In a significant move for the cryptocurrency market, digital securities firm Securitize has gained control of Onramp Invest, a cryptocurrency fund managing over $40 billion in assets. The primary aim of this acquisition is to streamline the process for registered investment advisors (RIAs) to gain access to assets classes like private equity, private credit, and secondary asset sectors. The merge brings more than $40 billion in combined assets—assets handled by Onramp for a United States-wide RIA community.
Onramp’s customer base includes well-recognised firms in the crypto industry, including the exchange-traded fund WisdomTree, asset manager Valkyrie Invest, the Global X ETF firm, and cryptocurrency media outlet Coindesk. With the acquisition, RIAs will now be given the opportunity to introduce their clientele to alternative asset investments like private credit, private equity, and real estate through Onramp Invest’s dashboard.
Securitize plans to enhance and diversify RIA investments by providing them with unobstructed access to its portfolio of alternative investments. Onramp has already been offering RIAs simple avenues to digital assets, thus integrating tokenized alternative assets to complement RIA portfolios as a logical next step. Wealth generation typically occurs via private market alternative assets, and combining Securitize and Onramp will enable RIAs to give client access to private wealth creation.
Alongside this news, North Korean hackers’ activities threaten the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem. North Korean cybercriminals have stolen an estimated $2 billion in cryptocurrency over the past five years, accounting for 20% of the total hacked funds in 2023 alone. In fact, North Korean cyberattacks are reportedly ten times larger than those carried out by other malicious entities.
These hackers have also turned their focus towards the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, exploiting the vulnerabilities of cross-chain bridges that handle a significant volume of crypto transfers. There’s also a growing trend of cybercriminals resorting to sophisticated “multi-stage money laundering processes” in response to aggressive sanctions, law enforcement operations, and improved blockchain tracing tools.
The cybersecurity concerns surrounding cryptocurrencies, coupled with the power moves in the industry such as Securitize’s acquisition of Onramp, underlines the complex and continually evolving landscape of the blockchain market. While increased access to digital assets could potentially fuel more wealth generation, it’s critical to stay vigilant in the face of rising cyber threats in the global crypto industry.
Source: Cointelegraph
