Even within a relatively tradition-bound area such as wealth management, a number of prominent players have gotten into the digital assets act, leading to the idea that such entities are becoming more part of the mainstream.

The noise around crypto-currencies, sometimes also known as digital assets, refuses to fade. Bitcoin rose over $64,000 per coin earlier today, surging about 10 times from a year ago.

Coinbase, the crypto-dealing platform, is scheduled to list on Nasdaq today – marking what could be a further move into the mainstream. Regulators had cleared the IPO more than a week ago.

Media reports said that Coinbase, the largest such crypto-currency exchange in the US, is slated to list with a valuation of more than $90 billion. More than 50 types of crypto-currencies trade on it. 

The Coinbase IPO adds to a slew of share floats - important liquidity events that wealth managers track - in recent months. One major driver of IPOs over the past 12 months has been so-called blank check companies, or Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, as reported here.

The IPO may also be a further “right of passage” for cryptos. As has been pointed out to this news service, bitcoin and other digital assets are no longer seen as fringe entities for computer geeks, libertarians who disdain (arguably with some justice) inflated state fiat currencies, and money launderers. While the international regulatory community is far from reaching a consensus on how to oversee these cryptos, a number of major financial institutions such as BNY Mellon, JP Morgan, Guggenheim Partners and Julius Baer, have entered the space.

Separately, earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that New York City real estate mogul Kent Swig has secured a minimum of $6 billion in gold reserves to back a new digital token called DIGau. The token will be pegged to the price of gold and is secured against mining claims in Nevada and Arizona. It’s an example of how the worlds of cryptocurrencies and hard assets such as precious metals intersect. The distributed technology known as blockchain, that underpins cryptos, is also being used by some practitioners to facilities gold trading, as reported here.

(Today in London, spot gold fetched as much as $1,746 per ounce, having traded as low as $1,679 on March 31.)

Swig’s venture is what is called a “stablecoin” where the value is linked to an external reference such as gold or the dollar, reducing the sort of volatility that has been a turnoff for some potential holders of cryptos in the past.

Coin issuers like Swig and Braverman’s Dignity Gold, parent of DIGau’s issuer, must hold the value of their reserve currency at all times, to assure investors that there’s a backstop against the price falling below the fiat currency, the report said. 

UBS issued a note today saying that it expects gold prices to weaken because of expected higher interest rates and a stronger dollar, which tend to weaken the attractions of holding the yellow metal. The Zurich-listed bank predicts that gold will slip to $1,600 per ounce by the end of 2021.

In late March, reports said that Goldman Sachs will soon offer private wealth clients exposure to digital assets such as bitcoin, adding to a run of large banks entering the space. Outside banking and finance, Tesla, the electric car firm led by maverick entrepreneur and space flight tycoon Elon Musk, is among the most high-profile players in bitcoin. In early February, the firm said that it had bought $1.5 billion of bitcoin.