Swiss Top Bank UBS Launches Ethereum-Based Fund

Swiss bank UBS has introduced a tokenized money market fund on the Ethereum blockchain, responding to the rising demand for digital financial assets among investors.

Announced Nov. 1, the "UBS USD Money Market Investment Fund Token" (uMINT) offers institutional-grade cash management, anchored in high-quality money market instruments within a conservative, risk-managed framework.

Thomas Kaegi, UBS APAC co-head, noted the growing investor interest in tokenized assets across various asset classes. This move aligns with UBS’s global strategy to harness distributed ledger technology for fund issuance and distribution, utilizing both public and private blockchain networks.

“We have seen a growing investor appetite for tokenized financial assets across asset classes. Through leveraging our global capabilities and collaborating with peers and regulators, we can now provide clients with an innovative solution,” he said in an official statement

The fund is part of UBS's broader tokenization initiative, UBS Tokenize. Earlier this year, UBS conducted a pilot for a tokenized Variable Capital Company (VCC) fund as part of Singapore’s Project Guardian.

Additionally, in June 2023, UBS issued CNH 200 million of digital structured notes for a third-party issuer.

More recently, in November 2023, the bank completed the world’s first cross-border repurchase transaction with a natively-issued digital bond, fully executed and settled on a public blockchain.

ETH "still got it"

At press time, ETH price is traded just under $2,500.

Source: CoinMarketCap

Despite the general doubts about its validity in this cycle, the second-largest cryptocurrency is still popular among crypto enthusiasts.

According to the Coinbase quarterly report for the last period from July to September, the trading volume of Bitcoin on Coinbase increased by 2% to 37%, while the trading volume of Ethereum remained unchanged at 15%.

The trading volume of the USDT stablecoin also increased by 5% to 15%.

All of this was financed by a decrease in the trading volume of other crypto assets, which naturally fell from 40% to 33%.

In total, the trading volume on Coinbase amounted to $185 billion, of which 81.62% was accounted for by institutional clients.