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Second largest bank in Japan to launch institutional Bitcoin and cryptocurrency custody services

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust will partner with Bitbank to form a company focused on institutional custody services for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui Trust is launching a new company for institutional clients seeking custody services for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The new company will be called Japan Digital Asset Trust and is a joint venture with 85% owned by Bitbank and 15% owned by Mitsui Trust.

The company reportedly has $2.3 million in committed capital for the launch and expects to raise a total of $78 million.

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust, Japan’s second-largest bank, is creating a new company called the Japan Digital Asset Trust to offer custody services for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to institutional clients, according to a report by Nikkei Asia.

The new company will hold assets such as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for large investors and corporations because the company believes investors will feel more comfortable if custody of these assets can be held by trusted financial institutions.

The Japan Digital Asset Trust will be a majority-owned joint venture by Bitbank, a Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange, which will control 85% of the company. The remaining 15% of the property will be owned by Mitsui.

The new company is expected to have $2.3 million in equity at launch and hopes to raise enough capital from investors to reach a target of $78 million.

This announcement follows news that competing Japanese bank Nomura Holdings Inc. also recently announced that it would create a subsidiary to offer escrow services to institutional clients looking to acquire bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

When scaled down to the global scale, the adoption of bitcoin as an institutional asset class is on the rise as the Mitsui Trust joins other financial institutions such as BNY Mellon, which last year supported a cryptocurrency exchange. Likewise, Fidelity created Bitcoin First, which was a resource to show institutional investors why they should invest in bitcoin before any other cryptocurrency, and subsequently offered bitcoin-based products.

World banking leader Morgan Stanley also published a report on the viability of bitcoin as a currency following the events of Jack Maller’s Bitcoin 2022 announcement, where he announced that Strike, his Bitcoin infrastructure company, had integrated with the provider. the world.

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Fidelity Lets Customers Fund Their 401K With Cryptocurrencies

Not long ago, Fidelity Investments announced that clients would be able to invest in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin through their 401K and retirement accounts. Additionally, several companies offering 401Ks to their employees could soon see these individuals buying assets like BTC, ether, and perhaps even Dogecoin through their company-funded retirement profiles.

Fidelity advances with encryption

The news was very well received in the crypto space, with many analysts saying it would be a big step towards mainstream status and legitimacy. Financial advisor Ric Edelman, founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals, announced in a statement:

This will be remembered as a pivotal moment in the evolution of cryptocurrencies. For the average American worker, their only place to save for retirement is through a company retirement plan. Millions of workers will now start buying bitcoins they would never have otherwise.

However, while Fidelity appears to be implementing various cryptocurrency retention options for its 401K customers, there are a number of individuals and industry leaders who claim that companies are unlikely to use or implement cryptocurrency withdrawal options for employees. Therefore, people who gain access to 401K Fidelity accounts through their companies may not yet have access to bitcoin or its altcoin cousins.

The fact is that it is still a very speculative industry, and many companies are concerned about the well-being of their workers. They don’t want them to pour money into a space that could end up scraping the bottom of the financial barrel the next day. Bitcoin and many other forms of cryptocurrency remain highly volatile, meaning their prices are extremely difficult to predict. These changes come with little to no signal and therefore companies may not want to take the risk right away.

Now, several retirement professionals are emerging to say that if one is really going to fund their retirement accounts with cryptocurrencies through Fidelity, one should take the necessary precautions and expect a little up and down behavior from time to time. . One such figure is Rob Greenman, a financial advisor at Vista Capital Partners. He commented:

Returns are based purely on speculation in the hope that some future buyer will be willing to pay a higher price than the purchase price.

What makes investing in cryptocurrencies risky during retirement is that these funds are most often used to take care of yourself when you are elderly or sick. Therefore, this money is often set aside for medical bills and utility payments, especially when you are no longer of working age.

Crypto can balance some things

Financial advisor Jim Shagawat of Advice Period also did his part, saying about cryptocurrencies:

They don't behave in the same way as stocks, bonds, gold or commodities, so adding them to your investment mix can increase return and reduce risk.
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Elon Musk Hints Tesla Will Accept BTC Again Soon

Elon Musk, the South African billionaire and businessman behind big companies like SpaceX and Tesla, has hinted that the latter company may once again accept bitcoin for payments in the future, given his confidence that the entire industry is moving towards renewable energy.

Elon Musk illuminates the use of BTC

Musk caused a lot of controversy in the first half of 2021 when he announced that his company would accept bitcoin for electric vehicles. The move caused a lot of speculation and joy among crypto traders, as Tesla was one of the largest companies in the world and Musk was one of the richest people in the world. The fact that he was a fan of cryptocurrencies was affecting many digital traders, and they were sure that Bitcoin would probably reach new heights.

At first, that is exactly what happened. Bitcoin surged to $57,000, which was its new all-time high at the time. Things were really looking up when suddenly, just a few weeks later, Musk announced that he was rescinding the decision because he was concerned about the prospects of bitcoin mining and what the environmental risks were.

This drove a lot of people crazy and reportedly triggered a new series of drops in the price of bitcoin. Explaining his reasoning in a recent interview with ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood, Musk stated:

Tesla's mission is to accelerate renewable energy. Tesla is interested in renewable energy, it works on solar energy and we interact with wind energy for our batteries. We knew that you can't generate that much power surge using renewable energy that quickly, but you can if you mine coal. The whole thing seemed incomplete to me.

He recalls that the announcement about using bitcoin to buy Tesla vehicles came after Musk made a $1.5 billion purchase of the world’s largest and most popular digital currency.

Musk is now confident that the bitcoin world is increasingly switching to renewable energy. In a follow-up to the previous interview, he commented that he believes the amount of clean energy used to mine BTC today is over 50%, and as long as that number continues to rise, he says that Tesla will easily accept BTC again without a problem.

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Plan ₿ Bitcoin Business Summer School opens in July

Plan₿ Summer School is an opportunity for those interested in bitcoin and business to learn the ins and outs of the ecosystem and develop real-world solutions.

The Plan₿ summer school begins July 3-16 and seeks to teach students the fundamentals of Bitcoin and business.

Classes taught by industry experts will be held in Lugano, Switzerland.

Students who attend will participate in a pitching competition with the winners taking home up to $5,000 for a winning pitch.

Plan₿ summer school, a cohort course that teaches students the challenges of business in relation to the regulatory and technological implications facing the Bitcoin ecosystem, is in session from July 3 to 16, according to an announcement.

The class will take place in Lugano, Switzerland. Students will learn about the Bitcoin protocol, the Lightning Network as a Layer 2 solution, stablecoins, the consensus mechanism used by cryptocurrencies, and the fundamentals of the space.

Experts will demonstrate the ins and outs of smart contracts and their operation on Bitcoin while discussing real-world applications and use cases. Students will also gain knowledge related to anti-money laundering (AML) compliance, on-chain analytics, and gain a deeper understanding of cybersecurity, among other subjects.

Course teachers will introduce students to real-world problems that need a solution. At the end of the two-week course, students will participate at a group level to present an idea for a problem presented by the teachers. A jury of space experts will preside over the results of the field competition and prizes will be awarded to the top three teams.

First place winners will receive $5,000, while second place will win $2,500 and third place will take home $1,500, with a total of $9,000 in prizes up for grabs.

The extensive list of speakers and speakers features many experts in the field. Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, David Suleima, Assistant Professor of Finance at Franklin University of Switzerland, Zulfi Moledina, Training Specialist at Chainalysis, and Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Tether and Bitfinex, have signed on to provide high-level discussions on their respective specializations .

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Brazilian Stock Exchange To Begin Trading Bitcoin Futures This Year

B3, the Brazilian stock exchange, will begin trading bitcoin futures contracts within the next three to six months and hopes to offer crypto-based services.

  • B3, the Brazilian stock exchange, will begin trading BTC futures in three to six months.
  • This past January, the CFO of B3 announced plans to trade futures based on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
  • The CFO also mentioned becoming a service provider of custodial solutions, as well as a settlement provider for the growing ecosystem during January.

The Brazilian stock exchange known as B3 (Brasil, Bolsa, Balcão) will begin trading futures contracts for bitcoin within the next three to six months, according to a report from Valor.

“We plan to launch bitcoin futures in the next three to six months,” CFO André Milanez reportedly said on a conference call.

No details were offered on whether or not B3 had partnerships lined up to offer the products or if another company would be providing infrastructure. This past January, Valor reported that Jochen Mielke de Lima, director of information technology at B3 stated the exchange’s intentions of releasing BTC futures.

During the January interview, Mielke noted that B3 had been looking into bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies since 2016, but that the issue of valuing the assets against either the dollar or the Brazilian real played a confusing role in B3’s determination.

“We are identifying points of friction that we can help solve to face it, such as helping our customers provide the best access to their end customers,” he said.

B3 noted that similarities between the equities market including: trade, settlement and custody, are all issues that the exchange believes it can offer services for.

“We have around 30 national crypto brokers, apart from the international ones that operate here. We could offer a service to facilitate and standardize their operations. I believe you have something to explore in providing custody services and the settlement process,” Mielke told Valor in the January interview.