With this launch, INFINIOS becomes the first issuer in Bahrain, apart from being one of the first fintechs in the Middle East, to enable Mastercard settlement using stablecoins, unlocking faster, more efficient settlement capabilities for modern commerce.

The integration also forms part of Mastercard’s broader regional strategy to bring regulated, real‑world blockchain use cases into the mainstream payments ecosystem, bridging traditional finance with tokenized money. INFINIOS was selected as an early live partner following rigorous regulatory, operational, and technical readiness requirements.

“By going live with Mastercard on stablecoin settlement, INFINIOS is helping define the future of how money moves—faster, more transparent, and designed for a digital‑first economy. Bahrain is once again proving it can lead in payment innovation and financial ecosystem transformation,” said Sherif Abdelsalam, CEO of INFINIOS.

“In addition, the collaboration establishes the foundation for 24/7 settlement capabilities that will be introduced progressively over time, addressing long‑standing inefficiencies in cross‑border and institutional payments while maintaining full regulatory compliance,” the senior official remarked further.

Mastercard announced INFINIOS as one of its initial Middle East partners for stablecoin settlement as part of its blockchain and digital asset expansion strategy, reinforcing Bahrain’s role as a forward‑looking fintech hub.

“At Mastercard, we are bringing our global network of partners together to shape the future of stablecoin adoption and power a new wave of digitalization in financial services. Our collaboration with INFINIOS will advance the move toward trusted, enterprise-grade digital settlement rails across the Middle East,” said Saud Swar, country manager, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, and other Levant at Mastercard.

“With this go‑live, INFINIOS positions itself at the core of next‑generation payment infrastructure, enabling banks, fintechs, and enterprises to access Mastercard’s global network with the speed and programmability of blockchain‑based money,” he concluded.

INFINIOS has been expanding its operational footprint into the Middle East, in terms of making stablecoin settlement the new normal in the region.

INFINIOS, in June, entered into a strategic agreement with Circle Internet Financial, a subsidiary of Circle Internet Group, one of the world’s leading financial platform companies. Through the strategic arrangement, INFINIOS will be able to deliver faster, more secure, and more globally interoperable digital payment and treasury solutions for businesses and financial institutions in the Gulf region. The company will integrate with Circle’s financial infrastructure, including USDC, EURC, and API-enabled onchain payment capabilities for payouts and treasury operations.

“Through its integration with Circle’s infrastructure, INFINIOS aims to support institutional and enterprise use cases, including cross-border payments, treasury and liquidity management, merchant settlement, platform payouts, tokenized financial services, and embedded finance. The collaboration also reflects a shared focus on compliance, transparency, and regulatory alignment, including KYC, AML/CFT, and data protection standards,” the Bahraini company said in June, while announcing the agreement.

The post Bahrain’s INFINIOS marks Middle East stablecoin milestone with Mastercard appeared first on International Finance.

Settlement cycles stretch across hours, sometimes days. Systems reconcile data after the fact. Liquidity gets locked in transit. And behind it all, multiple ledgers attempt to reflect the same transaction, often requiring layers of verification to confirm what should already be known.

For decades, this worked. It was reliable, regulated, and predictable. But now, that model is being quietly challenged, not by disruption at the edges, but by a structural rethink of how money itself should move.

Financial institutions are beginning to explore something that, until recently, sat firmly in the realm of experimentation: tokenised cash and programmable money. What started as a blockchain curiosity is now evolving into a serious attempt to redesign the underlying rails of finance.

And unlike past waves of innovation, this one is not being driven solely by startups or crypto-native firms. It’s being built from within the system itself.

Why now? A system under pressure

The timing is not accidental. Across the financial ecosystem, pressure has been building. Transaction volumes are increasing. Markets are becoming more interconnected. And expectations around speed driven by digital platforms in every other industry are starting to reshape what institutions consider acceptable.

Anil Thapa, a fintech expert and data analyst based in Manchester, sees this shift emerging from a fundamental mismatch between infrastructure and demand.

“A lot of the current infrastructure is still built around older assumptions. Separate ledgers, delayed updates, and manual reconciliation between parties. That works, but it creates inefficiencies that become more obvious as transaction volumes increase and as markets demand faster execution,” he told International Finance.

At its core, the issue is not just speed: it’s duplication.

Financial institutions often end up keeping their own versions of the same data, only matching things up after the transaction is done. It’s built that way for trust, but it does slow things down.

Tokenised cash offers a different approach. Instead of each participant maintaining its own record, transactions can exist on a shared ledger, visible and verifiable in real time.

“Instead of each participant maintaining its own ledger and then reconciling later, everyone is effectively looking at the same state in real time. From a data perspective, that’s a big shift; it improves transparency, reduces duplication, and makes audit trails much cleaner,” Thapa explains.

That shift from fragmented records to a shared source of truth is one of the key forces driving institutional interest.

From concept to implementation

What makes this moment different from earlier blockchain experiments is that the conversation has moved beyond theory.

Emma Landriault, Executive Director working on JPM Coin at JPMorgan, describes a growing demand from institutional clients, not for abstract innovation, but for practical, integrated solutions.

“We see growing interest from large institutional players who want more native on-chain cash solutions from pre-eminent and reputed financial institutions. These institutions typically participate actively in both crypto and real-world asset digital transactions, which is why native on-chain deposit-based cash solutions fit well with their needs,” she told International Finance.

In other words, the infrastructure around digital assets is expanding, but without a corresponding form of digital cash, the system remains incomplete. Tokenised deposits aim to fill that gap.

Unlike stablecoins, which are typically issued by non-banks and backed by separate reserves, deposit tokens are tied directly to regular bank deposits. They operate within the same regulatory and liquidity rules as regular banking, which makes them familiar and easier for institutions to use as part of their everyday financial operations.

“A deposit token is a digital representation of a bank deposit that operates on blockchain networks, designed for institutional use cases. Institutional clients can treat deposit tokens in the same way they would treat a traditional bank deposit on their balance sheet,” Landriault explains.

That distinction matters. It means tokenised cash is not positioned as a replacement for existing systems, but as an extension, one that integrates with treasury management, accounting, and liquidity frameworks already in place.

Who is already using tokenised cash?

Several large financial institutions have already started testing, and in some cases using, tokenised cash in real-world settings.

So far, the push has mostly come from big global banks, especially on the institutional side. Use cases are showing up in areas such as cross-border payments, treasury operations, and digital asset transactions.

For instance, platforms such as JPM Coin are being used by institutional clients to move money between corporate accounts more efficiently, cutting down the time it takes to settle transactions.

This hasn’t happened overnight. The groundwork has been there for a while, but it’s really only in the last few years that things have started to pick up pace. What used to be small pilot projects are gradually turning into something more real, as the tech improves and institutions get more comfortable using tokenised cash.

The response has been fairly steady. On the inside, teams working with these systems are already noticing improvements – less time spent on reconciliation, better visibility into transactions.

For clients, particularly large ones, the appeal is straightforward: faster settlement, more control over liquidity, and the ability to plug into existing systems without having to overhaul everything.

That said, adoption is still cautious. Most institutions aren’t replacing their current systems just yet. They’re running these alongside what they already have.

Efficiency beyond speed

Much of the conversation around tokenised money focuses on speed, faster payments, instant settlement, and real-time transfers. But the more meaningful impact may lie elsewhere in how capital is used.

“In traditional systems, settlement delays mean capital is often tied up for a period of time, even after a transaction is agreed. That creates inefficiency, especially at scale,” Thapa notes.

When transactions settle instantly, capital is no longer stuck in limbo. It can be redeployed immediately, improving liquidity and reducing risk.

There’s also the question of certainty. In today’s systems, the completion of a transaction often involves multiple stages, execution, clearing, and settlement, each introducing potential delays or points of failure. Tokenised systems collapse those stages into a single, atomic process.

“Tokenised money allows transactions to settle almost instantly, and more importantly, allows both sides of a transaction to complete simultaneously. That removes a lot of the uncertainty and risk that exists today,” Thapa noted.

For institutions operating at scale, those incremental efficiencies add up. They reduce the need for intermediaries, simplify post-trade processes, and eliminate much of the operational overhead tied to reconciliation.

When finance stops sleeping

If tokenised cash really takes hold, it could start to quietly change how markets function day to day.

Today, financial systems are structured around time, trading hours, settlement windows, and batch processing cycles. Even in an increasingly digital world, these constraints remain. But programmable, tokenised money introduces the possibility of continuous operation.

“Do you see programmable money enabling truly 24/7 financial markets?” is no longer a hypothetical question; it’s becoming a design consideration.

Thapa believes the implications could be significant.

“When settlement becomes instant, and systems operate continuously, the delay between decision and execution effectively disappears. That should improve liquidity, since capital is no longer sitting idle waiting for settlement,” he added.

At the same time, continuous markets introduce new dynamics.

Faster reactions can improve efficiency, but they can also amplify volatility. Without natural pauses in the system, markets may become more sensitive to real-time information.

“There’s also a structural shift for institutions. Many existing processes are built around defined operating hours. Moving to a 24/7 model requires a different approach to liquidity management, risk monitoring, and even staffing,” Thapa said.

Programmability: The real shift

While tokenisation improves infrastructure, programmability changes behaviour. Money, in this setup, isn’t just sitting idle anymore; it can actually “do” things, carrying instructions and acting on them when certain conditions are met.

So a payment might go through the moment a contract is fulfilled, collateral can shift on its own, and liquidity can move depending on what’s happening in the market.

“Yes, and I think this is where things start to get really interesting. Transactions are no longer just instructions; they can carry conditions and logic,” Thapa noted.

When combined with data and artificial intelligence, the implications expand further. Over time, these systems may move beyond fixed rules and start adjusting on their own, reacting to changes as they happen.

“Over time, I expect this to evolve into more autonomous systems where both execution and decision-making become increasingly automated,” he emphasised.

This is where the idea of ‘programmable money’ begins to feel less like infrastructure and more like an operating layer for financial activity.

Risks in a code-driven system

With that shift comes a different kind of risk. Traditional financial systems are built to manage delays, human errors, and operational inefficiencies. Programmable systems introduce new vulnerabilities, ones tied to code, data, and automation.

“The nature of risk changes quite a bit. Instead of dealing mainly with delays or manual errors, the focus shifts to system design, code quality, and data reliability,” Thapa said.

Smart contracts, once deployed, execute automatically and often irreversibly. A flaw in logic can scale quickly, with consequences that are difficult to unwind.

Then there is the question of how reliable the data actually is. These systems depend on outside inputs to make decisions, and if that data is wrong or tampered with, the results can go off track just as quickly.

Add AI into the mix, and things get more complicated. Questions around model behaviour, transparency, and whether decisions still reflect what’s happening in the real world start to matter a lot more. The emphasis, as Thapa puts it, shifts toward proactive risk management, testing, validation, and continuous monitoring.

Bridging old and new

Despite the momentum, tokenised finance is unlikely to replace existing systems overnight. In fact, the near-term reality is more hybrid than transformative.

“Tokenised financial infrastructure is no longer theoretical. However, parallel financial infrastructure will co-exist for years to come,” Landriault said.

Legacy systems are deeply embedded, and institutions cannot simply abandon them. Instead, the focus is on integration, connecting new technologies with existing frameworks.

“Scalable, institutional-grade capabilities will be the result of incremental adaptation over the years ahead, rather than overnight transformation,” she added.

This gradual approach reflects both technical and regulatory realities.

One of the bigger hurdles is still getting different systems to talk to each other smoothly. Rules and regulations are also catching up, trying to make sense of new forms of money. And for institutions, there’s the added task of investing in the kind of infrastructure that can actually connect all of this.

As Thapa puts it, the system is “progressing, but not fully there yet.”

A layer, not a replacement

One of the more persistent misconceptions around tokenised money is that it represents a break from traditional finance. In practice, it looks more like an evolution.

“I tend to see it more as an evolution of financial infrastructure rather than a completely new concept. Most institutional work in this space is focused on improving existing systems using tokenisation, not replacing them,” Thapa added.

That distinction is important.

Tokenised cash is not coming up on its own; it is growing alongside things like CBDCs, stablecoins, and the systems already in place today, each serving its own purpose. Over time, these pieces could start fitting together, shaping a more connected and flexible financial system.

The post Why the way money moves is being rethought appeared first on International Finance.

The pilot, launched in October 2025, was conducted in partnership with players like blockchain fintech firm Waybridge, overseas digital wallet operator Aron Group and international remittance specialist GME Remittance. The initiative aimed to test the usability of foreign currency-based stablecoins within Korea’s domestic payment ecosystem, focusing sharply on payment convenience and system stability.

“Under the pilot, stablecoins stored in overseas digital wallets affiliated with BC Card were converted into BC’s digital prepaid cards. Users were then able to make payments at domestic merchants, including convenience stores, cafes and supermarkets, using QR codes, without the need for physical cards or currency exchange,” reported The Korea Herald.

As per the BC Card, the trial addressed key limitations that have so far hindered stablecoin adoption in South Korea’s card payment environment, such as the need for real-time processing for payment approvals, cancellations and corrections.

Using the combination of the cross-border efficiency of stablecoins with the proven operational stability of the card network, BC Card’s pilot project allowed both merchants and consumers to transact in the same way as with conventional card payments.

BC Card now views the pilot project as groundwork for a future payment infrastructure rather than limiting the experiment as a short-term technical test, as it prepares for potential regulatory changes related to digital assets.

The company plans to expand cooperation with partners and gradually develop a stablecoin payment model aligned with Korea’s existing financial systems.

“Stablecoins, due to their technical characteristics, are particularly useful for cross-border payments, and have great potential to improve the domestic payment experience for foreign consumers. We will gradually prepare a stablecoin payment model that complies with the legal and institutional environment based on our card payment infrastructure,” said CEO Choi Won-seok.

The post South Korea-based BC Card experiments with foreign-currency stablecoin payments appeared first on International Finance.

The uniqueness of Illio’s technology-heavy operations lies in the fact that its client can upload multiple portfolios online and the start-up will consolidate all positions across asset classes, geographies, currencies, sectors and custodians/brokers.

Knowing Things In Detail

Calling itself a product “Built by investors, For Investors,” Illio was the brainchild of Vanessa Gibson, who, after 35 years running her own award-winning hedge fund and a family office, realised that the wealth management industry was lagging big time, when it came to simplifying complex information in a digestible format.

Whether the clients held their wealth with a wealth firm or an online platform, they used to receive static reports using terminologies they didn’t understand. Key information about their wealth used to come in a backward-looking format. As an experienced fund manager, Vanessa Gibson knew it was also important to understand how portfolios of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) would likely behave in the future.

“Furthermore, given the rise of Alternatives in people’s allocations, she felt there needed to be a system capable of normalising analytics between listed and unlisted assets and then deliver the answers to the most important questions quickly. So, in 2019, with the help of Sarang Karkhanis (ex-Wharton fund manager) and Kenneth Sue (ex-Coutts MD), Illio was founded,” the venture stated further.

Illio has now emerged as a modular platform designed to support online platforms, wealth firms, family offices, asset or fund managers with time-saving analytics, user-friendly visualisation and call-to-action-driven Insights.

The venture’s team comprises finance experts and engineers, who are working together on creating an intuitive and powerful platform that leverages a proven investment process with a UX (User Experience) that benefits both the business managers and the end users.

Illio’s mission is to bring transparency and efficiency to wealth management, by sharing and applying the start-up’s collective know-how, and years of investment experience, with the ultimate goal of helping different stakeholders across the category.

“Illio was born to give investors premier analytics to help them manage wealth to the best of their ability. With that in mind, our customers’ satisfaction is core to what makes us tick. We believe in being open to getting feedback, ideas and suggestions from anyone. We encourage all employees to take part in the full Illio journey and share their perspectives,” the venture explained its operational values in the following words.

Here are the Key Products

Talking about Illio’s wealth management-related products, let’s start with “Illio Platform,” which helps its users improve advisor productivity and increase stakeholder transparency. It is an all-inclusive wealth platform, carrying instrument-level and portfolio-level insights. The tool analyses performance, risk and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) for listed, unlisted and digital assets.

The insights part of the “Illio Platform” helps both clients and advisors quickly learn what matters most about their portfolios and instruments. These individuals can also generate performance reports on demand via PDF on client portfolios. Another feature of the “Illio Platform” is the “What If Scenarios,” under which client portfolios can be tweaked or compared to showcase what could have happened under different market scenarios. The whole platform has been drawn up from the client’s point of view, so that the latter can remain engaged with a simplified view of what he/she owns, visualised with insights.

“Illio Platform” brings its clients’ listed, unlisted and digital assets into one platform, followed by performing an analysis of these assets and using the insights to give clients and advisors quick answers on their assets’ performance. The platform also offers its clients their own view of their assets’ performance to create better engagement through transparency.

“Illio Platform” is suitable for asset managers, as it normalises portfolio analytics across listed and unlisted assets. Wealth firms can use the tool to increase their advisor productivity and client engagement activities. Family offices, on the other hand, can consolidate all investments and improve stakeholder reporting, while the platform also presents an opportunity for fund managers to enhance investor reporting with a dynamic interactive tool.

Next in Illio’s product line-up is “What-If Tool,” which generates new assets under management (AUM) scenarios by showcasing better client outcomes with full transparency.

Through this tool, wealth firms can upsell their new investment ideas to clients, family offices can test how a new private asset affects their portfolios, asset managers can showcase how their investments affect investors’ overall portfolios and last but not least, fund managers can illustrate how the addition of the clients’ funds enhances an existing multi-fund portfolio.

An Ocean Of Opportunities

We have already made a mention about Illio’s “Insight” services. Let’s explain things further. The “Insights Data & Widget” has earned its name in the wealth management circle for making its users confident to research new instruments and ideas to trade.

The tool, tailor-made for wealth management sector players, can be seamlessly integrated into their digital platforms as a widget or can be taken as a data feed. The mechanism also comes with a clear CTA (Call to Action) protocol that helps its users understand opportunities and risks for a more informed trading experience.

It also helps the users discover new instruments to trade. Using 20-plus filters traditionally used by professional traders, the discovery section within “Insight” allows wealth management players and their clients to uncover new financial instruments, without getting entangled in multiple charts and analytics.

In fact, through its “Insight” services, Illio is moving the wealth management industry away from disengaged analytics towards personalised, data-driven Insights.

Insight has a dedicated dashboard, which is basically a landing page for wealth managers to access all of the insights in one place, summarised with concise headlines. The “Insight” covers two aspects of the wealth management game: portfolio and instrument. Portfolio one flags whether the five largest positions in the portfolio are contributing a suitable amount of P&L (Profit and Loss). Whereas the instrument part points out the potential asymmetric relationship of how an instrument reacts when markets move up or down.

The “Insights” solution also helps its users in enterprise reporting activities, by performing crucial functions like performance and risk reporting of clients’ assets, with the help of risk statistics enriched with Illio’s “Proprietary Insights.”

Talking about risk and scenario analysis, Illio provides a multi-dimensional view of an asset’s risk. The “Risk Analytics Dashboard,” using elements like risk statistics, drawdown and scenario analysis, performs its functions.

Image Credits: Illio

The post Start-up of the Week: Meet Illio, the comprehensive investment intelligence platform appeared first on International Finance.

Keyrock takes pride in having a meritocratic and value-driven team, where members are passionate about digital financial markets.

“Our visionary ideas materialise through data-driven approaches and thoughtfully designed technology. In 2016, we saw the impact of tokenization on capital markets and realised the critical need for liquidity. While others sought short-term gains in the crypto market, we focused on a long-term vision. Since our creation, we’ve successfully provided liquidity solutions to several trading venues, helping them to operate on tokenized markets more efficiently,” it stated further.

Knowing The Company In Detail

The venture’s vision is simple: enabling the adoption of tokenized economies. One of the brains behind the start-up’s formation is Kevin de Patoul, Keyrock’s co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, who previously worked with the Munich-based international management consultancy firm Roland Berger. Pursuing his deep passion about decentralised financial technologies, Patoul, from 2014 onwards, started leading numerous projects facilitating the adoption of digital assets, thereby becoming a strong advocate for tokenized economies in the process.

In 2017, the company created the beta version of its algorithm trading software, followed by the completion of its seed round funding in 2018 (led by Volta Ventures). In 2019, the venture released volume one of its enterprise-level market-making system. In 2021, it completed its Round A financing and in the following year, completed the milestone of being operationally active in 80 exchanges across 200 financial markets. In 2022, it secured its Series B financing. As of 2024, it is operating in 85 exchanges across 400 financial markets and this tally is likely to go higher.

In 2023, KeyRock received Swiss regulatory clearance from a government-approved standards body named VQF. Patoul back then remarked, “Securing the VQF membership reinforces Keyrock’s stance on upholding rigorous regulatory standards within the crypto space. Our focus remains steadfast on ensuring both compliance and trust in our services.”

Another achievement of KeyRock was the success in raising USD 72 million, during the 2022-23 crypto winter, a phase during which all the major crypto companies were financially bleeding, due to the crisis brought on by the downfall of FTX.

What Services KeyRock Offer?

As a crypto market maker, the start-up offers its partners efficient liquidity solutions backed by robust financial technology. KeyRock’s trading tools are proprietary, market-neutral, highly scalable and are deployed across all the major (de)centralised exchanges.

We have said KeyRock acts as a crypto market maker. Now what does the concept mean? It denotes an entity which supplies the markets with liquidity by buying assets from sellers who want to sell and selling assets for buyers who wish to acquire them. The whole affair ensures more liquidity in the market, which helps reduce price volatility and create a more efficient and fairer market.

KeyRock provides liquidity on (de)centralised exchanges by buying and selling digital assets to traders, investors, and other market participants at all times. This increased liquidity creates a fair marketplace for tokens on exchanges as it reduces price volatility and buyers and sellers are assured to have their orders completed.

KeyRock’s crypto market-making act involves developing sophisticated algorithms to adequately manage liquidity in a liquidity disparity environment.

“Encountering price discrepancies between different markets (CEX and DEX) can hinder token adoption. Adjusting liquidity is therefore essential, as it is a key parameter in creating a seamless experience for users who want to acquire assets. Ultimately, market-making solutions help to build trust between buyers and sellers for a specific asset, thus tightening spreads and improving trading conditions,” the venture remarked further.

Next is OTC (Over-the-counter Trading). KeyRock helps its clients get access to the majority of vetted cryptocurrency spot markets through its crypto-to-crypto OTC desk. KeyRock’s OTC method enables the clients to have a more tailored approach towards crypto trading, as the parties involved interact directly with each other. This service is perfect for executing larger trades that may not be feasible on traditional exchanges due to liquidity constraints. OTC trading also offers better security, mitigates potential fear-driven market movements, and reduces counter-party risk as transactions take place between two KYC-compliant entities.

KeyRock’s OTC deals for crypto-to-crypto trades with over 20 assets available, that too at highly competitive prices by having access to the venture’s deep liquidity.

Plethora Of Opportunities

KeyRock also provides trading of crypto options through its options desk.

“Our wide coverage grants investors and institutions exposure to an inclusive list of digital assets, from 20+ standardised tokens to exotics on demand. Our dedicated options desk provides our partners with flexible solutions for precise outcomes, such as hedging, treasury management, yield enhancement, payoff diversification, and leveraged speculation,” it stated further.

Crypto options are financial derivatives that give the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy/sell a specific cryptocurrency at a predetermined price on or before a certain date.

Using KeyRock’s expertise, the start-up’s customers can use crypto options as per their investment strategies and risk tolerance. When hedging, crypto holders can use options to protect against price drops in cryptocurrencies they own. Holders can even use options to bet on the future price movement of a cryptocurrency without actually owning it. This approach can potentially lead to high returns with a lower initial investment compared to buying the cryptocurrency outright.

Next in line is the venture’s “Trade Execution,” which helps KeyRock’s customers get the most out of their digital assets with the venture’s bespoke algorithmic trade executions. By leveraging its in-house trading technology, the start-up offers its partners maximum value for their orders with minimum market impact. Due to its partnerships with major crypto exchanges and other trading desks, KeyRock achieves some of the most competitive pricing in the market. KeyRock’s algorithmic trade execution makes sure the client’s trades are programmed to take into consideration a wide range of data, including market patterns, market conditions, and past asset volatility.

The approach ensures higher profits and lower risks as algorithms can make trades based on data and logic, leading to informed decisions and faster identification of trends, apart from reducing the risk of emotion-driven decision-making.

KeyRock also helps its clients grow their crypto projects through the start-up’s investor network and funding opportunities.

Keyrock’s purpose is simple here: to create an ecosystem that brings together tech builders and daring crypto projects to empower worldwide tokenized economies while constantly pushing the boundaries of technology.

To achieve the above goal, KeyRock has focussed its investment philosophy on two main verticals. First is building products and systems that unlock new asset classes/financial products to be traded as digital assets. The second one is about building products that bring value to managing, engaging, and providing liquidity in digital asset markets.

KeyRock In News

In January 2024, Keyrock announced the integration of the Radix public ledger into its market-making technology stack. By 2025, Keyrock will deploy USD 10 million-plus of token capital into the Radix DeFi ecosystem to support a more stable trading environment for its users.

“Keyrock’s innovative market-making solutions are set to increase liquidity availability by providing a fertile ground for traders, token holders, and dApps within the Radix ecosystem. This means expanded support for the number of dApps including CaviarNine, Ociswap, and DeFi Plaza, amongst many others, which stand to benefit significantly from improved market liquidity,” Radix informed the media.

The post Start-up of the Week: Keyrock, innovating digital asset liquidity in tokenized economies appeared first on International Finance.

Regulations were hammered out with the European Parliament and passed in April 2023. The European Union’s finance ministers met in Brussels to ratify the guidelines. The rules will go into effect in 2024.

Why Frame These Laws Now?

According to Chainalysis, the central, northern, and western parts of Europe received USD 1.3 trillion worth of crypto assets, accounting for around 22% of the crypto business. In addition to harmonizing the cryptocurrency business across 27 European nations, the MiCA framework gives the EU a competitive edge over the US or the UK, which lack legal certainty for the sector’s growth.

The collapse of the crypto exchange FTX in 2022, and the breakdown of the Terra Luna currency and its accompanying stablecoin, were just two of the most significant disasters and wipeouts in the crypto sector in 2022. These shocks’ lack of liquidity forced other cryptocurrency firms to cease consumer transfers and withdrawals before declaring insolvency.

Global regulators have recognized the need to introduce governance principles in crypto enterprises to preserve stability, as the scale of the crypto industry grows bigger. According to Stefan Berger, the MiCA regulation’s primary author in the European Parliament, the measure will shield consumers from fraud and deception, apart from helping the sector to rebuild its trust.

Which Assets Will MiCA Protect?

The text of the MiCA legislation broadly defines “crypto assets” as “a digital representation of a value or a right that uses cryptography for security and is in the form of a coin, a token, or any other digital medium that may be transferred and stored electronically, using distributed ledger technology or similar technology,” and states that these assets will fall under its purview. This definition indicates that it will apply to more recent cryptocurrencies like stablecoins and more established ones like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Stablecoins seek to maintain a fixed exchange rate with a more reliable asset, such as the US dollar, a fiat currency, or another stable cryptocurrency. Three categories of stablecoins, asset-referenced tokens linked to various currencies, commodities, or cryptocurrencies, and e-money, will be subject to new regulations set forth by MiCA. There are two types of tokens: currency-linked and utility tokens, designed to grant access to a good or service that the token’s issuer will provide.

Regarding the assets that fall outside MiCA’s purview, it won’t control digital assets that would be considered transferable securities and behave similarly to shares or their equivalents, as well as other crypto assets that currently meet the criteria for being considered financial instruments under current law. It will also largely omit non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

MiCA will also not control the national central banks of EU member nations that issue digital assets in their position as a monetary authority.

Knowing The New Regulations

The base regime will require every CASP to register as a legal entity in the EU. After that, they can obtain authorization in 27 member states and provide services there. Following that, regulatory organizations will keep an eye on the businesses to make sure they have established suitable risk management and corporate governance protocols. The ability to protect users of the funds, implement controls to guarantee they are not participating in proprietary trading, prevent conflicts of interest, and mount a defence against market abuse and manipulation are all qualities CASPs will need to prove.

Service providers of stablecoins are also required to provide essential details in the form of a white paper that includes information about the cryptocurrency product and the company’s key players, the conditions of their public offer, the kind of blockchain verification mechanism they employ, the rights associated with the relevant crypto assets, the main risks involved for investors, and a summary to assist prospective buyers in making an informed decision.

To prevent liquidity crises, stablecoin issuers must keep enough reserves equivalent to their worth. In addition, the daily transaction volume for those stablecoin companies tied to non-euro currencies must not exceed €200 million (USD 220 million) in a given region.

To prevent money laundering and financing terrorism, another law established with the MiCA mandates that cryptocurrency companies provide their local anti-money laundering authorities with information about the senders and recipients of crypto assets.

The Response

The consensus is that having a regulatory framework is preferable to having no regulations and attracting regulatory action on a case-by-case basis without clarity. However, leaders at several of the largest Bitcoin firms have objected to certain features of MiCA.

Some experts also believe the law needs to catch up fast, in terms of addressing the recent weaknesses in the cryptocurrency sector. For instance, it excludes activities like crypto staking and lending, which were responsible for some of the worst failures in the industry in 2022. In addition, according to a Bloomberg investigation, MiCA does not cover NFTs or decentralized finance, which are vulnerable to fraud and hacking.

Although there is no defined deadline, Britain has detailed a staged strategy that would start with stablecoins and eventually include unbacked crypto assets.

While considering whether to adopt specialized new laws and who would apply them, the United States has concentrated on using existing securities rules for enforcement action in the industry.

Several federal and state agencies are attempting to determine what supervision role they could play in the cryptocurrency industry, according to Hester Peirce, a commissioner of the American derivatives regulator CFTC.

Conclusion

While the MiCA regulations are a significant step forward in regulating crypto assets, apart from providing legal certainty for the industry and protecting consumers from fraud and deception, these laws still have shortcomings and at the same point, need to be future-proof as well.

The post IF Insights: EU’s path-breaking crypto regulation may pressurize others to follow suit appeared first on International Finance.

The research was carried out by IslamicMarkets.com, a website that offers access to financial opportunities and specialist knowledge, in support of the Global Islamic Finance Forum 2022 (GIFF2022).

The event, with the theme ‘Take the Reins’, is organised by the Association of Islamic Banking and Financial Institutions Malaysia (AIBIM), in collaboration with Bank Negara Malaysia (the Central Bank of Malaysia), and aims to develop a lively discussion about the work necessary to strengthen Islamic finance’s position as the global leader.

According to the report, 63% of experts in Islamic finance believe that over the next five years, the degree of acceptance of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets in Islamic financing would rise, with 16% anticipating a considerable rise. With 20% predicting a sharp increase in the next evolution of the digital customer experience in Islamic finance, that number jumps to 70% who predict that adoption of the Metaverse in the Islamic finance industry will expand over the next three years.

According to the research, significant regulatory changes have persuaded professionals to take a closer look at crypto and digital assets. But, many in the Islamic banking sector have been skeptical about these products.

Skepticism is also being dispelled by the reality that countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE will increasingly play big roles in the cryptocurrency and digital asset industries.

The study also discovered that the appeal of components of cryptocurrencies, such as no interest payments in Bitcoin, was a factor in the acceptance of cryptocurrencies and digital assets in Islamic banking.

Improvements in custodial services in the digital and crypto sectors have also persuaded some skeptics in addition to growing adoption by more mainstream institutional investors.

GIFF2022 Chairman Arsalaan Ahmed said, “Many in the Islamic finance sector have steered clear of cryptocurrencies which, given the recent volatility, has proved a wise move but that may be about to change with growing interest in digital assets and the Metaverse. The role of countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the crypto and digital asset sector highlights the interest in cryptocurrencies in the Muslim world.”

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MoonPay Chief Executive Officer Ivan Soto-Wright told the media, “Part of why we’re raising this round is to be able to attract the best talent from anywhere in the world. And we want to expand our coverage. We want to be in more countries. We want to turn on more payment methods.” He also mentioned that the company will add jobs around the world and will add full-stack engineers along with workers for compliance, customer support and business development, more than doubling the current headcount of about 130.

Currently, the company has no plans to go into other product lines to become a crypto super-app. In fact, MoonPay is going to focus on tapping non-fungible tokens (NFTs) capabilities in the entertainment industry and further increasing mainstream adoption of crypto.

MoonPay’s funding is the latest indication of the increasing interest among big-name investors in crypto-focused financial technology. Even though coin prices still remain unstable, varying from one day to the other, many venture capitalists are betting that crypto itself is becoming an unstoppable force and investment in such a platform is a way of betting on the ecosystem without picking favorites from thousands of digital assets.

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The price of bitcoin currently stands at a little over $8,000, which is around 5.6 lakh INR. The average upper middle-class Indian earns around 1 lakh INR a month, making the popularity of bitcoin as an investment by the average Indian is nothing short of lucrative, especially in comparison to conventional investments such as real estate and stocks.

However, the Indian government has not been so favourable to bitcoin’s growing popularity. In April, the country’s central banking authority Reserve Bank of India stated that it would not deal with or provide services to any individual or business entities dealing with or settling cryptocurrencies, and regulated entities already providing such services would have to cease doing so by July 5^th, 2018.

Meanwhile in Asia, bitcoin is only growing in popularity for cross border payments. In a press release, BitPay CEO Stephen Pair said that the company has plans to expand its services into Asia – one of the fastest adopters of cryptocurrency transactions and wallet adoption. For instance, Japan has allowed bitcoin as a legal form of payment since 2017 and is being widely used across industries like retail and hospitality. Trade between South Korea and USA is expected to touch $200bn and according to this Forbes story, bitcoin and bitcoin cash can greatly reduce cross-border transaction fees.

There is no denying the bitcoin wave. Reports in the Indian media suggest that instead of a sweeping ban against cryptocurrency, the government is considering classifying them as commodities instead. Abhishek Pitti, CEO of Nucleus Vision says, “The government has reduced fiat inflow into crypto within India but many of these exchanges have moved to a peer-to-peer strategy. Now, a separate committee has been formed within the Economic Affairs Ministry to draft a regulatory framework around cryptocurrencies and exchanges.” Pitti believes that once a regulatory framework has been established, crypto activities can be monitored.

Pitti, who runs Nucleus Vision, is one of the few entrepreneurs working to introduce blockchain technology in bureaucratic processes by partnering with government agencies and officials. Founded in 2014 at Harvard University, Nucleus Vision is an end-to-end technology solution provider that captures and provides previously inaccessible data to retailers and other ‘brick and mortar’ businesses through blockchain and real-time sensor technology. Nucleus Vision’s proprietary IoT sensor technology does not depend on any RFID, WiFi, Bluetooth, or even facial recognition technologies to identify any customer within its vicinity.

The constant back and forth by the government stems from how new and revolutionary this technology is. Considering that bitcoin functions on a distributed ledger and doesn’t need a middle man or a regulator, it is particularly daunting on regulatory authorities across the world. Experts still believe that while bitcoin and related cryptocurrencies are still courting controversy with authorities, blockchain technology is gaining acceptance across private and government institutions, even in India. “Blockchain technology appears to be universally accepted and we can see many governments, including the Indian government, adopting this technology. Within India, there is a lot of onus in improving the efficiency in the system through blockchain. Nucleus Vision has partnered with multiple state governments and related affiliations in working together on identifying use cases and improving the efficiency across these states.”

Nucleus Vision collaborated with the government of Telangana, Goa and NITI Aayog to host the International Blockchain Congress in August. The government of the state of Andhra Pradesh is in fact, among the first in India to run trials on blockchain technology for certain bureaucratic functions. Nucleus Vision is also partnering with the state government of Assam, a Northeast Indian state with a population of well over 30 million, to build a host of government-oriented blockchain apps.

“I think most governments, including the Indian government, understand the underlying technology well, but are still continuing to evolve their understanding of how cryptocurrencies adopt such technology, and how they can wrap a framework around these digital assets to prevent tax evasion or money laundering — their two primary concerns,” explained Pitti.

The renewed government investment, rising media attention and sustained investor interest have led to exponential growth of this space in the past few years, leading to drastic ebbs and flows in its value. This is why Pitti thinks investors, especially in the retail space, should be cautious with cryptocurrencies due to its high volatility. “There has been an ever-increasing number of retail investors jumping into the cryptocurrency space, either driven by their fascination of the underlying technology, or by their quest of making quick gains from a volatile asset class. The latter set of people may not necessarily understand the difference between the currency and the technology however they are not the type of investors who may wish to know this difference.”

Bitcoin is no doubt a highly exciting asset class, but this is when investors must sustain their interest in the underlying technology to improve efficiency, especially within developing and emerging economies where such improvements will improve productivity and impact national GDP, adds Pitti.

“Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are interconnected, as ICOs are a wonderful way for start-ups to fund their use cases and generate liquidity in developing their ideas into fruition.”

For investors to invest in ICOs, they need to have price discovery and liquidity which are only provided by trading exchanges. If the government is positive on blockchain and negative on cryptocurrencies, then effectively blocking a key source of funding to start-ups and eventually there will be another wave of brain drain from the country to another jurisdiction that shows more foresight in making this connection between the two.

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“I’m delighted to announce that we have the support of one of the largest cryptocurrency brokerage firms in the world,” said Steve Swain, CEO of Lendingblock. “Octagon Strategy has established itself as the go-to institutional brokerage for the cryptocurrency market, and brings extensive industry expertise and unique market insight that will be invaluable leading up to our launch later this year. There’s a great compatibility between Lendingblock and Octagon Strategy teams, as we are fully aligned in our aim to create the highest standard of financial services within the cryptocurrency space.”

“Securities financing plays a vital role in efficient capital markets, but barely exists for digital assets” said Wayne Trench, CEO of Octagon Strategy. “We’re very pleased to be working with the innovative team at Lendingblock as they bring the securities lending model to the digital assets economy. They are a team who understand institutional needs, and clearly have the experience and expertise to deliver. We look forward to working together to fill this gap in the market.”

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