Today, in crypto, UK Finance launched a tokenized deposits pilot in partnership with six major banks, including Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds Banking Group, BlackRock has taken early steps to file a Bitcoin Premium Income ETF, seen as a “sequel” to its popular spot Bitcoin ETF, and Hashdex added XRP, Solana and Stellar to its US crypto index ETF under the new listing standards.
UK Finance pilots tokenized sterling deposits with six major banks
UK Finance, a trade association representing over 300 financial services firms in the United Kingdom, has launched a joint pilot project for tokenized sterling deposits (GBTD).
The trade group began the pilot phase for the tokenized deposits project, which aims to provide a digital representation of traditional British pound commercial bank money, it announced on Friday.
The pilot was launched in collaboration with six major banks operating in the UK, including Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest, Nationwide and Santander.
UK Finance plans to run the pilot until mid-2026 and aims to explore benefits to customers, businesses and the UK economy, targeting greater control over payments, fraud prevention and more efficient settlement processes.
Among the use cases, the GBTD project will test three main areas: online marketplace payments, remortgaging processes and wholesale bond settlement.
According to Quant founder and CEO Gilbert Verdian, the project goes beyond improving payments and is about enabling new forms of programmable money that will “fundamentally transform how value is moved and managed.”
BlackRock chases Bitcoin yield in latest ETF as a “sequel” to IBIT
Asset management giant BlackRock filed to register a Delaware trust company for its proposed Bitcoin Premium Income ETF on Thursday, signaling a push to broaden its Bitcoin offerings.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said BlackRock’s proposed product would sell covered call options on Bitcoin futures, collecting premiums to generate yield.
The regular distributions would, however, trade away potential upside from investing in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF, which mirrors Bitcoin’s (BTC) price movements.
“This is a covered call Bitcoin strategy in order to give BTC some yield. This will be a ’33 Act spot product, sequel to the $87b $IBIT.”
The new BlackRock product would complement its iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT), which has clocked over $60.7 billion in inflows since launching in January 2024 — by far the largest of its kind — with the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) coming in next at $12.3 billion.
Hashdex expands Crypto Index US ETF under SEC generic listing standards
Asset manager Hashdex expanded its Crypto Index US exchange-traded fund (ETF) to include XRP (XRP), Solana (SOL) and Stellar (XLM) following the generic listing rule change from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The Nasdaq stock exchange-listed ETF now includes five cryptocurrencies held 1:1 by the fund, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), and is trading under the ticker symbol NCIQ, according to Thursday’s announcement.
The SEC approved generic listing standards for ETFs in September, paving the way for a faster ETF approval process for eligible cryptocurrencies.
To qualify for generic listing eligibility, a cryptocurrency must be classified as a commodity or feature futures contracts listed on reputable exchanges. Additionally, eligible cryptocurrencies must be subject to financial surveillance under the US Intermarket Surveillance Group.
Market analysts and industry executives anticipate a torrent of new crypto ETF filings due to the new standards, which will give stock market participants access to the crypto markets and blur the line between traditional financial instruments and digital assets.
