The Mainstreaming of Crypto Comes to Banking and Autos

Schwab, BlackRock, BNY All Jump Into The Crypto Pond; So Do Kia, Porsche, and Alfa Romeo

You might be wondering, with all of the volatility that has occurred in the world of crypto over the past nine or 10 months, what's going on with crypto? Well, we're seeing continued mainstreaming of this new asset class. Schwab has launched its first crypto ETF, the Schwab Crypto Thematic Index ETF, with the lowest annual cost of any ETF in the crypto space. The ticker symbol is STCE, and it owns securities that have a stake in the crypto marketplace.

Meanwhile, BlackRock, the world's largest money manager, has launched a Bitcoin private trust for its institutional investors. And in the United Kingdom, one of its largest money managers has embraced crypto investing in a regulated digital assets exchange.

Back here in the US, Bank of New York Mellon and Goldman Sachs have executed the first security lending deal using a blockchain platform. Hundreds of millions of dollars have moved between the two Wall Street firms using blockchain technology.

And there’s Brendan Howard Asset Management, a $23 billion hedge fund headed by Alan Howard. Well, he's now big into crypto. The Financial Times has compiled a list of 43 investments he owns in crypto companies. When billionaires demonstrate their interest in crypto, non-billionaires might want to pay attention. 

Your New Car Now Comes with an NFT

And guess who has launched an NFT collection? The car company Kia. They've launched 10,100 NFTs and they're not the only car company to have done that. Lamborghini, Mercedes, Chevrolet, Hyundai, Porsche, Bentley. All of them have launched NFTs. At Alfa Romeo, if you buy a car, you get an NFT. It records the vehicle's data and serves as proof that you've maintained the car properly, which improves its value. And Time magazine is now selling timepieces. The magazine is 99 years old (that's an awful lot of magazine covers), and that's what their NFTs are.

These timepieces NFTs are old covers of Time magazine. 20,000 of them they've issued. They've already generated a $10 million profit and have given 600,000 of it to charities. By the way, you can now subscribe to Time magazine with any one of 33 different digital assets. And Tiffany is also selling NFTs - 250 of them. And they're selling these NFTs for $50,000 apiece. It's not a real diamond necklace. It's an image of a diamond. No doubt about it, crypto is mainstream.