Gregory Wagner

UPDATE: Galaxy to launch $100M #crypto hedge fund Galaxy, led by CEO Mike Novogratz, is preparing to launch a $100 million crypto hedge fund, reinforcing growing institutional appetite for actively managed digital asset strategies. The launch highlights increasing confidence among professional investors as market structure and liquidity continue to mature.

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Jingle All the Way to 2026 as US Banks & Materials Ring in Momentum Shifts By Liam Boggan, Founder, CEO and Head of Research at Quantmatix Institutional investors are rotating away from tech stocks and moving into banks, financials, and materials. The latest weekly from Quantmatix Research Quantmatix reveal financials remain strong, materials and consumer sectors are accelerating, while energy and utilities are flashing warning signs. Materials and Banks Lead the Rotation Basic materials have outperformed all sectors, gaining 39.6% year-to-date, with technical momentum strengthening significantly since December 26. Among S&P Metals and Mining (XME) holdings, 88% are strengthening, while Materials Select Sector Fund (XLB) shows 92% strengthening. Financials are experiencing similar strength. The S&P Bank ETF (KBE) has 94% of holdings in strengthening momentum since December 5, with 82% in a positive regime (up from 66% last week). The S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) shows comparable momentum, yielding 19.2% year-to-date—outpacing the S&P 500. The S&P Transportation ETF (XTN) is also showing robust momentum, with 87% of stocks strengthening. The simultaneous acceleration in materials and transportation suggests optimism about increased economic activity, not just commodity price speculation. Early Opportunities in Communications and Capital Markets Communication services and capital markets show early bullish signals. While 80% of Communication Services (XLC) stocks are strengthening, only 42% are in positive regime—often a sign of momentum building before broader recognition. Similarly, S&P Capital Markets ETF (KCE) has 82% strengthening but only 41% positive regime, presenting opportunities for those seeking early inflection points. Energy, Utilities, Real Estate: Caution Flags Energy is underperforming with the sector up just 5.1% year-to-date. The Energy Select Sector Fund (XLE) shows 65% of stocks weakening—a bear-plunge setup. Utilities mirror this decline, with 86% of Utilities Select Sector Fund (XLU) stocks weakening. Real estate and homebuilders also show negative trends. What Investors Should Consider The Quantmatix TEVO model (68% back-tested win rate) highlights KBE, XLB, KRE, and S&P Insurance ETF (KIE) as sectors with mature positive momentum. XLC and KCE offer early-stage bullish setups for those comfortable with volatility. The broad market rotation that began in late November appears to be in its early stages, indicating further opportunities for data-driven investors. Contact me for for more in depth analysis. Liam Boggan is founder, CEO and Head of Research at Quantmatix. The analysis presented here is based exclusively on objective, data-driven momentum analysis from the Quantmatix research platform covering global equity markets. This article represents opinion driven by data and is not investment advice. Investors should consult with their financial advisors before making investment decisions.

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TOKENIZED DEPOSITS LAUNCHED!! Vantage Bank & Custodia Bank Announce Launch of Tokenized Deposits for U.S. Banks: Seamless access to tokenized deposits—the future of banking—is now available to community and regional banks nationwide. Vantage, working in partnership with Custodia, invites banks and credit unions to join the consortium, which has developed a TURNKEY ACCRETIVE SOLUTION THAT INTEGRATES TOKENIZED DEPOSITS & STABLECOINS DIRECTLY into the traditional online banking environment. The patent-protected framework is designed to provide institutions and their customers with the efficiencies and security of tokenization while safeguarding core deposits from the risk of disintermediation. Unlike existing stablecoin providers, which often operate on fragmented platforms, this initiative addresses the challenge of interoperability by introducing a single digital token that can function as both a tokenized deposit and a stablecoin. This innovation enables consortium member banks and credit unions to extend future-ready financial products to their customers without undermining deposit stability. Consortium member banks and credit unions will also gain the benefit of the premier patent portfolio pertaining to protocols for tokenizing U.S. dollars on blockchains, which Custodia has been developing since 2020. The platform is open to institutions of all sizes. Q&A available here: https://lnkd.in/guuZQeaf https://lnkd.in/gDJ8t9Yc

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🔴 BNY’s tokenized cash launch reinforces the idea that U.S. capital markets will soon operate with a fully tokenized collateral stack👇 [CONTEXT] On Friday, the world’s largest custodian, BNY Mellon, announced the launch of a service enabling the onchain representation of traditional cash. 👉 BNY Mellon will begin with "collateral and margin workflow use cases,” meaning using tokenization and tokenized deposits to enhance critical institutional workflows, including collateral management, margin calls, and intraday liquidity, before pursuing any broader ambitions in payments. A step-by-step, custodian-led approach. 🎯What will BNY’s clients be able to do? → Use tokenized cash as collateral, notably for margin purposes. → Perform intraday settlement and reconciliation, a significant step forward for position management and treasury operations. All while benefiting from the same legal protections as traditional bank deposits, including deposit-style safeguards and yield treatment, and being available 24/7. This represents a fundamental difference from what is currently developing in crypto-native DeFi. 🌐 For now, the underlying blockchain networks have not been disclosed. However, likely, the service will initially leverage the Canton Network, developed by Digital Asset, which has seen a wave of funding rounds and large-scale experiments with major financial institutions over the past two years. This week, JPMorgan also announced the deployment of its tokenized cash on the Canton Network, following an earlier rollout on Base, Coinbase’s Layer 2 → Other banks are expected to follow with their own tokenized cash offerings, usable under similar conditions, including UBS, Citi, Bank of America, and HSBC. And this is where things are going to get interesting👇 🎯 One more building block toward large-scale tokenization In December, the Canton Network announced a partnership with DTCC, which sits at the center of U.S. capital markets, safeguarding more than $100 trillion in assets and processing over $3.7 quadrillion in securities transactions each year. → Initially, the partnership will focus solely on experiments involving tokenized U.S. Treasuries, before being extended to the largest U.S. equities. → In this race, Nasdaq and Coinbase are already competing fiercely, something that will only accelerate the pace of adoption. If developments continue at this pace, U.S. capital markets could soon operate with a fully tokenized collateral stack, likely unfolding first on semi-public networks such as the Canton Network. …before truly scaling on fully public blockchains like Ethereum (my take). At Blockstories, we’ll be following this closely in our Institutional Briefing, a weekly newsletter on institutional developments in digital assets. To subscribe, you’ll find the link in the first comment👇

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The Clearing Company has officially filed its application with the CFTC to become a Derivatives Clearing Organization—a key step toward launching fully regulated, onchain prediction markets. Backed by a $15M seed round earlier this year, the team is focused on building the underlying clearing and settlement infrastructure rather than a consumer app, aiming to bring stablecoin-native transparency and compliance to the category. Also in the news this week... → How and why Flows is building the gaming industry’s version of Zapier. → Zero Labs has opened applications for its seventh Innovation Launchpad Cohort, a mentorship-driven accelerator, and is on the hunt for startups shaping Las Vegas’ future economy. → Kalshi is now valued at $11B after securing a $1B financing round led by returning backers Sequoia and CapitalG, according to a TechCrunch report. Read more in our weekly newsletter ⤵️ https://lnkd.in/edk6wTMX

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Ondo Finance launches its tokenized T-Bill, USDY, on Sei Network—bringing 4.25% APY and institutional-grade RWA exposure to the ultra-fast Layer-1 chain. Read the Latest Full News - https://lnkd.in/eP8UU27n #GlobalFinTechEdge #FinTech #OndoFinance #USDY #TokenizedTreasuries #SeiNetwork #RealWorldAssets #Layer1Blockchain #DeFi #Stablecoins #OnchainFinance #YieldFarming

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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is enhancing its surveillance of insider trading on offshore prediction markets such as Polymarket by using artificial intelligence and blockchain tracing tools such as Chainalysis. The CFTC is staffing up to handle the increased workload, and Chairman Michael Selig says the agency will pursue suspicious traders using virtual private networks to access these markets.

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FDIC Chair Travis Hill says the agency is working on guidance for tokenized deposit insurance to help financial institutions expand their digital-asset presence. "A deposit is a deposit," Hill said at a Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia conference. "Moving a deposit from a traditional-finance world to a blockchain or distributed-ledger world shouldn't change the legal nature of it."

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Securitize and VanEck are bringing VBILL to Aave Labs' Horizon RWA market as eligible collateral, powered by Chainlink Labs' NAVLink feeds. Now, qualified institutions can borrow stablecoins against VBILL holdings, turning tokenized Treasuries into productive onchain collateral for the first time.

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