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UBS, the Zürich-based banking giant, will let some clients who desire to trade bitcoin ETFs do so, subject to some conditions, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The conditions, according to the person close to UBS who asked to not be named, include: UBS cannot solicit the trades and accounts with a lower risk tolerance won’t be able to buy them.

A UBS spokesperson declined to comment.

Citigroup, meanwhile, “currently provides our institutional clients with access to the recently approved Bitcoin ETFs from an execution and asset servicing perspective,” a spokesperson told CoinDesk Thursday. The New York-based global bank is “evaluating the products for individual Wealth clients.”
Bitcoin ETFs debuted to enormous excitement on Thursday, with billions of dollars worth traded on the first day they were available.
Vanguard, the large U.S.-based investment firm, said Thursday it would not let customers trade them.



Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, announced a Memorandum of Understanding with SBI Holdings, the prolific web3 and blockchain investor. SBI will help Circle to circulate USDC in Japan and together they will “expand the use of stablecoins in Japan.”
USDC is the second largest stablecoin with a $24.6 billion market capitalization. While USDC is considerably smaller than Tether, the latter is not issued from a regulated jurisdiction. Plus, the State of New York banned Tether, making regulated institutions wary.
In terms of the deal, SBI Shinsei Bank will also provide banking services to Circle. And the SBI Group will adopt Circle’s Web3 solutions including its programmable wallet.
SBI’s crypto exchange subsidiary SBI VC Trade applied for a license as an electronic payment instruments service. This is to help to distribute USDC.

https://www.ledgerinsights.com/usdc-japan-stablecoin-circle-sbi/


Tether Freezes $225M Linked to Human Trafficking Syndicate Amid DOJ Investigation
The $225 million was related to the “pig butchering” scam.

Stablecoin issuer Tether has frozen $225 million worth of its own stablecoin following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) into an international human trafficking syndicate in Southeast Asia.
The investigation was ongoing for months and used blockchain analysis tools provided by Chainalysis. It marks the largest-ever freeze of a stablecoin, a press release said.

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/11/20/tether-freezes-225m-linked-to-human-trafficking-syndicate-amid-doj-investigation/


Belgium’s KBC Bank has revamped its Bolero crowdfunding offering using blockchain. Bolero isn’t your typical crowdfunding platform where you get rewards or invest in equity. It’s more of a crowd lending platform with SME bonds as the primary investing tool. Smaller to medium sized firms raise anything from a few hundred thousand to a few million euros. Going forward, these bonds will be tokenized bonds. However, it all happens behind the scenes and KBC doesn’t make a fuss about blockchain on the customer facing website. 
Frankly, that’s as it should be. Blockchain is about the plumbing. For smaller bond issuances like those on Bolero, blockchain can bring efficiencies. In this case, smart contracts look after the fundraising, interest payments and principal repayment. Additionally, the bond and the cash are blockchain-based, so it supports atomic settlement. 


Today the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced its digital money plans focused on regulated stablecoins, tokenized deposits and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). It doesn’t expect its stablecoin regulations to come into force for a year. Hence, in the meantime, it is giving the go ahead to subsidiaries of StraitsX and Paxos to issue stablecoins. However, we believe they will look different from stablecoins as we know them today. They might be available on multiple public blockchains, but final settlement is likely to happen on a privately controlled chain.
The clues are in a new MAS paper on Project Orchid setting out its vision. It will apply to regulated stablecoins, tokenized deposits and central bank digital currency (CBDC). Tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins have to settle on “Orchid compatible ledgers” (OCLs).
An OCL ledger operator must comply with all legal and regulatory requirements relevant to its conduct. In other words digital currency has to settle on a ledger under the control of a defined operator. That makes sense for banks but differs from how stablecoins operate today.
Here’s the major clue: “Permissionless networks whereby anyone may view, edit, and conduct any activities, including deploying smart contracts without controls or oversight are unlikely to meet the requirements of qualification as an OCL (ledger).”