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Too early to say Ethereum L2s are ‘cannibalistic’ of revenue: Sygnum Bank

Ethereum daily fees hover between $1 million and $5 million — far less than the $30 million consistently reached throughout 2021 and 2022.

Fears that Ethereum layer-2 scaling solutions are eating into the mainnet’s revenue and could impact prices may be premature, according to a crypto bank analyst.

“It is much too early to tell whether Ethereum[‘s] strategy of scaling through layer 2s is cannibalistic or will lead to net growth,” Katalin Tischhauser, head of research at Sygnum Bank told Cointelegraph in a recent interview.

Tischhauser’s use of “cannibalistic” refers to layer 2s taking “business” away from the Ethereum mainnet — which has contributed to a substantial fall in Ethereum fees over the last few years.

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Sygnum Bank set to release soccer-themed sculptures as AST’s

The Swiss regulated banking institution has partnered with a renowned native artist to auction digital assets investment opportunities in three physical sculptures.

Digital asset institution Sygnum Bank has announced a collaborative partnership with highly-accredited Swiss-born artistic sculptor, David Pflugi to issue 6,000 Art Security Tokens, or ASTs, via his new project, Victory Works.

Orientated around the final of three international competitions — the 2010 FIFA World Cup hosted by South Africa; the2014 FIFA World Cup hosted by Brazil; and the 2018 FIFA World Cup hosted by Russia — the artwork immortalizes the achievements of legendary players such as Oliver Kahn, Lionel Messi, Ronaldinho and Zinédine Zidane, among others, with the display of their written signatures.

With an estimated collective valuation of CHF 6 million, equivalent to $6.525 million, the three assets will be offered exclusively to the professional and institutional clientele of Sygnum Bank via an auction sale commencing in April this year. Holders of the ASTs will receive a proportional share of the sale in relation to their holding amount.

According to the official announcement, Victory Works intends to reserve around half of the ASTs for future endeavors, in addition to pledging 20% of the overall proceeds to charitable foundations supporting the livelihoods of children in developing nations.

Cointelegraph reached out to Victory Works to learn more about the company’s vision for utilizing the retained 50% of ASTs, and whether they have identified any specific children's charities or causes to which to donate the 20% net proceeds t.

They stated: “Once the final sale by auction of the tokenized works of art has been concluded, each token holder will receive a share of the proceeds of this sale in accordance with the number of tokens that they own. The tokens, having thus completed their lifecycle, will then be canceled ("burned"), including the ones held by Victory Works AG.”

“A charitable foundation specifically dedicated to this project, based in Switzerland, will be established to ensure that the use of funds for charitable purposes can be traced and verified from the first to the last step… the specific individual humanitarian projects which will be supported… is currently on-going.”

Sygnum Bank has an accomplished track-record with the cryptocurrency space, gaining prominence within the European markets for their progressive stance on digital asset adoption, and positive engagements with regulatory bodies.

In September 2020, the company attained approval from Switzerland’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FMSA) to offer a range of digital asset trading activities, a move that opened up new investment avenues for their native stablecoin Digital Swiss franc (DCHF).

More recently in July 2021, Sygnum became the first banking institution globally to enable staking in Ethereum, offering up to 7% annual percentage yields (APY), and aiming to drive consumer adoption of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

As a result of their positive relations with regulators, the Victory Works ASTs will be “fully recognized under the new Swiss DLT legislation via Sygnum's tokenization platform Desygnate,” according to Sygnum. They also provided greater clarification around the “two to three-year investment horizon” statement in the press release, stating that:

“The life cycle of this investment opportunity is finite. The investment horizon describes the first phase, 2–3 years after the initial token offering. After which an exit will be initiated, and the underlying artworks will be auctioned off. This will result in all tokens being "burned" and the profit distributed to all token holders in proportion to their holdings."

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Master-pieces: Swiss bank issuing NFT shares in Picasso painting for $6K each

Swiss digital asset bank Sygnum is issuing NFTs representing fractionalized ownership in a Picasso painting.

Digital asset-focused Swiss Bank, Sygnum, has teamed up with art investment firm Artemundi to offer fractionalized ownership shares in a Pablo Picasso painting for $6,000 each.

Shares representing ownership over $3.68 million Picasso painting, “Fillette au béret,” will be tokenized and issued via blockchain technology, allowing a wide variety of investors to gain exposure to the artwork.

The nonfungible tokens (NFTs) can be exclusively purchased by sophisticated and institutional investors through Sygnum Bank, with secondary trade set to take place on SygnEx — the bank’s digital asset trading platform.

Trades will be settled in Swiss Francs (CHF) using Sygnum’s native CHF stablecoin, DCHF. Fractionalized ownership over the painting will be recognized by Swiss law.

The 1964 painting depicts a beret-capped child in brightly coloured clothes, and was last sold for $2.48 million in 2016. The physical painting will not be sold, with the artwork slated to remain at a high-security facility when it is not being loaned to museums for exhibition.

Artemundi co-owner, Javier Lumbreras, emphasized the revolutionary utility offered by fractionalized ownership through NFTs stating:

“Artistic, cultural objects of universal appeal, once reserved for an elite group of collectors or the museums, can now be safely and directly owned without the burden of high entry barriers.”

“The art market is absurdly opaque and inefficient, but these traits will soon be relics of a bygone age," he added.

Picasso on the blockchain

Sygnum is not the first company looking to tokenize the work of Picasso.

In June, Soethby’s auction house announced it had teamed up with Mira Imaging with plans to auction Picasso’s work “Le peintre et son modèle” alongside an Ethereum-based non-fungible token created by scanning “every micron” of the painting’s surface to create a “unique encrypted signature” representing the work.

Using a Looking Glass scanner, the NFT could be scanned to confirm the authenticity of the work. However, the NFT offering was scrapped by Sotehby’s, with the painting selling for $3.12 million without an nonfungible counterpart.

Related: Winner spends a fortune in crypto on Sotheby’s diamond auction

Last month also saw the launch of “The Burned Picasso” project from artist collective, Unique.One Community.

After displaying a Picasso sketch at a gallery in Denver, an NFT representing the artwork was minted at the end of the June, with the picture’s physical form getting incinerated.

The NFT auction will be live for the next two weeks, with a starting price set at 0.25 ETH (roughly $500). The auction winner will also receive the framed burnt remnants of original artwork.

In 2018, John McAfee teamed up with DLT platform Maecenas and crypto exchange Ethershift to auction an ERC-721 token representing ownership over a Picasso artwork.

Fillette au béret (Source: Artemundi)

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Sygnum Bank Launches ETH 2.0 Staking – Business Unit Head Says ‘Staking Is a Core Element for Portfolios’

Sygnum Bank Launches ETH 2.0 Staking – Business Unit Head Says ‘Staking Is a Core Element for Portfolios’The Switzerland-based bank Sygnum revealed on Tuesday that the firm now allows Ethereum 2.0 staking. The FINMA-approved company’s customers can access the Ethereum-based staking services via Sygnum’s banking platform. Sygnum’s Banking Platform Offers Ethereum 2.0 Staking Last November, Sygnum Bank AG revealed that it is partnered with the company Taurus Group, a firm that also […]

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Sygnum becomes first bank in the world to offer Eth2 staking

Sygnum emphasized the robust DeFi ecosystem being built on Ethereum.

Crypto-focussed Swiss bank, Sygnum Bank, has announced it has become the first bank in the world to allow its clients to stake Ether.

According to the July 6 blog post, the firm’s clients can now stake ETH through Sygnum’s institutional banking platform to earn yields of up to seven percent annually.

Sygnum describes itself as the “world’s first digital asset bank,” having secured a banking licence in Switzerland and a capital markets services license in Singapore during August 2019 and October 2019 respectively.

The firm asserts that “the vast majority of decentralized products and services run on Ethereum,” noting the DeFi sector’s Total Value Locked (TVL) has grown by more than three times since the start of 2021:

“With Ethereum powering the exponential growth of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, staking is a compelling choice for long-term Ethereum investors also seeking attractive yields.”

Thomas Eichenberger, Sygnum’s head of business units, described Ethereum staking as “a core element for digital asset portfolios.”

Sygnum launched a staking service for Tezos (XTZ) in November 2020, and has offered a fixed term deposit product for its Digital Swiss Franc stablecoin, DCHF, since March.

The bank faces competition from many crypto-native staking providers and centralized exchanges, including leading U.S. firms Coinbase and Kraken.

The digital asset bank is also looking to support DeFi assets, launching regulated banking services for eight leading tokens including UNI, MKR, and CRV last month.

According to Staking Rewards, Eth2 is currently the second-largest Proof-of-Stake network by staked capitalization with $13.5 billion, despite only 5% of circulating Ether currently having been locked for staking.

Cardano (ADA) has the largest staked capitalization with $31.8 billion and 70.7% of supply currently locked.

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