Happy Friday! Binance Bytes is an initiative by the Research team to provide a quick round-up of the week.
Highlights 🧵:
1/ Visa has introduced the Visa Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP), a new product designed to help banks issue and manage fiat-backed tokens on blockchain networks. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) will be among the first to use VTAP, creating tokens on the public Ethereum blockchain with live pilots expected in 2025. VTAP aims to facilitate seamless integration of fiat currencies into blockchain systems, offering benefits such as easy integration, programmability, and interoperability across different blockchains. Visa's initiative is part of its broader effort to leverage its expertise in digital payments and tokenization to help financial institutions adopt blockchain technologies.
2/ Bitwise has filed the first Form S-1 for a spot XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). If approved, the Bitwise XRP ETF will provide direct exposure to the value of XRP held by the trust, minus operational expenses and liabilities. The trust's XRP holdings will be custodied by Coinbase Custody Trust Company. This filing follows Bitwise's previous launches of spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs, and signals a strategic move to expand its crypto ETF offerings. Additionally, Ripple has received in-principle license approval from the Dubai Financial Service Authority, allowing it to establish a presence in the UAE for cross-border payment services.
3/ Beginning in 2025, banks in North America, Europe, and Asia will use Swift's network to conduct live trials of digital asset and currency transactions. These trials aim to demonstrate Swift's ability to facilitate the transfer of various types of value between over four billion accounts across 200 countries and territories. The focus will be on payments, foreign exchange (FX), securities, and trade, enabling multi-ledger Delivery-versus-Payment (DvP) and Payment-versus-Payment (PvP) transactions. This initiative seeks to provide financial institutions with a unified access point to multiple digital asset classes and currencies, integrating them seamlessly into the broader financial system.
Check out our latest publication from this week 🔎: Industry Observation: Valuation, Centralization, Transparency, and Rebranding
