We hope you'll forgive us for coming to you a little bleary-eyed and tardy from last night's Euro 2020 final. As the wait to win silverware goes on for England, fans can turn to crypto to find solace.

Last week, it was reported that London-based Marshall Wace – one of the world's largest hedge funds – is gearing up to invest in the crypto industry. Marshall Wace’s crypto foray comes at a time of rapid institutional expansion for the industry. Last week, one of our oldest and dearest clients, Nickel Digital, published the results of its survey of wealth managers and institutional investors with prior exposure to crypto assets spanning the US, the UK, France, Germany and UAE. The survey revealed that 82% of the 100 investors and wealth managers polled expect to increase their exposure to digital assets between now and 2023.

With FTX and crypto.com helping create mainstream crypto awareness through their respective missions to sponsor every sport imaginable, and more crypto native companies scrambling to go public (more on this below), the lines between digital assets and traditional finance will intersect more and more.

So cheer up England fans. Football will come home one day. In the meantime, enjoy the world coming to crypto.

If you’d like to get in touch with us about any of our products or services, we look forward to hearing from you. Just send us a note.

This week's top stories

Circle to merge with Bob Diamond-backed SPAC in $4.5bn deal

Circle, best known for co-creating the US dollar-backed stablecoin USD Coin, plans to go public later this year through a merger with special purpose acquisition company Concord Acquisition Corp, which is backed by former Barclays boss Bob Diamond. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter and would value the company at $4.5bn. Read More

Former NYSE president to take crypto exchange Bullish public via SPAC

Bullish, the cryptocurrency exchanged backed by Block.one, revealed Friday its plans to go public via a SPAC deal, making it the latest company in the digital asset space to announce its intentions to list its shares on an equity exchange. As part of the deal, Bullish will merge with Far Peak Acquisition Corp , a SPAC company that has been led by former NYSE President Tom Farley. Farley will take the reins as Bullish's new chief executive. The deal values the firm at a whopping $9 billion, according to a press announcement. Read more

US financial regulator FinCEN hires its first-ever chief digital currency adviser

The U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said Tuesday it’s adding a “Chief Digital Currency Advisor” to its ranks. Michele Korver, who joined the U.S. Department of Justice as its first “Digital Currency Counsel” in late 2017, will consult with FinCEN Acting Director Michael Mosier on cryptocurrency’s role in financial crime. The hire offers another sign that FinCEN is re-upping its crypto focus. Read more

In case you missed it

⚡️Bank of America has reportedly set up crypto research team.

⚡️UFC lands ‘$175m’ Crypto.com fight kit sponsorship.

⚡️Visa reports over $1bn in crypto spending in H1 2021.

⚡️Israeli counterterror authority seizes 84 crypto addresses it says belong to Hamas.

⚡️CoinShares to acquire blockchain equity index from Alan Howard’s Elwood.

⚡️Sygnum becomes the first bank to offer Ethereum 2.0 staking.

⚡️UK bank Barclays blocks payments to Binance.

⚡️Santander UK is the latest bank to block payments to Binance.

⚡️Kazakhstan introduces additional taxes for crypto miners.

⚡️Cryptopia employee admits to stealing $172k in crypto.

⚡️Ransomware group REvil strikes again, demands $70m in Bitcoin from 200 US firms.

⚡️Crypto.com receives EMI license in Malta.

⚡️Jack Dorsey’s Square confirms: We are building a bitcoin hardware wallet.

⚡️Bitcoin is better than gold, says Apple co-founder Wozniak.

⚡️SoftBank’s LINE launches CBDC blockchain solution.

From Copper

Analyst Retrospective: July 2021

The number of Bitcoin held on exchanges has flatlined since mid-June heading into Q3, 2021. Ethereum, on the other hand, has seen over 1 million coins scooped off from exchanges since the end of May. While it might be early to say confidently, there is the potential for fundamentals to break correlations of a market that has remained lumped together. The July instalment of our Analyst Retrospective series looks at various metrics that show small signs of reprieve. Read it here.

Are global investors paying attention to Web 3.0? They should be.

Over the past few months, the seismic shift in investor sentiment for digital assets has made international media headlines. But while some institutional investors only recently started incorporating these assets in their portfolios, the smartest are already looking ahead to the next phase of technological innovation set to disrupt the world — Web 3.0. Read our latest insight article here to find out what this new era of computing entails and the value it is creating as it unfolds.

HFM Panel: The Bitcoin revolution - hedge funds and the global crypto landscape

Join us this Thursday at the HFM European Technology Forum 2021, an online event inviting European asset managers to come together to learn, discuss and network with their peers, partners and other industry experts. Our Head of Strategy, Asen Kostadinov, will be taking part in a panel discussion at 4:50pm BST alongside Steve Hank, Matthew Lempriere, Charlie McGarraugh and Michelle Chivunga exploring what makes digital assets an attractive investment. Apply to attend here.