Welcome to Swarm Markets’ media memo. This weekly update provides comments from Swarm Markets’ co-founders, Philipp Pieper and Timo Lehes, and Head of Comms and DeFi expert, Katie Evans, on key industry news that has caught our eye, plus our own developments.
Comments available on the following news items:
- Update from the heart of Consensus 2023
- Swarm launches seven new digital stocks
- Volksbank integrates Swarm technology for investors
Key takeaways from Consensus
Last week the crypto community flew into Austin for Consensus 2023. In a slightly more bearable temperature compared to the June heat of last year’s event, the bear market ushered in a crowd committed to the future of blockchain technology.
Unsurprisingly, a common theme that kept coming up was the US regulatory chokehold of the crypto industry. Lack of regulation is seen as the biggest risk to crypto innovation in the US today and two themes emerged as to reasons why.
The first train of thought is that crypto poses a threat to national security, and importantly, the US Dollar. Noone in the US from a regulatory perspective wants 24/7 trading and instant settlement on chain because it removes the legacy trading stack the country has worked hard to establish over the last few decades.
In the second scenario, the industry believes there is a massive shakeout by regulators to remove crypto newcomers from financial markets. Supposedly, US-based regulation is ready to go and regulators are waiting for the right players to be in the game — the incumbents they are used to working with —before they move ahead with a pro-crypto policy.
So whilst the right landscape emerges in the US for a crypto industry to thrive, all eyes are turning to other jurisdictions to plug the gap. But moving offshore has to be to a credible jurisdiction that can serve the world.
Whilst first thoughts might be centred on Dubai, most are actually looking at Europe. Europe is a top-tier jurisdiction that is already moving ahead with regulatory clarity for crypto, with the introduction of MiCa. Unlike the Middle East, Europe can better serve institutions and retail investors globally and that’s where a lot of our team’s conversations were focused.
Swarm launches seven digital stocks after investor feedback
In February 2023, Swarm became the first organization in the world to offer digitized US treasury bills and Apple stock via a regulated and decentralized platform. Following on from this, Swarm conducted a community vote for holders of its payment token, SMT, to decide which securities should be listed next on its platform.
Last Tuesday we announced the addition of seven stocks that will be made available on chain for trading, including BlackRock, Coinbase, Coupang, Intel, Microsoft, Microstrategy and NVIDIA.
It is interesting to see where the demand of our customer base lies. Many of the companies we are adding are involved in tech innovation, much like crypto itself. It also seems like a no-brainer to add Coinbase.
We believe that 2023 is the year of tokenization. When prominent figures in the traditional financial space are talking about this phenomenon, like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs, you know we are approaching an inflection point.
German cooperative bank launches gold NFTs
Germany’s oldest cooperative bank Volksbank Mittweida has announced the launch of gold NFTs in a partnership with Swarm. The partnership allows Volksbank customers to buy NFT tokens which represent precious metals such as gold, palladium, platinum and silver. Customers will be able to self-custody the tokens in their own crypto asset wallets.
Partnerships between traditional and decentralized finance are breaking new ground in the digital assets market. Swarm is uniquely positioned to work with venerable institutions such as Volksbank, as a regulated platform offering a range of digital real-world assets (RWAs) and experience working in both TradFi and web3.
Precious metal investments are one of the oldest kinds of investment. It’s really exciting to bring those assets fully into the 21st Century with fully backed digital RWA ownership. The room for growth here is enormous as investors become more comfortable with the idea of self-custody and digital ownership.
Investors will be able to hold NFTs that correspond to specific gold bar serial numbers. The physical precious metal is held in the Development Bank of Saxony in Leipzig, Germany. Volksbank says it has taken pains to make the process as seamless as possible for newcomers to blockchain-based investing.
