Month: June 2023

Launching a Crypto Regulatory Arm to Challenge the Global Financial Hubs

Dubai and its sibling hub Abu Dhabi were rated tops in the regulatory structure, the most heavily weighted criterion at 35% of the total score. But the impact was blunted by the UAE’s bottom-quintile crypto adoption score, indicating that the larger population of the UAE is not as crypto-savvy as the residents in these two hubs. Despite the low overall drivers category score, Dubai cemented its place in the top five with high scores in opportunities category, which measured per-capita crypto events, companies and jobs. The emirate also achieved the…

A Wealthy Mideast Capital Creating a Bridge From TradFi to Crypto

The United Arab Emirates’ hubs of Abu Dhabi and Dubai had identical scores for crypto regulatory structure and crypto adoption, two of the most heavily weighted criteria in the ranking overall. But while the UAE’s regulatory structure is top tier – and accounts for 35% of its total score – its crypto adoption score (measuring 10%) was in the bottom quintile. Arguably, the low score is a reflection of the greater Emirati population, rather than the behavior of the residents of Abu Dhabi and Dubai themselves. In nearly every other…

The first leveraged bitcoin futures ETF is hitting the market as crypto gains new momentum

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Traders will soon have a new way to bet on bitcoin while Wall Street waits to see if the long-awaited spot bitcoin funds are approved by federal regulators. The Volatility Shares 2x Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITX) is set to launch on Tuesday. There are already several bitcoin futures funds on the market, including the $1 billion ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) , but BITX will be the first leveraged ETF in the space. “There’s a big audience that’s already out there for leveraged-type products, and to sort of marry that…

A Crypto Sandbox in a Big Business, Big Bank, Venture Capital Playground

And, while New York City is admittedly a hub for hubris, it’s not so bizarre to imagine the city as a center for crypto too. This was true before the crypto market crash last year and will likely continue amid a period of regulatory uncertainty. New York was one of the first jurisdictions to think seriously about crypto regulation, putting the so-called BitLicense into effect in 2015. Some firms, like Kraken, found the rules onerous and pulled out of the financial hub, but, for many, any amount of clarity was…

Regulatory Clarity and Crypto-Friendly Banks Fuel Blockchain Revolution

Surprise! Wyoming is the top-ranked U.S. hub. Many of CoinDesk’s Crypto Hubs 2023 criteria were measured on a national basis, so all of the U.S. hubs were hampered by a middling crypto regulatory score, a measure in the drivers category and the most heavily weighted criteria – 35% – of the total. This negative was partially offset by the highest crypto adoption score (another drivers criteria) in our sample, however. Given that the regulatory and adoption scores were based on countries, Wyoming broke from the U.S. pack with its high…

The Global Hub for VC Money May Be Cooling on Crypto

Silicon Valley was the second-highest ranked U.S. hub in CoinDesk’s Crypto Hubs 2023. Several of the eight criteria were measured on a national basis, so all the U.S. hubs were hampered by a middling crypto regulatory score, a drivers criteria, which at 35% was the most heavily weighted overall. This poor performance was partially offset by the U.S.’s high crypto adoption score, another drivers criterion, represented 10% of the overall score. Among the U.S. hubs, Silicon Valley generally trailed Wyoming just a hair in opportunities, which is based on per-capita…

Where Remote-Work Bitcoin and Crypto Developers Actually Choose to Live

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Ranked No. 9 overall, Ausin was the 3rd U.S. hub on our list, coming behind Wyoming and Silicon Valley, California. Many of the Crypto Hubs’ criteria were measured on a national basis, so all of the U.S. hubs were hampered by a middling crypto regulatory score, which counted for 35% of the total ranking calculation. This negative was partially offset by the highest crypto adoption score in our sample, weighing 10% of the total. Among the U.S. hubs, Austin had the highest quality-of-life and ease-of-doing-business scores, but trailed Wyoming and…

Berlin: The Center for Decentralized Finance – and Techno Music

When the tech hub of Europe meets a society that prizes financial autonomy, the result is a crypto community that practices the very decentralization it preaches. Case in point: Blockchain Week Berlin, the flagship annual conference of the No. 10 spot in CoinDesk’s Crypto Hubs 2023, is a self-organized, crypto-agnostic community initiative. Source

Fireblocks Expands Cloud Support for Crypto Custody

Fireblocks’ cloud support comes at a time when more and more institutional investors and corporations are joining the crypto space. Blockchain security service provider, Fireblocks, has expanded its cloud service for crypto custody and settlement. According to the announcement, the service will now include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform, Alibaba Cloud, Thales, and Securosys. Cloud Computing Meets Crypto Security Fireblocks’ platform uses a combination of security technologies to protect private keys and transactions from cyberattacks, internal fraud and human error. Last year, the company became the first to…