Crypto asset supervisor Bitwise has acquired the staking companies firm Refrain One, which oversees greater than $2.2 billion in staked property and will assist Bitwise broaden its portfolio of crypto staking merchandise.
Bitwise mentioned on Tuesday that fifty of Refrain One’s workers will be a part of Bitwise Onchain Options, the place a number of billion {dollars}’ price of crypto property are already staked.
The acquisition might see Bitwise diversify its vary of exchange-traded merchandise that embrace staking, because the Securities and Alternate Fee has proven help for a wider vary of crypto funding merchandise.
Staking permits holders of crypto tokens to generate rewards, usually between 2% and 10% a yr, by locking the tokens on a blockchain, giving buyers extra yield on prime of potential appreciation of the underlying token.
The scale of the acquisition deal was not shared. Bitwise didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley mentioned staking continues to be “probably the most compelling progress alternatives” for its hundreds of shoppers holding spot crypto property.
Deal expands Bitwise staking to extra chains
The Refrain One deal expands Bitwise’s staking capabilities on greater than 30 proof-of-stake chains, together with Solana, Hyperliquid, Monad, Avalanche, Sui, Aptos and Tezos.
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Refrain One has offered crypto staking infrastructure companies since 2018 for finance companies, household workplaces, high-net-worth people, custodians, funds, exchanges and decentralized protocols.
Bitwise mentioned the Refrain One workforce would be a part of Bitwise, together with Refrain One CEO Brian Crain, who will tackle an advisory position.
Bitwise now has almost 200 workers worldwide managing crypto exchange-traded merchandise for its hundreds of shoppers.
As of February, Bitwise has over $15 billion in property underneath administration throughout greater than 40 funding merchandise.
Its flagship merchandise are the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) and the Bitwise Ethereum ETF (ETHW), which have gathered over $2 billion and $387 million price of flows since launching in January and July of 2024, respectively.
Its different merchandise embrace the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (BSOL), Bitwise XRP ETF (XRP), the Bitwise Chainlink ETF (CLNK) and the Bitwise Dogecoin ETF (BWOW).
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