As global cryptocurrency companies increasingly consider going public, the Russian central bank has officially recommended local exchanges to avoid crypto-related listings. The Bank of Russia issued an information letter on Monday, asking Russian stock exchanges to stay away from listings of foreign and local companies involved in a broad range of crypto services. The central bank elaborated that local exchanges should not list stocks issued by companies whose business relies on crypto market prices, including digital financial assets issued outside Russia, crypto-tracking indexes, as well as crypto derivatives and crypto funds. The Bank of Russia also recommended asset managers to …

United Kingdom-based crypto fund Nickel Digital Asset Management released a survey of 100 wealth managers and global institutional investors to find out the biggest investor concerns associated with crypto. The survey features respondents from the United States, France, Germany, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, who collectively own $275 billion in assets under management. Conducted online from May to June 2021, the survey found low confidence among institutional investors in crypto security, with 76% of respondents citing concerns about the security of custodial services as one factor stopping them from investing in crypto. Respondents also identified the regulatory …

Despite Bitcoin (BTC) not yet emerging as an “asset class per se,” JPMorgan considers it important to meet the demand for cryptocurrency investment, according to a senior wealth management executive. A large number of JPMorgan clients see digital currencies like Bitcoin as an asset class, the company’s director of asset and wealth management, Mary Callahan Erdoes, said. In a Bloomberg interview released Tuesday, Erdoes stressed that the bank will continue providing crypto services to meet the growing demand, stating: “A lot of our clients say, ‘That’s an asset class, and I want to invest,’ and our job is to help …

The United States-based cryptocurrency tax software developer TaxBit is reportedly looking for new funding at a valuation of $1 billion or more, which would make it a unicorn startup. According to Bloomberg, people with knowledge of the matter said TaxBit is in talks to raise capital, but the terms have yet to be finalized. TaxBit declined to comment on the reports. TaxBit is a Salt Lake City, Utah-based startup founded in 2018 specializing in crypto-related tax processes for consumers and businesses. Developed by a group of CPAs, tax attorneys and software developers, the solution enables users to track the tax …

As the price of Bitcoin (BTC) continues to struggle around the $30,000 mark, the widely accepted stock-to-flow (S2F) model to price Bitcoin, coined by Twitter user and unnamed Dutch investor Plan B, is now the farthest from its estimates. The model was popularized by the Twitter pseudonym more than two years ago in March 2019 and amid a minor bull through Q1 2019. It’s considered to be one of the leading quantitative valuations for the first-ever scarce digital currency. The model presumes that scarcity of certain assets or commodities drives its price. The S2F model is an attempt to price …

Billion-dollar investment firm Rothschild Investment Corp quadrupled its exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) since April, new records show. In a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Saturday, Rothschild confirmed that it now owns 141,405 shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). Rothschild GBTC shares near 150,000 A quiet but nonetheless substantial player among institutions, Rothchild Investment Corp has also invested in Grayscale’s Ether (ETH) equivalent, the Grayscale Ethereum Trust. Its exposure to Bitcoin has increased considerably this year, the filing shows — in April, its GBTC shares totaled 38,346. In BTC terms, with each GBTC share …

New data shows that institutional investors’ interest in cryptocurrencies and crypto-related businesses is continuing to grow. Fidelity Digital Assets, the crypto arm of the global asset management giant Fidelity Investments Inc, tasked Coalition Greenwich to survey 1,100 institutional investors to understand their expectations regarding digital asset investments. The majority of surveyed investors expect to invest in digital assets in the future. The survey was conducted between December 2020 and April 2021 with the participation of high-net-worth investors, family offices, digital and traditional hedge funds, financial advisors and endowments, Reuters reported. The definition of digital asset investment defined by the survey …

Major venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz will be promoting a former employee of digital asset infrastructure provider BitGo to assist in running its $2.2 billion crypto fund. According to Andreessen Horowitz general partner Katie Haun, Arianna Simpson will be joining partners Chris Dixon, Ali Yahya and Haun for the launch of the firm’s $2.2 billion venture fund, Crypto Fund III. Simpson has been a general partner at the company for more than a year and will be promoted to the position of deal partner to assist the fund aimed at financing cryptocurrency networks and teams contributing to the decentralized economy. …

The ongoing United States-China trade war is in its fourth year. Former U.S. President Donald Trump saw different results from what he initially expected: America has taken a hit from higher tariffs and sanctions against Chinese companies and hasn’t benefited from it nearly to the same extent. It has cost the country up to 245,000 jobs. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce calculated that the situation puts the exports of each state at risk. For example, the damage to Florida’s exports alone has already reached $1.9 billion. At the same time, China was taking a smarter approach: It not only imposed …

BlackRock, an institutional asset manager that has indirect exposure to Bitcoin (BTC), has recorded a major decline in investor demand for cryptocurrency. The company’s CEO Larry Fink declared Wednesday on CNBC’s Squawk Box that BlackRock has been seeing less crypto-related queries from investors recently, signaling a massive drop in demand for crypto. Fink noted that specifically long-term and retirement investors now appear to have less interest in crypto, stating: “In the past, you’ve asked me about crypto and Bitcoin, again. And in my last two weeks of business travel, not one question has been asked about that. That is just …

Amid a massive spike of the United States’ Consumer Price Index (CPI), the cryptocurrency community has been divided on whether Bitcoin (BTC) is really a hedge to inflation. The CPI, an indicator measuring the average change in prices that consumers pay for a basket of goods and services, saw its largest one-month increase in June over the past 13 years, Business Insider reported Tuesday. The inflation surge reportedly started in March, when CPI rose by 2.6%, followed by subsequent increases in April of 4.2% and eventually 5.4% in June. But despite the recent growth in CPI-measured inflation, Bitcoin has allegedly …

Global payment giant Visa is moving forward with its commitment to digital currency adoption by approving the issuance of a new Bitcoin (BTC) debit card in Australia. Sydney-based crypto spending app CryptoSpend announced Wednesday that Visa has approved the issuance of a physical debit card that will allow Australians to spend their Bitcoin at local merchants. CryptoSpend co-founders said in an interview with the Australian Financial Review that the new card will be issued by major local payments company Novatti and is expected to hit the market in September. Visa is expected to announce the approval later this week. According …