Nickel Research Centre
Monthly news

Major developments in digital assets, April 2021

Coinbase listed on the NASDAQ, becoming the first digital asset exchange to go public

German legislation passed allowing institutional fund managers up to 20% crypto allocation in portfolios 

The People’s Bank of China acknowledged digital assets as a high-potential alternative investment

JP Morgan offered direct digital asset exposure to clients

Venmo added crypto asset support to its payment app with 70m monthly active users

Morgan Stanley added Bitcoin exposure to 12 funds, investing $30m for clients within two weeks

Tesla made a $101m profit by selling 10% of its Bitcoin holdings to prove liquidity of the asset class

Brevan Howard asset management announced plans for up to 1.5% digital asset allocation

AXA Switzerland became the first insurance firm to accept Bitcoin as payment for premiums

Investment management firm Baillie Gifford invested $100m into digital asset company Blockchain.com

Consensys, an Ethereum technology incubator, raised $65m from UBS, Mastercard, and JP Morgan

State Street, America’s second-oldest bank, released plans to build a crypto asset exchange

BNY Mellon confirmed they will act as service providers for a proposed Bitcoin ETF from Skybridge

Former CIA Director Michael Morrell published a paper refuting illicit stereotypes about Bitcoin

The European Investment Bank created a €100m digital bond issuance on the Ethereum blockchain

Time Magazine listed two digital asset companies in its annual list of 100 Most Influential Companies

US Bank participated in a $30m funding raise by crypto custodians Securrency  

Gaming giant Nexon purchased $100m worth of Bitcoin

Multiple Ethereum ETFs began trading in Canada, following successful Canadian Bitcoin ETFs

Sotheby’s auction house sold non-fungible tokens for $17m at their first blockchain-based auction

Brian BrooksChris Giancarlo, and Dick Parsons joined digital asset companies from traditional finance

Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment purchased over $350m in Coinbase stock within two days of listing

Online bank Revolut added support for an additional 11 digital assets to their platform

Insurance provider Liberty Mutual participated in a $100m raise for digital asset manager NYDIG

Chinese tech company Meitu increased their corporate digital asset holdings to $100m

Grayscale announced plans to convert their Bitcoin Trust product into a Bitcoin ETF

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) began assembling a $1bn digital asset venture fund

Daniel Loeb’s Third Point LLC hedge fund confirmed exposure to crypto assets through Coinbase

Mark Cuban, American tech billionaire, disclosed a digital asset portfolio consisting of 30% Ethereum

•American professional sports teams from the NBANFL, and MLB increased adoption of digital assets

Bitcoin set a new record of $64,860 in mid-April before retracing to $57,000 at the end of the month

Ethereum achieved several new all-time highs, rising throughout the month from $1,919 to $2,760

•The total digital assets market cap surpassed $2tn for the first time, reaching a record high of $2.27tn