Com2uS Holdings’ XPLA partners with SOOHO.IO for easier DeFi access

Australian venture capitalist and founder of MHC Digital Group, Mark Carnegie, is optimistic about bitcoin's potential for a bullish trend, while believing that Asia will be the real force driving the market beyond the exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval hype in the United States.Photo by Hans Eiskonen on Unsplash$50,000 bitcoin retestIn a recent interview with CNBC, Carnegie expressed his belief that bitcoin is "clearly primed for a bit of a run and a retest to $50,000." The bitcoin unit price stood at around $43,600 at the time of the interview. At the time of writing, it’s weighing in at $46,773. While there’s likely to be considerable resistance in the leading cryptocurrency getting past the psychologically important $50,000 level, the digital asset is certainly heading in the direction that Carnegie had predicted. Looking ahead, Carnegie shared his short-to-medium-term outlook, stating:"So my feeling is short term, long, medium term, which is, you know, 30 to 90 days, probably a retrace." This suggests that Carnegie anticipates a positive trajectory for bitcoin in the coming months, likely as an initial response to a spot bitcoin ETF approval in the U.S. Last week a report from Singapore-based digital asset financial services firm Matrixport speculated that spot bitcoin ETF applications would be rejected as they have been over the past few years. Market risk factorsHowever, he also voiced concerns about the current state of the U.S. equity markets and potential recession indicators. Reflecting on the recent miss on payrolls, Carnegie commented:"I feel like that miss on payrolls last week makes me feel like there's a big flip. And everyone's going to start panicking about a recession." Despite the uncertainty in traditional markets, Carnegie remains optimistic about bitcoin's performance. When asked about the specific impact on cryptocurrencies, he admitted, "How's that going to affect crypto? I don't really know." In a blog post published last Friday, Arthur Hayes, the CIO of Hong Kong-based family office Maelstrom, similarly points to market turbulence in the short to medium term while remaining bullish on bitcoin over the longer term. An Asia-powered bull runCarnegie highlighted the influence of spot bitcoin ETFs and suggested inflows, noting that there are more net flows from Asia than the U.S. He stated:“You could easily see $50 - $100 billion in net new flow out of Asia this year, and if that happens..!” He mentioned the anticipation of approximately $5 billion waiting to come into the U.S., characterizing it as substantial but perhaps not as impactful as expected in the short term. "It's an Asian story this time round,” Carnegie claimed. Carnegie also expressed a preference for bitcoin over Ethereum in the current financial landscape. He stated:"Bitcoin feels more solid to me at the moment. So on a relative basis, I can talk like I can talk to you. I feel like for the next little while, Bitcoin feels better to me than Ethereum." Mark Carnegie's positive outlook on bitcoin's potential rally to $50,000 aligns with his preference for bitcoin over Ethereum in the current market conditions, despite concerns about the broader economic landscape.  

South Korean brokerage firms are expanding into the security token offering (STO) space, a sector gaining attention ahead of the upcoming presidential election in June. Photo by Raymond Yeung on UnsplashDedicated STO divisionsAccording to local outlet Kukinews, major players like Mirae Asset Securities, Hana Securities and Shinhan Securities are either establishing dedicated STO divisions or partnering with tokenization platforms to stay ahead of the curve. Some are also exploring fractional investment opportunities tied to real-world assets (RWAs) such as real estate, art and music copyrights. Security tokens are blockchain-based digital assets that represent rights to real-world assets (RWAs) and, as the name suggests, are classified as securities. The financial industry is increasingly interested in this technology for its potential to accelerate digital transformation. However, trading such tokens requires a comprehensive legal framework—something that is currently lacking in Korea. Election renews STO interestSTOs have resurfaced as a key topic, with presidential candidates from both the left and right likely to include them in their campaign agendas. The renewed interest follows the ousting of President Yoon Suk-yeol earlier this month, after the Constitutional Court upheld his impeachment by the National Assembly over his declaration of martial law. Before the presidential election became imminent, legislative discussions around STOs had stalled in the National Assembly and received little attention. Among the standout moves made by presidential hopefuls, Lee Jae-myung, a primary candidate from the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), recently added Kim Yong-jin, an STO expert and professor at Sogang University, to his policy advisory group. Meanwhile, lawmakers across party lines have introduced amendments to the Electronic Securities Act and the Capital Markets Act, aiming to establish a regulatory framework for STOs, according to the National Assembly’s National Policy Committee. This regulatory shift in political circles favoring STOs has been anticipated by the financial industry. An unnamed official from a brokerage firm predicted that presidential candidates will propose measures such as legalizing security tokens, advancing a regulatory framework for virtual asset service providers (VASPs), promoting investment in crypto-related businesses and permitting the use of stablecoins. Some observers even expect these bills to receive final approval within the year. Brokerage meets blockchainKorean securities firms' push into the STO space is further highlighted by a recent partnership between Shinhan Securities and the Solana Foundation.According to Yonhap, the two parties signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to collaborate on expanding the digital asset ecosystem. Their cooperation will focus on STOs, RWAs, crypto custody infrastructure, stablecoin payments for both online and offline use and responses to global policies and regulations.

UBS Pioneers Tokenized Money Market Fund on EthereumUnderscoring what is very much an ever-evolving financial sector, large-scale investment manager UBS Asset Management has taken a pioneering step by launching a pilot project for a tokenized money market fund on the Ethereum blockchain.Photo by Bastian Riccardi on UnsplashBlurring the lines of TradFiThe initiative, announced by UBS in Singapore on Monday, promises to streamline the traditionally cumbersome processes of fund subscriptions and redemptions. Additionally it highlights the increasing integration of blockchain technology into traditional finance, effectively blurring the boundaries between the two worlds.The UBS project aligns with Singapore’s Variable Capital Company (VCC) fund structure and falls within the scope of Project Guardian, championed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).Structured in this way, UBS believes that the project design lends itself to the ability to bring various forms of real-world assets (RWAs) to the blockchain. Furthermore, it establishes a favorable rapport with regulatory authorities in Singapore, a jurisdiction known for its forward-thinking, crypto-friendly financial regulatory environment.Public blockchain useThis new offering relies upon a smart contract that’s run on the Ethereum public blockchain, encapsulating the money market fund. Through this smart contract use, the subscription and redemption processes can be simplified. That will represent a major change, given that those processes have traditionally been laden with paperwork and delays.In the first iteration, large TradFi firms like UBS considered the use of private blockchains but as Matt Hougan, the CIO of crypto asset manager Bitwise, pointed out, this particular initiative is indicative of a shift towards public blockchains. Hougan stated:“Remember when TradFi projects were built on private blockchains? They are all being built on Ethereum today. Progress.”RWA tokenization potentialThe tokenization of real-world assets has the potential to revolutionize digital asset investments by offering transparency, security, and trust. It not only paves the way for a better understanding of digital assets but also accelerates their adoption. UBS’s pilot project represents another significant move in this direction.With increasing support from regulatory bodies like MAS, the fusion of digital assets with traditional financial structures is likely to witness a myriad of large-scale implementations in the not too distant future.UBS TokenizeUBS harnessed the power of its in-house tokenization service, UBS Tokenize, to seamlessly conduct the controlled pilot of the tokenized money market fund. The initiative falls squarely within the purview of UBS’s global distributed ledger technology strategy, which aims to elevate fund distribution and issuance to greater levels of efficiency by leveraging the capabilities of both private and public blockchains.UBS Tokenize also featured in a separate initiative earlier this year in Hong Kong, facilitating the issuance of digital structured notes on the Ethereum blockchain via the Bank of China Investment (BOCI).The momentum behind the tokenization of real-world assets has been building in recent years, with various protocols focusing on real-world assets consistently outperforming other sub-sectors of decentralized finance.