Student loan real-world asset (RWA) protocol Pencil Finance completed a $1 million onchain student loan cycle, offering financing to thousands of students in Southeast Asia who were underserved by traditional lenders. Pencil said it completed its first fully onchain student loan cycle on the blockchain, where the platform deployed $1 million in capital as a
The safe-haven narrative is back in the spotlight. The obvious question is whether Bitcoin can eventually be integrated into this narrative. The setup looks interesting (new tensions between the U.S. and Iran) as oil prices regain $90/barrel and the market prices in a 60% probability of a rate hike at the upcoming FOMC. In other
As Bitcoin retreated to the $77,000 level after its recent surge, on-chain analyst Willy Woo suggested that Bitcoin’s traditional four-year market cycle could change in the future. At this point, Woo, who discussed Bitcoin’s traditional four-year market cycle, stated that this model may change in the coming period. Woo stated that Bitcoin could shift away
State Street has made headlines with the launch of its SPDR UC Investments 90/10 Endowment Strategy Index ETF, totaling a staggering $2.5 billion, the largest seed for an ETF to date. This significant milestone, reported by CryptoTwitter commentator @NateGeraci, highlights the growing interest in institutional investment products. The implications of such a large launch could
Those following markets have likely heard the standard line by now. It says rising government bond yields across the developed world are a headwind for bitcoin and crypto more broadly. Now the foreign exchange market is telling us that it’s time to abandon that read. The logic behind the original take is straightforward. When safe-haven
Something interesting is happening in financial markets today. The Japanese yen is rising across the board, yet bitcoin $BTC$77,877.45 and gold are trading higher as well, contrary to the conventional view that a strengthening yen is a risk-off signal. The reason seems rooted in the yen’s impact on the Dollar Index (DXY). The dollar-yen (USDJPY)
BlackRock’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) has narrowly outperformed the S&P 500 since launch despite subjecting investors to a drawdown nearly three times as deep. The iShares Bitcoin Trust, or IBIT, returned 67.74% from its Jan. 11, 2024 debut through Aug. 31, compared with 66.14% for Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF, or VOO, on a total-return basis
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) said that some of the speculative capital directed towards the artificial intelligence (AI) sector is beginning to return to the cryptocurrency market. Zhao’s assessment points to a recent trend of investors rotating capital among different high-risk asset classes. CZ stated that some of the “hot money” flowing into the AI
With tokenization of traditional assets such as stocks, bonds and real estate a growing industry, there are still some product areas it has yet to touch. Among them are catastrophe bonds, the specialized insurance products that pay out in the event of a major disaster, such as a hurricane or earthquake. That may be set