07 September 2023: Swarm, a compliant DeFi platform, today announces Wrapped.com will be migrating assets to its compliant custody environment for the purpose of cross-chain wrapping and unwrapping of cryptocurrencies to use in DeFi.
Wrapped is a cross-chain bridge designed for high-performance and speed, providing infrastructure for institutional investors to safely access bitcoin in DeFi. Wrapped holds crypto assets like bitcoin and ether in Swarm’s institutional-grade custodial environment and mints a wrapped version of the tokens on another network, like Ethereum and Stacks.
Ronak Pakzad, co-founder of Wrapped, said: “We see a custody-based solution as the future of interoperability for cross-chain assets. We partner with tier one custodians to ensure that all assets are managed in the most secure way possible.
“Initially, we launched in partnership with Anchorage as a custodial bridge and technology layer that issues 1:1 backed wrapped assets. As the platform has expanded from private beta to public, we decided to partner with Swarm to automate and rollout a self-serve API, allowing our customers to bridge bitcoin liquidity into DeFi.”
The wrapped bitcoin market has emerged in the past year to improve its functionality and integration with DeFi. According to CoinMarketCap, the market cap of all wrapped bitcoins today sits at more than $4.2 billion.
Timo Lehes, co-founder of Swarm, said: “The future of interoperability is custodian based and European. It is safer to issue wrapped assets with the underlying being held in compliant custody, compared to using smart contract-based bridges that are prone to hacks.”
“We’re increasingly seeing interest from successful US-based companies, like Wrapped, looking to establish a footprint in Europe. There has been an undeniable sea change in people coming to Europe for crypto, and Swarm has been a direct beneficiary of that.
The industry is moving towards custodian-based solutions for cross-chain token issuance. Tokens are operationally secure, fully transparent, and 1:1 backed assets with on-chain proof-of-reserve verification. Wrapped intends to migrate $20 million AUM to European custody this year.
Pakzad added: “The strength of crypto custody laws and regulatory clarity has accelerated our diversification into Europe. We believe in providing a diversified network of custodian partnerships to our customers, both in the US and in other jurisdictions. We’re proud of having built into US regulations since launch and believe in the strength of the future of the American regulatory climate.”
Philipp Pieper, co-founder of Swarm commented: “By design, a compliant custodian acts as a deterrent to hackers. It is fast becoming accepted that a German license is seen as the gold standard for crypto custody and the Wrapped use case is a perfect example of the value and safety that compliance can bring to the digital asset market.”
Institutions wanting to wrap and unwrap crypto assets like bitcoin can do so onto Ethereum from Mid September and retail investors will be able to trade these tokens on DeFi.
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Notes to Editors
About Swarm
Swarm is a blockchain platform that brings novel digitization and trading solutions to the world of traditional finance. It is the first organization in the world to offer digitized treasury bills and Apple stock via a compliant and decentralized platform. Day to day, we work with real-world-asset owners to tokenize collateral and build trading infrastructure in a compliant way.
Swarm is a hybrid, embracing the advantages of blockchain-trading – flexibility, speed and efficiency – and pairing it with the trust and asset-range typically enjoyed by traditional exchanges. Swarm aims to integrate TradFi with DeFi so that everything becomes “Fi”. For more information, visit the website.
About Wrapped
Wrapped.com is a cross chain institutional bridge and the safest way to access Bitcoin in DeFi. Wrapped.com seeks to enhance DeFi’s cross-chain liquidity by providing interoperability between different blockchains and it’s strong features includes issuing operationally secure, fully financial transparent, 1:1 backed assets with on-chain proof of reserves verification. For more information, visit wrapped.com.
