As expectations regarding the Fed’s interest rate policy reshape themselves in global markets, two major financial institutions have updated their forecasts for the interest rate cut timeline. TD Securities announced that the Fed has postponed its expectation of its first interest rate cut from March to June. Despite this, the firm maintains its forecast of
Even a modest model portfolio allocation to crypto in Asia could drive massive inflows into the market, according to Nicholas Peach, head of APAC iShares at BlackRock. Speaking on a panel at Consensus Hong Kong, Peach said rising institutional acceptance of crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) — particularly in Asia — is reshaping expectations for the
Recent crypto market volatility hasn’t been kind to crypto exchange Coinbase. At the time of writing, COIN has lost 8% since the opening bell on Wednesday and was changing hands for about $149 per share. The stock has now dropped 34% since the start of the year, according to Yahoo Finance. “Obviously been a bit
Ripple, the blockchain firm behind the $XRP Ledger, is teaming up with Aviva Investors to bring traditional investment funds onchain through tokenization, the companies announced Wednesday. Aviva Investors, the asset management arm of British insurer Aviva Plc, will use the $XRP Ledger’s infrastructure to convert conventional fund products into digital tokens. The deal marks Ripple’s
US employers added 130,000 jobs in January, nearly doubling the 65,000 consensus forecast and signaling unexpected resilience in the labor market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal agency tracking employment data, reported the unemployment rate dipped to 4.3%, below the anticipated 4.4%. Healthcare drove much of the gain, contributing 82,000 positions, while social assistance
Africa recorded the highest median stablecoin-to-fiat conversion spreads among tracked regions in January, according to data observed by payments infrastructure company Borderless.xyz, covering 66 currency corridors and nearly 94,000 rate observations. The regional median spread was 299 basis points, or about 3%, compared with about 1.3% in Latin America and 0.07% in Asia. In Africa,
Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), the country’s central bank, said on Wednesday that its Digital Asset Innovation Hub (DAIH) is piloting three regulatory sandbox programs to research and develop stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits. BNM’s initiatives center around using ringgit stablecoins, the fiat currency of Malaysia, for cross-border settlement and developing tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), according
Hong Kong — Tokenization is gaining traction, but its success depends less on market hype and more on real-world utility, say executives from Ondo Finance and Securitize. “There’s no shortage of firms, of issuers, of companies that are interested in tokenizing,” said Graham Ferguson, head of ecosystem at Securitize, during a panel discussion at Consensus
The mood among top venture capitalists at Consensus Hong Kong was not retreat, but recalibration, as the crypto market experienced a prolonged downturn. Hasseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly, described today’s venture market as a “barbell:” On one side, proven verticals compounding at scale; on the other, a narrow set of high-risk, next-generation bets. “There’s