Zkrypto Partners with LG CNS to Develop Blockchain-Powered Business Models

Credit Saison, one of the largest credit card issuers in Japan, is accelerating its global venture strategy with the creation of Onigiri Capital, a new fund targeting early-stage startups building on blockchain technology. Set up in Singapore last month through Credit Saison’s corporate venture arm, Saison Capital, the vehicle is aiming for up to $50 million in commitments and will run for 10 years, with an optional two-year extension. The fund has already secured $35 million toward its target.Photo by Markus Winkler on UnsplashBuilding on a fintech track recordThe initiative is part of Credit Saison’s broader plan to expand in emerging markets and spur innovation in financial services, drawing on Saison Capital’s track record. Established in 2019, the venture arm has backed fintech startups across Asia and, since 2021, has increasingly focused on blockchain-based finance, investing in more than 40 companies. The firm said those investments laid the groundwork for Onigiri Capital, which will also enable other financial institutions to invest alongside Credit Saison in promising blockchain ventures. Onigiri Capital will concentrate on five areas: stablecoins, payments, asset tokenization, decentralized finance (DeFi), and financial infrastructure. The fund will invest primarily at the seed and early stages, with an emphasis on long-term growth. Managing the fund are Qin En Looi, a partner at Saison Capital involved in over 40 blockchain investments, and Hans de Back, a venture investor with more than two decades of experience. Cross-border stablecoin pilotThe launch comes as Japan steps up efforts in digital assets beyond investment alone. According to Electronic Times, the first phase of “Project Pax,” a cross-border stablecoin remittance pilot involving financial institutions in Japan and South Korea, concluded successfully last week. Participants were Progmat—a tokenization platform backed by a consortium of major institutions, including MUFG—along with Datachain and Shoko Chukin Bank from Japan, and Shinhan Bank, NH Nonghyup Bank, and Kbank from South Korea. Fair Square Lab and Korea Digital Asset Custody helped develop an application programming interface (API) for the trial. The pilot demonstrated the feasibility of a network that converts fiat currency into stablecoins for on-chain transfers and then back into local currency at the destination, an approach expected to reduce the time and cost of cross-border payments. The results add momentum to Japan’s bid to modernize financial infrastructure, a backdrop that Onigiri Capital aims to capitalize on as it deploys capital into the sector. 

Ribbon Finance Enables Altcoin Options TradingSingapore’s Ribbon Finance, a project that offers a suite of DeFi protocols that help users access crypto-structured products, has enabled altcoin options trading via its Aevo decentralized exchange (DEX).The Ethereum-based platform has begun offering options relative to cryptocurrencies beyond the top two of Ethereum and Bitcoin. Examples of coins that users of Ribbon Finance’s Aevo DEX can access as options include Lido’s LDO, Sui’s SUI token, APT, the token of high throughput proof of stake-based blockchain Aptos, the ARB token of layer two Ethereum scaling network, Arbitrum and Litecoin (LTC).Trading options on-chainThe Aevo DEX project took to Twitter on Monday to announce the development. The project has named the options product “Aevo OTC,” terming it as “the best place to trade altcoin options on-chain.” The firm claims that it’s the first platform to allow users “to trade altcoin options on-chain, in size, with institutional grade liquidity providers.”To kick things off, users will be enabled in trading these altcoin options across weekly, bi-weekly and monthly maturities relative to thirteen crypto tokens. The project plans to rotate the list of coins available for options trading every month depending upon what it deems to be the most popular coins on the market at a given time.Early service adoptersAs Aevo is a DEX, it will utilize on-chain margin systems. When a user buys an option the counterparty is required to post margin of approximately 30% of the notional trade size in the form of US dollar stablecoin, USDC. That procedure is all on-chain and transparent, enabled via smart contracts.Although officially launching the product today, Aevo OTC has been used in production for a number of weeks already. Both digital assets firm Galaxy Digital and crypto-native investment firm CoinFund have already been using the product to trade options.Other early adopters of the product include DeFi R&D and liquid crypto investment strategies firm Re7 Capital and crypto options and structured derivatives firm, OrBit Markets. In fact, Galaxy and OrBit Markets, alongside GSR, are acting as market makers for the product, enabling users to get instant quotes.Developing the crypto options marketThe development means that market participants can now strategize and take advantage of trading altcoins relative to specific events that may be fundamental to a project, such as Litecoin’s halving, for instance. At a later stage, the project intends to enable users in writing options contracts to include customized margins and a specified counterparty.The crypto options market is still at a very early stage of development. Deribit has been the dominant crypto options platform. Ribbon Finance’s service rollout broadens that market, extending options trading beyond the current limited offering of bitcoin, ethereum and solana.The product is more capital efficient for market participants as its portfolio margin system calculates real-time margin requirements, in that way offsetting money-making and losing positions relative to a particular portfolio.Photo by Shubham Dhage on Unsplash

Crypto.com, the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange and digital asset brokerage, announced that it introduced an institutional trading platform in the United States. In a statement published on its website on Jan. 21, the company outlined that U.S. institutional and advanced traders can now access the new platform. The firm believes that the offering complements its retail-facing Crypto.com app., which currently serves the U.S. market.Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash480 trading pairsThe institutional-grade platform will enable access to over 300 cryptocurrencies and 480 trading pairs. The product is likely to appeal to a similar market segment as those clients targeted by the Crypto.com Custody Trust Company, a digital asset custodian, which was established last month. At that time, Crypto.com co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek said that launching the digital asset custodian was the latest step on the company’s product roadmap, with a view towards building a business and a market presence within the U.S. and Canada.  Responding to this latest product offering, Marszalek stated: “We took the time to build the best possible product for institutional and advanced users around the world and we are now incredibly excited to fully introduce it in the market we continue to be bullish about – the U.S.” Marszalek added that Crypto.com has invested heavily in the exchange’s technological capabilities and banking rails. The Crypto.com CEO believes that this investment has resulted in exponential global growth for the company, with the platform becoming a leading U.S. dollar-supporting exchange. Regulatory tailwindsCrypto.com’s bullishness regarding the U.S. market currently stands in contrast with developments in June 2023 when the company decided to shut down its institutional exchange offering, citing limited demand amid a bleak market landscape for crypto in the United States.  At the time, the company was one of several to look towards opportunities outside of the U.S. Shortly afterwards, Crypto.com obtained a crypto trading license in Dubai. Competitors Gemini and Coinbase followed a similar strategy, looking at growth opportunities in the Middle East and Asia. It’s clear that a regulatory crackdown in the U.S. at that time curbed the expansion plans of many cryptocurrency platforms. Many industry experts are of the belief that there will be a pro-crypto Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the U.S. as part of the newly seated Trump administration.  Regulatory clarity is necessary for institutional involvement in the digital assets sector. Last week, Mark Uyeda, Acting Chairman of the SEC, announced the formation of a crypto task force with the objective of creating a clear regulatory framework for crypto. The U.S. is home to the world’s largest capital markets. A report produced by New York-headquartered blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis late last year identified that 70% of North American crypto transactions involved transfers that had a value in excess of $1 million, pointing to the level of institutional activity within that market.  Earlier this month, Crypto.com added the ability for U.S. platform users to trade stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).