In a major announcement leading security token management platform, Securitize said that it had received an investment from Sony. Sony has made an investment via its venture capital fund SFV・GB L.P. It is worth noting that GB L.P is co-managed by Sony Financial Ventures (SFV) along with Global Brain.

Sony Financial Ventures came into existence in the year 2018.

Securitize has emerged as a renowned blockchain-oriented company that offers assistance to businesses in generating compliant security tokens.

Sony now figures in the long list of companies that have been supporting Securitize that may include Ripple, MUFG, Coinbase, SBI Holdings, and Blockchain Capital.

The investment from Sony has now become an addition of Securitize’s recent funding round, which already raised more than $14 million from several renowned firms.

Commenting on the latest investment from Sony, Securitize CEO and co-founder Carlos Domingo said,

The investment validates Securitize as one of the most important architects of digital capital markets while adding another marquee name to a growing list of companies who are investing in digital securities as the future of global capital markets.

Sony Financial Ventures Director Junji Nakamura said that Securitize skillfully strives to leverage blockchain technology in a bid to establish a new asset class with great capacities. Sony Financial Group has taken up this challenge with Securitize to establish new value together.

Meanwhile, Securitize has already carved its identity as a leader in the digital securities space. The firm is based in San Francisco and offers the technology for the tokenization of over 10 assets that collectively raised more than $300 million.

Digital securities also called a security token, can be used in various different asset classes. It is interesting to note that investment funds, equity, bonds, real estate along with liquid assets like collectible cars and fine arts underwent tokenization.

In the last few months, Securitize has managed to create a strong presence in the Asian securities market. With this latest investment from SFV, Securitize undoubtedly got its most prominent backing so far.

The New York Stock Exchange operator, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) along with Bakkt, the Bitcoin trading platform, is rumored to make an informal proposal to acquire eBay, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The value of the acquisition is estimated and valued at $30 billion.

Established in the year 1995, eBay claims an average user base that consists of active 183 million buyers globally, which is a rise of 2% compared to the previous quarter. This was recorded in the 4^th quarter of the year 2019, according to a report by data researcher Statista.

WSJ also highlights this as not the first offer by ICE made to buy out an e-commerce giant. So now as ICE becomes the owner as well as the operator of Bakkt, Bitcoin futures trading platform, Morgan Creek Digital co-founder Anthony Pompliano indicates a gross positive by making the ICE owner, Jeffrey Sprecher, govern all the three primary platforms.

Bakkt specializes in servicing institutional investors and is currently developing a consumer app for BTC. Pompliano writes in a report that,

The owner of the New York Stock Exchange is thinking about taking over eBay at a valuation of more than $30 billion. This is the same company that realized the importance of Bitcoin enough to start Bakkt. Would be incredible to combine NYSE, Bakkt, & eBay under one roof.

As the number of legacy firms entering the market keeps on rising, the first-movers get even more advantages. ICE aims to mitigate the gap between emerging digital money and the financial industry, while it is also touted to be one of the largest players in the financial industry.

Bakkt, meanwhile, is endeavoring to launch a user app in the year 2020 expected to make the mobility of cryptocurrencies easy, letting consumers buy an instant commodity via currencies like Bitcoin. It is constructed as a conventional app for payments, and will also reportedly rival against the consumer payments products. It will compete in closer proximity to PayPal as compared to Coinbase. Though unclear is the evidence under the ICE expanse, of interaction that might happen between eBay & Bakkt or even Bitcoin. Earlier, Sprecher has also made apparent his goals regarding improving the presence of Bitcoin globally.

In an interview with Fortune in 2018, Sprecher remarked,

Bitcoin would greatly simplify the movement of global money. It has the potential to become the first worldwide currency.

ICE’s presence in the arena of cryptocurrencies was made evident with the release of Bakkt, its fresh trading platform, that let institutional investors in gaining more exposure to bitcoin via futures contracts that were physically-settled. Though the early growth was sluggish, Bakkt soon started picking up the pace. It then released its options product for the month of December.

This was done to be aligned with the market competition by the CME Group. CME launched its own bitcoin trading options last month that slowly grew Bakkt’s single day expected volume. This competition is also keeping up with some other leading platforms who are earnestly seeking a profit from the Bitcoin derivatives.

According to Skew, the data research firm, the open interest for global Bitcoin futures on Monday, was estimated at more than $4 billion, which is a 60% rise as compared to the year’s beginning.

The Genesis Block Conference 2020, held in Bangalore on January 25^th, 2020, witnessed Nischal Shetty, the Co-founder and CEO of WazirX, the largest Cryptocurrency exchange in India, talking about the utmost need of India’s introducing its own CBDC. Launching its own central bank digital currency (CBDC) will enable Indian Currency to get global exposure which is the most desirable thing for the economic development of the nation.

The software developer turned entrepreneur, Shetty, in his speech on how launching own CBDC can have positive impacts on the country’s future said,

The biggest benefit I see is access to capital that India will get with blockchain’s introduction, which India needs for its growth.

At the conference, Shetty talked about the 3 most promising benefits that blockchain technology and Crypto can bring in for the nation’s development. He said besides providing access to cheaper capital in India, it would create hundreds of job opportunities in the form of Crypto startup companies, once the government starts taking positive steps towards mass adoption of Crypto and DLT (digital ledger technology). Lastly, the crypto adoption would bring the unbanked clans under the banking periphery of the nation.

With the market welcoming new players now, many other nations are also giving it a thought of launching their own CBDCs. Shetty opined that India too, should make immediate arrangements in launching its own CBDC before it is too late.  Because until now, not many nations have the concept of CBDCs. But a time will come when other rival nations will also set their ball rolling by launching their own CBDCs, thus overshadowing the prominence of Indian currency in the market. Then it will be difficult for India to enter the global market. To this Shetty said,

If other countries come up with their own digital currency before India and they start spreading it across, what will happen is India will never have the opportunity to have rupee as a global currency someday. But right now it’s open. The market is open. Anyone can jump in.

WazirX has been recently acquired by the global Crypto leader Binance, which, according to Shetty, will positively impact the Crypto space of the nation. With Binance’s support, WazirX will see speedy expansion and mammoth economic development.