Welcome to Swarm Markets’ media memo. This weekly update provides comments from Swarm Markets’ co-founders, Philipp Pieper and Timo Lehes, on key industry news that has caught our eye, plus our own developments.
Comments available on the following news items:
- $SMT launches on BingX
- Grayscale’s troubles prove the benefits of open regulated markets
- Tether brings stablecoins to Telegram
Grayscale’s cheap ETF launch demonstrates power of open markets
One of the biggest victims of the launch of bitcoin ETFs to the mass market in the US has been Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). The trust, which had trouble before the ETFs launched this year, is effectively about to undergo a ‘flippening’ when BlackRock’s ETF overtakes them for AUM.
There is unfortunately no room for sentimentality in this market as costs will always win when you offer consumers an otherwise equal product. Grayscale has market heritage that no other bitcoin investment vehicle has, but it counts for nothing when you can’t compete
The suggestion now is that Grayscale is going to launch its own ‘Bitcoin Mini Trust’ with market-leading lower fees. This is entirely unsurprising and is, in essence, the market compelling Grayscale to compete properly. Pre-ETF investors might well ask why they were so uncompetitively priced (as is now clear) beforehand.
When you open market access, with a carefully managed regulatory framework, the net result is a functioning market which puts end-user interests first. This is where we are at in the ETF price war underway. Grayscale’s loss is ultimately the gain for everyone else.
Tether’s USDT launch on Telegram is a big step for mass market adoption
Stablecoins are an essential tokenized asset in the wider infrastructure of decentralized finance (DeFi). Bringing it to a mass market audience via Telegram is a very savvy move.
One of the major steps for the crypto market to overcome at this point is mass adoption. We now have wide ranging availability of crypto/DeFi products, but user experience and access to the market has been uneven much of the time, especially when you consider some of the regional regulatory barriers in place.
But the news that Telegram is launching USDT transactions with Tether is extremely encouraging, and a true illustration of potential applications for DeFi products. UX is one of the bigger barriers for the DeFi market to overcome, and has created scaling issues for various participants. Encompassing extant apps and services, which were designed for usability, is one way to overcome this.
What is intriguing for Telegram is the fact that it appears to be getting one up on Elon Musk and his X platform – which the tech billionaire said he wanted to be an ‘everything app’. The introduction of transactions on Telegram, underpinned by a stablecoin, which is a form of RWA, is a big step in this direction, just not one led by Musk!
$SMT launches on BingX with two more in the pipeline
Our own native token $SMT launches to investors on BingX from today, 25 April 2024. This brings the number of major crypto exchanges on which the token is currently available to three, joining Gate.io and MexC, with more listings in the pipeline. BingX is a major cryptoasset platform with more than 10 million users and is a major sponsor of Premier League football club Chelsea FC.
$SMT has gone from strength to strength in 2024, rising more than 140% year-to-date as cryptoasset investors back Swarm’s tokenization efforts. With growing momentum for $SMT, two more exchanges are set to follow soon, which will take the number of listings to five.
It is an exciting time for Swarm Markets with the addition of a listing on BingX for cryptoasset investors, widening our availability to different regions. We’re just getting started and momentum is gaining, with at least two more exchanges set to follow with listings soon.
SMT’s price growth this year is a reflection of the hard work we’ve put into developing our tokenization platform proposition. Tokenization is one of the most exciting areas of decentralized finance (DeFi) and has enormous potential to bridge the gap with traditional financial (TradFi) institutions and infrastructure.
Swarm has some exciting upcoming product announcements as the team works to make more real world assets (RWAs) available on chain. Our goal is very much to bridge the gap between TradFi and DeFi, using the latter’s technological innovations to open new markets for the former’s massive asset pools.
