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Brazilian Fintech Company Capitual Partners With Azimut to Offer Crypto Services in European Markets

Brazilian Fintech Company Capitual Partners With Azimut to Offer Crypto Services in European MarketsCapitual, a Brazilian fintech company that offers cryptocurrency intermediation services, has partnered with Azimut, an asset management firm, to expand its service offer to Europe. The deal, which contemplates an investment of €15 million (about $16.2 million), would allow Capitual to start operating in Mexico, where Azimut has significant presence and operations. Capitual Gets €15 […]

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

Coinbase-backed Securitize secures $48M in Series B funding

Morgan Stanley Tactical Value and Blockchain Capital have led a funding round for Securitize.

Morgan Stanley has made its first capital investment foray into the blockchain space, co-leading a $48 million funding for Securitize.

According to a release issued on Monday, the Coinbase-backed asset tokenization outfit has completed a Series B funding round that drew participation from Morgan Stanley Tactical Value-managed investment funds and Blockchain Capital.

Other participants in the funding round included Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank (SMTB), Emin Gün Sirer’s Ava Labs, and venture capital fund IDC Ventures, among others.

The oversubscribed Series B round also saw participation from previous Securitize backers like Ripple and Borderless Capital.

Monday’s Series B funding announcement comes barely a month after successfully closing a $12.75 million Series B funding round.

As with other Securitize capital raises, the Series B investors will receive their shares as digital assets issued by the firm. According to the release, the asset tokenization platform already has over 300,000 verified investors.

In March, Securitize collaborated with SMTB to launch Japan’s first “A-1” rated security token.

Related: Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui launches the country's first 'a-1' rated security token

As part of its investment, Morgan Stanley Tactical Value co-head Pedro Teixeira will join the Board of Directors at Securitize.

Commenting on Morgan Stanley’s first blockchain investment, Teixeira was quoted in the announcement as saying that the investment bank was keen on assets with long-term potential, adding:

“Our investment in Securitize is a sign that we believe in the growth and adoption of digital asset securities.”

Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo also echoed Teixeira’s comments stating that VC funding for the company demonstrates the growing popularity of digital asset securities among legacy finance stakeholders.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Morgan Stanley introduced a Bitcoin (BTC) investment product for rich clients back in March. The $4 trillion wealth management giant in April expanded its BTC exposure for wealthy clients to 12 investment funds.

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

UAE minister of economy: Crypto & tokenization “key” to doubling GDP

A government-run token exchange could be on the horizon for the United Arab Emirates

At a panel for the World Economic Forum’s Global Technology Governance Summit today, United Arab Emirates minister of economy Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri said that cryptocurrency and asset tokenization will be key to the country’s plans to double its economy — currently estimated to be the 34th-largest in the world — in 10 years. 

Al Marri was joined on the panel, titled the “Arrival of the token economy, from art to real estate,” by artist Harry Yeff and WEF executive Sheila Warren. While much of the conversation centered on the current nonfungible toke craze, Al Marri’s comments centered largely on forthcoming tokenization use cases and their regulation.

According to Al Marri, the country has ambitions to grow its gross domestic product by 7% yearly, which would put it on track to double the size of its economy by 2030. Tokenization will be a key cog in this effort, as “Tokenization compliments information-based economies.”

Perhaps most exciting from an adoption standpoint, the minister said that the country has several ambitious projects underway, including a study being conducted with the WEF on funding small and medium-sized enterprises with a government-run token platform, possibly as part of a “regional token exchange” tha is “in our agenda,” Al Marri said.

When asked about how the government — which by nature is deeply embedded in a pre-token economy — will interact with these new models and the need to regulate them, Al Marri said the goal is to protect investors as well as the larger financial system without stifling innovation.

“We’re a government — we’re good at regulation,” he joked.

He highlighted two pain points in particular: lack of “harmonized regulation” and lack of sufficient regulation. He noted that jurisdiction and regional regulations need to work together in order to prevent cloistered bubbles of innovation and to ensure that new asset models, such as fractionalized ownership, benefit all.

“How can we bring fractionalization to a level where everyone can benefit?” he asked.

He also noted that fractionalized ownership can lead to real-world-meets-blockchain bugaboos: If an apartment has fractionalized ownership, who pays the upkeep fees? If there’s a fractionalized painting, what happens when the painting gets stolen?

Ultimately, the country is eager to lead the world in facing these questions head-on.

“We understand the challenges as such, but we are experimenting, and allowing the UAE to be a site of experimentation.” 

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs