SocGen Introduces Digital Asset Service for Firms to Develop Crypto Funds

Societe Generale Securities Services (SGSS), the third-largest French bank by market cap, announced on Wednesday a new digital asset service designed for asset management firms wishing to develop innovative professional funds based on cryptocurrencies.

The French investment bank has continued expanding its clients’ crypto custody services. This new service will enable the asset managers to offer crypto funds in a “simple and adapted” manner within a framework that is compliant with European regulations, Societe Generale said.

Many investors want to integrate cryptocurrencies into their portfolios. Increasing number of asset management firms are therefore looking to create new ranges of solutions invested mainly in digital assets.

Societe Generale has introduced a new crypto service that enables asset management companies to act as crypto fund custodians, valuators, and liability managers.

The new service has been adopted by French asset management company Arquant Capital SAS, which is launching a range of funds investing in cryptocurrency, beginning with two products based on Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and derivatives.

David Abitbol, Head of Societe Generale Securities Services, talked about the development: “This solution provides Arquant Capital with an innovative structuring that allows us to scale our offering and focus on creating value for our clients.”

Societe Generale Group is already recognized as an expert in crypto assets with its subsidiary Societe Generale FORGE. The investment bank, therefore, continues developing its services related to digital assets to meet the needs of its customers.

Since 2019, FORGE, an integrated subsidiary of Societe Generale, has been offering several native security token issuances deployed on blockchain for several institutions, including the European Investment Bank’s (EIB) €100 million digital bond issued in 2021.

Through FORGE, the investment bank offers a range of capital market products to institutional clients under a native security token format on Tezos and Ethereum.

New Opportunities in The Digital Assets Space

In recent months, there has been a prevalent trend among French banking heavyweights moving to offer crypto-related services to their clients as demand increases.

In July, BNP Paribas (BNP), France’s largest bank, entered the crypto custody space via a partnership with Swiss digital asset safekeeping firm Metaco.

In April, French bank Delubac & Cie obtained a registration license to offer digital assets services (the purchase, sale and custody of crypto-assets) to institutions, companies, and individuals. The license enabled the bank to offer three crypto-assets which include Tezos, Bitcoin, and Ethereum, as well as plans to include access to staking and tokenized assets such as NFTs in the service offerings.

Many banks are edging towards crypto custody to respond to the increased demand from investors for cryptocurrencies.

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Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates Prepares to Invest in a Crypto Fund

Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, announced Monday plans to back a crypto fund for the first time. The hedge fund founded by billionaire Ray Dalio disclosed that it is preparing to invest in an external cryptocurrency fund. The hedge fund firm justified its move by stating that currently, it does not have any plans to invest directly in cryptocurrencies itself.

According to three sources familiar with the matter, other prominent crypto investors are also in talks to invest in the fund.

A Bridgewater spokesperson revealed that the company currently does not have plans to invest in cryptocurrencies. “While we won’t comment on our positions, we can say Bridgewater continues to actively research crypto but is not currently planning on investing in crypto,” the official mentioned.

Another person with close information about the hedge fund’s crypto trading plans said: “Bridgewater is in a first-half plan this year. They plan to have a small slug of their fund deployed directly into digital assets.”

And another source also disclosed: “Bridgewater is looking to get involved. They are doing serious diligence: liquidity, service providers and whatnot.”

The Company Has a Place for Bitcoin

The move clearly indicates that the world’s largest hedge fund, with $150 billion in assets under management (AUM), is listening and taking cryptocurrency seriously as an asset class.

Established in 1975 and headquartered in Connecticut, US, Bridgewater is an American investment management company founded by Harvard Business School graduate Ray Dalio.

In December 2020, Dalio, the founder and chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, clarified his view on Bitcoin and disclosed what his company has in store for cryptocurrency.

Dalio confirmed that he owns “a little bit” of Bitcoin and called it a younger generation’s alternative to gold. “Bitcoin is like gold, though gold is the well-established blue-chip alternative to fiat money.” The Billionaire investor said that allocating up to 2% of one’s portfolio to Bitcoin is reasonable. He is confident that Bitcoin, similar to gold, acts as a good hedge against rising prices of goods and services.

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Bain Capital Ventures Unveils $560 Million Crypto Fund for Blockchain-Focused Tech Startups

Bain Capital Ventures, the venture arm of the 37-year-old private equity firm Bain Capital, announced on Tuesday that it has launched a $560 million fund focused exclusively on cryptocurrency-related efforts.

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Stefan Cohen, a managing partner at Bain Capital, talked about the development and said: “We’ve become quite high conviction we are at the beginning of a multi-decade technology shift. We really needed a dedicated team and a dedicated fund structure. That’s really what lead to the addition of Bain Capital Crypto.”

Bain Ventures is looking to use the fund to invest into everything from crypto start-ups to decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) in areas like Layer 1 blockchains — ones that compete with Ethereum — and storage. The firm expects to deploy the fund in the next two to three years and invest in about 30 companies. The venture wants to be a much more active investor than is typical to empower the needs of crypto start-ups.

“We are looking for firms who are able to participate in governance actively, firms that can provide liquidity into the protocols. The crypto fund may invest in company equity, promises of future tokens or the actual coins, which it might acquire from DAOs’ treasuries or on secondary markets,” Cohen further elaborated.

Cohan also revealed that Bain Ventures may consider launching more crypto-focused funds once the fund’s capital is deployed. “Our view is that this is a 10-20-year opportunity, and we are building a platform here that we think can facilitate multiple funds over a period of time,” Cohen explained.

Financing for Start-Ups, Company Growth, and Innovations

Bain Capital Ventures has been investing in cryptocurrency for the last seven years, investing funds into venture capital company Digital Currency Group, crypto lender BlockFi Inc., and decentralized-finance lender Compound. But its new crypto Fund is the first fund focused on the cryptocurrency market.

Bain Ventures offers seed through growth capital for firms focused on technology and technology-enabled services, mainly for enterprise customers. The capital ventures firm invests across sectors, including infrastructure healthcare, software, FinTech, and application software.

Bain Ventures has invested funds in companies, including SurveyMonkey, LinkedIn, Rapid7, TellApart, Kiva Systems, Docusign, Infusionsoft, VMTurbo, Liazon, BloomReach etc.

Since 1984, Bain Ventures has partnered with more than 200 firms to build, commercialize, and grow their businesses. The venture firm has about $3 billion of assets under management and has offices in Boston, New York City, and the Bay Area.

 

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Former Wall Street Banker Partners With Ethereum Competitor for New $1,500,000,000 Crypto Fund

A former Citigroup executive is shaking up the crypto investment space with a $1.5 billion venture, partnering with a leading layer 1 altcoin project.

Hivemind Capital Partners is an investment firm founded by Matt Zhang, a 14-year Citigroup Inc veteran. In a press release, Zhang announces Hivemind’s mission to provide solutions to early blockchain entrepreneurs through the creation of a new “tailor-made crypto investment platform.”

“We believe blockchain technology is a paradigm shift, and we are still in the early innings. Our mission is to provide start-to-finish capital and infrastructure solutions to visionary entrepreneurs and category-defining crypto projects.

The traditional asset management model is not designed to do this, which is why we are building a tailor-made crypto investment platform from the ground up that also offers the infrastructure institutional investors need for risk management, compliance and security.”

Hivemind is partnering with payments and decentralized finance (DeFi)-focused blockchain Algorand (ALGO) as a “strategic partner to provide technology capability and network ecosystem infrastructure.”

“We believe that Algorand is the preeminent blockchain protocol that allows institutional and corporate users to connect with the decentralized economy. With the explosive growth of the digital asset space, people tend to forget how early the crypto economy still is. We want to team up with partners who have the patience to build an enduring business.”

However, Zhang notes that Hivemind is exploring partnerships with other layer 1 blockchains as the project progresses.

“We are also in active discussions to form partnerships with a number of other leading layer-1 networks. The goal is to build a multi-chain world to let our investors see the best opportunities across the entire crypto ecosystem.”

ALGO, trading at $1.82 at time of writing, is up nearly 12% on the day. The payments blockchain has interest from other large investors lately, including an endorsement from American financier Anthony Scaramucci last month.

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Oasis Foundation Launches $160M Ecosystem Fund

Key Takeaways

  • Oasis Foundation has announced the launch of a $160 million ecosystem fund.
  • Oasis is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain that focusing on preserving user privacy.
  • The ecosystem fund has been created in partnership with a number of major investors.




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Oasis Network, a privacy-focused blockchain that uses confidential smart contracts, is getting a $160 million fund to incentivize the dApp development. 

Oasis Foundation Announces $160M Fund 

Oasis Foundation, the organization behind the Cosmos-based privacy-enabled blockchain Oasis Network, is launching a $160 million ecosystem fund.

According to a Wednesday press release, the fund will finance various Oasis-native decentralized applications covering DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, gaming, and the Metaverse.

Oasis is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain designed using the Cosmos SDK. Its main focus is to build a privacy-preserving dApp ecosystem. Its architecture comprises two main components: the Consensus Layer and the ParaTime Layer.


The Consensus Layer is a Proof-of-Stake system that relies on a set of validator nodes. Meanwhile, the ParaTime Layer consists of several parallel runtimes composed of different computing environments. Oasis’ ParaTime architecture allows for running different computing layers that share the entire network’s security while preserving confidentiality.

Oasis Foundation has created the fund in partnership with several leading crypto investors, including AME Cloud Ventures, Dragonfly Capital Partners, Draper Dragon Fund, Electric Capital, FBG, Jump Capital, Kenetic Capital, and NGC Ventures, and Pantera Capital.

Notably, the fund launch lands as the vesting lock of more than 1 billion native ROSE tokens is due to end. In 2018, Oasis raised over $45 million from multiple big name backers, including Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, Accel, Binance Labs, and those that supported the new fund.

Commenting on the launch, Oasis Foundation Director Jernej Kos said that the team was “thrilled to work with longtime supporters of Oasis” before adding that the network was “now fully developer ready.” He added:



“We invite all developers to consider Oasis as we are ready to support them with funding, technical expertise and mentoring, and a strong network of backers.”

Oasis has made significant strides to become a prominent player in the crypto privacy space in recent months. In October, the team launched Cipher ParaTime, a platform to create privacy-focused DeFi leveraging confidential computing. Cipher ParaTime dApps offer a way to use DeFi without a trail of activity appearing on a public ledger. Other similar projects operating in the privacy niche include Secret Network, another Cosmos-based blockchain that supports a range of DeFi applications and NFT projects.

For Oasis, separating consensus from computing helps the network achieve instant block finality, high throughput, and low gas fees. The team is hoping that its high-speed, low cost capabilities will help the network scale for mass adoption, but it’s not the only Layer 1 network aiming to attract users. Several networks have attracted new users this year amid ongoing scaling issues and surging gas fees on Ethereum. While the second-ranked blockchain is still the most used network for DeFi and NFTs, other Layer 1 platforms like Solana, Fantom, Avalanche, and Cosmos have seen rapid growth this year.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned ETH, SOL, and other cryptocurrencies.  

This news was brought to you by ANKR, our preferred DeFi Partner.


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Oasis Network Launches $160M Ecosystem Fund

Key Takeaways

  • Oasis Foundation has announced the launch of a $160 million ecosystem fund.
  • Oasis is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain that focusing on preserving user privacy.
  • The ecosystem fund has been created in partnership with a number of major investors.




Share this article


Oasis Network, a privacy-focused blockchain that uses confidential smart contracts, is getting a $160 million fund to incentivize the dApp development. 

Oasis Foundation Announces $160M Fund 

Oasis Foundation, the organization behind the Cosmos-based privacy-enabled blockchain Oasis Network, is launching a $160 million ecosystem fund.

According to a Wednesday press release, the fund will finance various Oasis-native decentralized applications covering DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, gaming, and the Metaverse.

Oasis is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain designed using the Cosmos SDK. Its main focus is to build a privacy-preserving dApp ecosystem. Its architecture comprises two main components: the Consensus Layer and the ParaTime Layer.


The Consensus Layer is a Proof-of-Stake system that relies on a set of validator nodes. Meanwhile, the ParaTime Layer consists of several parallel runtimes composed of different computing environments. Oasis’ ParaTime architecture allows for running different computing layers that share the entire network’s security while preserving confidentiality.

Oasis Foundation has created the fund in partnership with several leading crypto investors, including AME Cloud Ventures, Dragonfly Capital Partners, Draper Dragon Fund, Electric Capital, FBG, Jump Capital, Kenetic Capital, and NGC Ventures, and Pantera Capital.

Notably, the fund launch lands as the vesting lock of more than 1 billion native ROSE tokens is due to end. In 2018, Oasis raised over $45 million from multiple big name backers, including Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, Accel, Binance Labs, and those that supported the new fund.

Commenting on the launch, Oasis Foundation Director Jernej Kos said that the team was “thrilled to work with longtime supporters of Oasis” before adding that the network was “now fully developer ready.” He added:



“We invite all developers to consider Oasis as we are ready to support them with funding, technical expertise and mentoring, and a strong network of backers.”

Oasis has made significant strides to become a prominent player in the crypto privacy space in recent months. In October, the team launched Cipher ParaTime, a platform to create privacy-focused DeFi leveraging confidential computing. Cipher ParaTime dApps offer a way to use DeFi without a trail of activity appearing on a public ledger. Other similar projects operating in the privacy niche include Secret Network, another Cosmos-based blockchain that supports a range of DeFi applications and NFT projects.

For Oasis, separating consensus from computing helps the network achieve instant block finality, high throughput, and low gas fees. The team is hoping that its high-speed, low cost capabilities will help the network scale for mass adoption, but it’s not the only Layer 1 network aiming to attract users. Several networks have attracted new users this year amid ongoing scaling issues and surging gas fees on Ethereum. While the second-ranked blockchain is still the most used network for DeFi and NFTs, other Layer 1 platforms like Solana, Fantom, Avalanche, and Cosmos have seen rapid growth this year.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned ETH, SOL, and other cryptocurrencies.  

This news was brought to you by ANKR, our preferred DeFi Partner.


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Sanctor Capital Raises $20M to Fund Emerging Crypto Projects

Key Takeaways

  • Sanctor Capital has raised $20 million in its inaugural fund.
  • The fund will invest in cryptocurrency-related projects active in the DeFi, GameFi and cross-chain infrastructure niches.
  • Sanctor Capital will also leverage its mentorship program to support crypto founders.




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Sanctor Capital will use the funds to support crypto-native projects.

Sanctor Capital Closes $20 Million Raise 

Sanctor Capital has secured $20 million in its first funding round.

The newly raised capital will be used to back crypto projects operating in the DeFi, cross-chain infrastructure, and GameFi niches.


In a press release discussing the raise, Sanctor Capital found Han Kao detailed how the team plans to leverage its crypto experience to guide projects through their full lifecycle and bring products on the market. He said:

“From building a missionary team to finding product-market fit, we intend to share our insights and experiences—in addition to capital resources and access to our extensive network—to help other crypto entrepreneurs navigate and maximize their chances of success.”

According to the research firm Pitchbook, venture capital firms had allocated $17 billion to crypto projects as of June 2021. The huge influx of capital into the crypto industry comes as a wide variety of projects push technological innovation on blockchain networks like Ethereum, Solana, Fantom, and Cosmos. Such innovation has laid the foundation for a huge uptick in the adoption of applications in DeFi, NFTs, and gaming.



Ilya Abugov, a partner at Sanctor Capital, believes that the recent growth will open up opportunities for new startups that are “rethinking how we interact with games, art, music, and so much more”. On the firm’s funding round, Abugov added:

“With the completion of our first fund, we look forward to helping guide these new companies as they navigate through uncharted territories.”

For investor-side support and networking, Sanctor Capital runs a tailored mentorship program Sanctor Turbo. The program is designed to bring crypto projects to market with support from industry-leading organizations like Animoca Brands, Coinbase, CoinMarketCap, and Solana. The first teams to graduate from the Sanctor Turbo include THORSwap, Synchrony Finance, and Koii Network.

Disclosure: Some of the equity-holders in Sanctor Capital also hold equity in Crypto Briefing. Han Kao is the former CEO of Crypto Briefing, and Ilya Abugov is the former head of research at Crypto Briefing. 

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JPMorgan will reportedly give retail wealth clients access to crypto funds

Major U.S. investment bank JPMorgan is reportedly allowing advisors to execute crypto trades for more of its clients.

According to a Thursday report from Business Insider, retail wealth clients at JPMorgan now have access to cryptocurrency funds. A person directly familiar with the bank’s move to digital investments said all JPMorgan clients seeking investment advice, including those managed by financial advisors, retail investors using the trading app, and clients serviced by the private bank, would be offered the opportunity to invest in crypto.

Related: Many JPMorgan clients see Bitcoin as an asset class, says senior exec

JPMorgan clients now reportedly have access to Grayscale Investments’ Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), Bitcoin Cash Trust (BCHG), Ethereum Trust (ETHE), and Ethereum Classic Trust (ETCG), as well as Osprey Funds’ over-the-counter Bitcoin Trust, OBTC. Investors can reportedly request advisors execute crypto trades, but the bank’s advisors may not be allowed to recommend crypto investments.

This story is developing and will be updated.