD, USDC, USDP and TUSD) post conversion. This will not affect users’ choice of withdrawal: users will continue to be able to withdraw funds in USDC, USDP and TUSD at a 1:1 ratio to their BUSD denominated account balance,” the company said.

Binance will also end trading pairs for the three stablecoins against BUSD and Tether (USDT) as well as major cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether. The stablecoin-to-stablecoin pairs will close on Sept. 26, with the stablecoin-to-crypto pairs ending on the 29th. 

“All pending trade orders will be automatically removed after trading ceases in each respective trading pair. Users can then trade the assets in the respective BUSD trading pairs,” Binance said. The announced changes cut across a number of Binance services beyond its exchange, including its staking, payment and gift card offerings. 

The result of the decision means Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, will prioritize the use of its stablecoin above other market contenders. The announcement may also signal a push by Binance to expand the market share for BUSD. 

The long-term implications for the affected stablecoins remain to be seen, though USDC’s wider user across centralized exchanges as well as DeFi platforms could limit the impact on that particular token. Binance hosts the second-most voluminous trading pair for USDC against USDT, with $124.4 million in trade volume in the past day. That’s out of a total of about $5.8 billion in 24-hour volume, according to CoinGecko data.

USDC also saw the most on-chain activity, according to The Block’s Data Dashboard. BUSD, the third-largest stablecoin by total supply, saw $20.64 billion in on-chain volume last month compared to USDC’s $352.6 billion. 

Binance’s TUSD/USDT is the third-largest trading pair for TrueUSD’s stablecoin, with $12.6 million in reported 24-hour volume out of a total of about $185 million.

The USDP/BUSD trading pair on Binance is third-most voluminous for Pax Dollar, per CoinGecko, accounting for about $342,000 out of $2.6 million in the past 24 hours. 

BUSD was launched in partnership with Paxos, the company behind USDP, in 2019. New York’s Department of Financial Services drew headlines at the time for granting Paxos approval to issue BUSD on the Ethereum blockchain. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Binance is moving to prioritize its own stablecoin, BUSD, over several others on its cryptocurrency exchange.

The company announced Monday a “BUSD Auto-Conversion” that will start on Sept. 29 to “enhance liquidity and capital-efficiency for users.” 

Binance is introducing the conversion for users’ existing balances and new deposits of USDC, USDP and TUSD stablecoins at a 1:1 ratio. USDC is the second-largest stablecoin by total supply, and the USDC/USDT pair saw the 11th highest volume on Binance in the last 24 hours.

“With effect from 2022-09-29 03:00 (UTC), users will trade with a consolidated BUSD balance on the Binance Platform that reflects their balances of these four stablecoins (BUSD, USDC, USDP and TUSD) post conversion. This will not affect users’ choice of withdrawal: users will continue to be able to withdraw funds in USDC, USDP and TUSD at a 1:1 ratio to their BUSD denominated account balance,” the company said.

Binance will also end trading pairs for the three stablecoins against BUSD and Tether (USDT) as well as major cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether. The stablecoin-to-stablecoin pairs will close on Sept. 26, with the stablecoin-to-crypto pairs ending on the 29th. 

“All pending trade orders will be automatically removed after trading ceases in each respective trading pair. Users can then trade the assets in the respective BUSD trading pairs,” Binance said. The announced changes cut across a number of Binance services beyond its exchange, including its staking, payment and gift card offerings. 

The result of the decision means Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, will prioritize the use of its stablecoin above other market contenders. The announcement may also signal a push by Binance to expand the market share for BUSD. 

The long-term implications for the affected stablecoins remain to be seen, though USDC’s wider user across centralized exchanges as well as DeFi platforms could limit the impact on that particular token. Binance hosts the second-most voluminous trading pair for USDC against USDT, with $124.4 million in trade volume in the past day. That’s out of a total of about $5.8 billion in 24-hour volume, according to CoinGecko data.

USDC also saw the most on-chain activity, according to The Block’s Data Dashboard. BUSD, the third-largest stablecoin by total supply, saw $20.64 billion in on-chain volume last month compared to USDC’s $352.6 billion. 

Binance’s TUSD/USDT is the third-largest trading pair for TrueUSD’s stablecoin, with $12.6 million in reported 24-hour volume out of a total of about $185 million.

The USDP/BUSD trading pair on Binance is third-most voluminous for Pax Dollar, per CoinGecko, accounting for about $342,000 out of $2.6 million in the past 24 hours. 

BUSD was launched in partnership with Paxos, the company behind USDP, in 2019. New York’s Department of Financial Services drew headlines at the time for granting Paxos approval to issue BUSD on the Ethereum blockchain. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.