Here are some of the major developments from the world of crypto over the past few days
The much-hyped Ethereum futures exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have garnered lukewarm reception on the first day of trading. The trading volume across all the nine products that were launched on October 2, 2023, stood at less than $2 million on the first day of trading.
Incidentally, there was a huge rush of excitement when these nine new Ethereum futures ETFs, which are designed to track futures contracts tied to the value of Ethereum’s native currency, Ether, were announced. Of these nine ETFs, only five hold exclusively Ether futures, while the other four track a mixture of Bitcoin and ETH futures contracts.
“Unprecedented day today with multiple ETFs all launching at same time. No clear winner has emerged, all of them were pretty average, lower than I would have predicted, but it’s a long run and remember, these hold futures (ETF investors much prefer physical to derivatives). Pretty meh day of volume,” senior Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Chainalysis Axes Another 15% Staff
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis has reduced its headcount by another 15 per cent, citing the need to reduce expenses due to continued bear market blues. The Chainalysis workforce will be reduced by around 150, the company told Cointelegraph on October 3, 2023.
Chainalysis vice president of communications, Madeleine Kennedy, said: “While Chainalysis continues to be well positioned for long-term success as a consistently top-performing software company, we are very focused on growing efficiently and, due to market conditions, believe it necessary to reduce our expenses at this time.”
She added: “We remain committed to our mission to build trust in Blockchains among government agencies, financial institutions, and cryptocurrency businesses.”
A spokesperson for Chainalysis confirmed that the firm had around 900 employees before the most recent cuts. Incidentally, it’s the second round of cuts for the company this year, as the ongoing crypto bear market has reduced the demand for commercial products. In February 2023, Chainalysis cut around 40-50 jobs as part of a reorganisation plan in light of worsening market conditions.
UBS Launches Tokenised Money Market Fund On Ethereum
Leading Swiss bank, UBS, has launched a live pilot of a tokenised version of its variable capital company (VCC) fund as part of Project Guardian, an initiative led by Singapore’s central bank.
UBS Asset Management announced in a press statement that the fund is part of a broader VCC umbrella designed to bring different types of real-world assets (RWA) to the Blockchain.
Thomas Kaegi, the head of UBS Asset Management for Singapore and Southeast Asia said the project is a milestone in understanding fund tokenisation. “Through this exploratory initiative, we will work with traditional financial institutions and fintech providers to help understand how to improve market liquidity and market access for clients,” Kaegi said.
UBS Asset Management has launched the controlled pilot of the tokenised money market fund through the company’s in-house tokenisation service called UBS Tokenize. The pilot is also a part of the company’s global distributed ledger technology strategy, which focuses on using private and public Blockchains to enhance fund distribution and issuance.
UBS also carried out various carried out various activities, including redemptions and fund subscriptions using a smart contract on Ethereum.