Retail News CRM

Tag: tokens

  • Virtual retail real estate plot sells for a record US$2.4 million

    Virtual retail real estate plot sells for a record US$2.4 million

    A 566sqm piece of prime retail real estate sold online for US$2.4 million this week – but there’s a catch: it doesn’t exist.

    The land is ‘located’ on Fashion Street, a luxury retail precinct in Decentraland, a metaverse where people can buy land, visit buildings, and walk around and meet people as avatars. The buyer: crypto investor Tokens.com which says it plans to use the space to host digital fashion events and sell virtual clothing for avatars.

    The transaction was settled in a cryptocurrency called Mana and the agreed price of 618,000 Mana equates to US$2.4 million in real money.

    Decentraland said the site was the most expensive purchase of a plot of virtual real estate on its platform to date. It comprises 116 smaller parcels, each measuring 4.9sqm taking the plot said to 566sqm of virtual space.

    Decentraland is a specific type of metaverse that uses blockchain. Land and other items in Decentraland are sold in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a kind of crypto asset.

    Crypto enthusiasts buy land there as a speculative investment, using Mana.

    Andrew Kiguel, CEO of Tokens.com, said the assets would complement the ‘real estate’ already held by Metaverse Group.

    In June, a plot of virtual land in Decentraland sold for 1,295,000 Mana, worth $913,228 at the time. The buyers built a virtual shopping center to sell digital clothing, but Reuters reports it has visited this site multiple times since and has yet to see any shoppers.

    Environments such as Decentraland have grown in popularity this year, as the pandemic caused people to spend more time online. Interest in the concept surged last month when Facebook changed its name to Meta to reflect its focus on developing virtual reality products for the metaverse.

    Lees ook:

  • DBS Digital Exchange to Grow Security Token Offerings

    DBS Digital Exchange to Grow Security Token Offerings

    The platform plans to tap on the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies and digital assets among corporate investors, accredited individuals and family offices.

    DBS plans to list at least half a dozen security tokens by end-2022 on DDEx, the bank’s institutional-focused digital asset exchange, the exchange’s chairman said on Monday.

    According to Eng-Kwok Seat Moey, who is also head of capital markets, the bank’s position as one of the biggest wealth managers in Asia and its expertise in originating deals in capital markets would help it attract users and grow trading volume.

    The bank listed its first security token on the platform in May 2021, in the form of a S$15 million digital bond.

    Eng-Kwok repeated CEO Piyush Gupta’s target of growing the digital exchange’s investor base to about 1,000 customers this year, and said DBS wants to grow this number by 20-30 percent annually for the next three years as digital tokens gain acceptability.

    DDEx was launched in December 2020 with an initial offering that covered cryptocurrency trading. As of August 2021, it housed around 400 investors with close to S$130 million ($95.8 million) of digital assets in its custodial services.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • UBS Quietly Advances Token Efforts With Clients

    UBS Quietly Advances Token Efforts With Clients

    UBS has been quietly running a tokenization trial with weighty institutional investors. The Swiss-based bank has been offering more than 100 institutional clients access to a pilot program to tokenize real assets. The project is operating on the Ethereum platform, the person said.

    This represents the next step in a push into putting assets on the blockchain and selling slices represented in coins. The project, being overseen by UBS investment banker Chetan Tolia, is looking at tokenizing traditional assets including debt, structured products, and physical gold.

    The Swiss wealth manager last week dipped its toes into cryptocurrencies, in a major concession to client demand. The tokenization program has quietly been running, separately out of UBS’ investment bank, for at least 12 months, the person said. UBS declined to comment.

    UBS has long held that it is interested in distributed ledger more than it is in cryptocurrencies themselves – which represent a threat to traditional banking. The Swiss bank transacts on we.trade, a blockchain-based trade finance platform, co-launched a so-called utility settlement coin with other banks, and is part of banking’s R3 blockchain consortium.

    It isn’t clear how long UBS intends to run the tokenization pilot or release it more widely, or which products it is tokenizing.

  • DBS debuts digital tokens in corporate m-payments

    DBS debuts digital tokens in corporate m-payments

    DBS Bank has launched a new mobile banking feature that eliminates physical tokens for corporate transactions.

    The feature added to DBS IDEAL Mobile uses digital tokens to make banking on the go simpler and more convenient for corporate treasurers and small business owners.

    Available to both Apple and Android users, the bank claims to be the first Asian bank to offer this integrated service on one mobile platform.

    Currently, corporate treasurers often have to carry several security tokens to conduct their business banking, with some having up to six physical tokens with them at any one time.

    Specifically for iPhone users, the digital token utilises the user’s fingerprint to ensure identity confirmation and conduct secure online transactions. Android users will continue to key in their PIN to carry out transactions.

    This new service is available to over 140,000 DBS IDEAL and DBS IDEAL Mobile customers across 10 markets. Over 3 million transactions a month are conducted on DBS IDEAL.

    “As a bank that is shaping the future of banking, we want to provide an easy, more convenient and secure solution to our corporate customers. The new digital token feature on DBS IDEAL Mobile is a great example of how we are leveraging technology to help create a more intuitive and seamless banking experience for them,” DBS Bank head of global transaction services John Laurens said.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook: