Bitfinex Securities has introduced two tokenized equity offerings with a combined value of £105 million (around $143 million), according to a June 25 statement shared with CryptoSlate.

The listings, TITAN1 and TITAN2, were issued by Ctrl Alt and represent the first equity-based tokens available on the Bitfinex Securities exchange.

The Astana Financial Services Authority regulates the listings.

Jesse Knutson, Head of Operations at Bitfinex Securities, described the listings as a pivotal moment for digital finance. He emphasized that the new offerings provide broader access to alternative investments while reducing the barriers typically seen in traditional fundraising.

These claims are unsurprising considering the rise of blockchain-based securities is reshaping how investors and institutions view capital markets.

By tokenizing real-world assets like debt and equity, platforms can lower entry barriers, improve settlement times, and expand global access. Notably, research firms like McKinsey expect tokenized real-world assets to form a multi-trillion-dollar market within the next few years.

The offerings

TITAN1 is a smaller £5 million listing designed to invest in subordinate debt issued by a UK credit union. This asset will offer investors quarterly dividend payouts.

If the credit union fails to redeem the debt after the five-year term, the token’s coupon rate will increase, providing an additional incentive for long-term holders.

On the other hand, TITAN2 is a £100 million equity issuance that targets litigation financing within the UK’s motor finance industry.

It will primarily fund claims related to historical misconduct in Personal Contract Purchase (PCP) agreements, an issue flagged by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in a January 2024 report.

The regulator’s review uncovered widespread use of unlawful practices, particularly discretionary commission arrangements used by brokers and lenders between 2007 and 2021.

Funds raised through TITAN2 will be used to process and pursue claims related to these past transactions. Investors will receive a proportional share of any successful recoveries.

The offering is structured through a private special purpose vehicle (SPV) based in Luxembourg and will be managed in collaboration with a UK law firm. TITAN2 has a three-year maturity period.

If you aren’t necessarily looking for the newest smartwatch technology, you can find a lot of good Galaxy Watch deals with each new release. As one example, buyers can get the 2022 Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 for just $99 at Walmart right now, marking over $80 off the retailer’s regular price, and a huge drop from the wearable’s original $249.99 price tag.

Despite being a few generations old, the 2022 Galaxy Watch still features Bluetooth, water resistance, and a broad-ranging bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA) sensor that keeps track of heart rate, ECGs, and more. This particular deal is for the 40mm configuration, which boasts a 1.2-inch AMOLED display, and Samsung says it’ll get up to 40 hours of battery life per charge, which is more than enough for most casual users.

Recommended if: you don’t mind going with an older smartwatch; battery life is a major priority for you when buying a smartwatch; you have other devices within the Galaxy ecosystem or you’ve liked the Wear OS interface in the past.

Skip this deal if: you’d prefer to get a newer-gen smartwatch and wouldn’t mind spending the extra money; you like an extremely thin and small watch on your wrist.

Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 (and its Classic big sibling) was well-liked upon its release in 2022, in no small part due to its good-looking AMOLED displays of 1.2 inches for the 40mm, and 1.4 for the 44mm. In many ways, this old smartwatch boasts similar characteristics to many of today’s best Samsung watches, and it also features body composition analysis, which was still pretty new at the time of release.

Samsung says it’ll get users up to 40 hours of battery life, and it also comes with a bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA) sensor that offers a range of health details, from heart rate and sleep monitoring data to body water percentage and a wide range of fitness tools. There are a lot of cheap Android smartwatches out there, but if you want the Galaxy Watch experience for only 100 bucks, this deal deserves a serious look.

When the analog warmth of vinyl collides with digital innovation, you get a truly collectible fusion of music, art, and algorithmic design

On April 25th, a beautifully experimental cross-medium collaboration will come to life with the release of Pacific Spirit, a generative art and vinyl fusion from visual artist and friend of NFTCulture, Emily Nicoll (@enicoll) and Canadian electronic music producer 747 (Ryan Chan). Hosted on Art Blocks Studio, this drop fuses code, sound, and physical media—resulting in a collection that’s as tactile as it is collectible.

Every NFT minted will serve as the unique vinyl sleeve for Pacific Spirit, the forthcoming 2×12” album from 747. That’s right: collectors not only receive a one-of-a-kind generative artwork, but also a matching physical record featuring that exact artwork as its cover. This isn’t just another digital drop—it’s a multimedia experience and a love letter to analog culture through the lens of blockchain innovation.

 The Sonic Landscape: 747’s Pacific Spirit

Known for his signature acid techno (most notably Aurora Centralis), 747 is a pillar of the global underground, delivering emotionally rich electronic music with analog heart. With Pacific Spirit, his second studio album released via Aquaregia, 747 moves into fluid, dreamy territory, incorporating jungle breaks, ambient textures, and intricate rhythmic design.

The album’s name and tone are drawn from the natural world and urban edge of British Columbia, particularly the west side of Vancouver where 747 grew up. That emotional geography becomes the bedrock for the visuals—artworks that feel like they were listened into existence.

1950s tech meets 2025 tech

often we take technology so far it loses the original essence of the medium. in the era of music streaming & a-la-carte listening, songwriters have adapted to that behavior to the detriment of the craft. sometimes we must go backwards to move forward https://t.co/P13TCRHvpN

— 747 (@RChan747) April 15, 2025

Code as Canvas: Enicoll’s Generative Vision

Our community knows and loves @enicoll for her thoughtful, emotionally resonant work—and this marks her first foray into on-chain generative art. Built in p5.js, her algorithm weaves together hand-drawn aesthetics, wave-inspired motion, and typographic fragments into pieces that echo both sonic energy and landscape memory.

Visual Highlights:

• Stroke forms that channel the energy of audio waveforms

• Lettering from “PACIFIC SPIRIT” and “747,” scribbled in system fonts and hand styles

• Color palettes grounded in British Columbia geography:

  • Pacific Spirit – Skyline and sea (default, ~50%)

  • Camosun Bog – Earthy wetlands

  • Sea to Sky – Pastel blues and high-altitude calm

  • Second Narrows – Industrial greys with tension

Layout Modes:

• Wave – Most common (~40%), echoing both water and sound

• Scatter, Radial, Grid, Concentric – Each with its own rhythm and compositional logic

One ultra-fun trait, dubbed “acid”, appears in just 3.03% of pieces and features smiley faces as a playful nod to the Roland TB-303—the beating heart of acid music.

 Mint One, Get One: Digital Art + Physical Vinyl

Each minted artwork comes with a 2×12″ vinyl copy of the Pacific Spirit album, printed with the artwork you minted as the record sleeve. This creates a personal, tangible bond between the collector and the artist—a fusion of code, identity, and sound.

Any unminted pieces (up to 300 total) will be printed and shipped to record shops around the world through Triple Vision Record Distribution, expanding the reach of this generative series far beyond the blockchain.

 Art Blocks Meets Aquaregia: New Frontiers in Art & Music

With Art Blocks providing the technical infrastructure and Aquaregia setting the sonic tone, this drop hits at the sweet spot of innovation and emotional storytelling. It’s a pioneering model for what’s possible when blockchain technology meets physical art forms—and it shows how generative art can evolve into something personal, playable, and permanent.

TL;DR:

Pacific Spirit is a generative art and vinyl collaboration by music producer 747 and NFTCulture’s friend Emily Nicoll, releasing April 25 on Art Blocks. Each NFT also serves as the cover for a 2×12” vinyl copy of the album—shipped directly to collectors. It’s a code-based reflection of acid-infused electronica and BC landscapes, packed with rare traits and built-in nostalgia.

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TransUnion Kenya, a global information and insights company, and global analytics software leader FICO are leading the charge in transforming the country’s financial landscape with new groundbreaking risk solutions that are designed to broaden access to credit and empower financial institutions. By leveraging enriched data and analytics, lenders can now make more informed decisions, which foster greater economic empowerment and build a more resilient financial ecosystem.

The two new solutions at the heart of this transformation are TransUnion’s CreditVision® Variables solution and the FICO® Score. Together, they address critical challenges in risk assessment and financial inclusion. CreditVision Variables provides an enhanced view of consumer financial behaviour, analysing over 145 data sources and up to 24 months of historical payment data. The new FICO Score is built for the Kenyan market using proprietary predictive analytics technology and over 4 million records from the TransUnion database.

Enhancing traditional credit risk strategies with the FICO Score and comprehensive data analysis can improve risk predictability and enable lenders to extend financial services to more consumers. In other global markets, lenders integrating CreditVision Variables into their credit risk strategies have experienced a significant boost in risk predictability by 20%-30%. This enhancement has led to a notable improvement in approval rates, ranging from 15%-20%.

CreditVision Variables can address essential business needs by:

• Cost-effectively identifying and engaging the right new customers

• Growing and optimising the profitability of existing customers

• Providing insights into customer motivations and behaviours

“The effects of these innovations are expected to be profound. Consumers, Small, Micro and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMMEs) and other businesses can benefit from greater access to credit and financial services, enabling them to improve their financial health and achieve their goals. Lenders will have access to better risk management and decision-making tools, leading to greater financial inclusion and economic empowerment, and driving more sustainable overall economic growth and stability,” said Morris Maina, CEO of TransUnion Kenya.

TransUnion has partnered with global analytics software pioneer FICO across Africa since 1997 and the two firms are now expanding their partnership to Kenya to introduce FICO’s advanced scoring models designed to meet the needs of the local market. This collaboration aims to improve credit-granting processes by equipping lenders with these advanced tools to manage portfolio risk and monitor credit activity.

The FICO Score is the latest evolution of credit scoring for the Kenyan market and has been designed to reflect the rapidly evolving lending ecosystem, where microlending, in particular, is more embedded than before. This single credit risk score provides lenders with a more granular and effective means of credit risk assessment, enabling a more accurate understanding of borrowers, and provides a significant boost in predictive power across all forms of lending. The predictive power of the new Kenya-specific FICO Score is significant across all forms of lending, with specific industries, such as microlending, performing particularly well. This is important in the Kenya context as 95% of scoreable consumers have at least one microlending tradeline.

Benefits of using the FICO Score include:

• A single credit score to help lenders make credit decisions across both traditional credit products and microlending, including mobile loans

• Rapid approval/decline decisions for new applicants, reducing friction at the acquisition stage

• Refined allocation of credit limits and loan amounts

• Consistent risk-based pricing and terms of business

• Improved risk management, giving lenders the confidence to make more credit available while controlling losses

• Greater efficiency using a single score across both traditional and digital lending channels

The FICO Score is a numerical snapshot of a consumer’s credit risk, providing a measure of their likelihood of fulfilling credit obligations. Using data from TransUnion, the model generates a score ranging from 300 to 850, where the higher scores indicate lower credit risk. Each credit score comes with the top four reasons for its calculation, offering transparency and actionable insights into factors impacting the score. The score is calculated on request by the lender and uses the latest information in the TransUnion file.

“This level of transparency aids both lending officers and consumers,” said Mike Manaton, Vice President of Scores at FICO. “The FICO Score provides clear insights into the factors influencing a consumer’s score. Additionally, it enables lenders to assess applicants more accurately, tailor credit terms accordingly and enable credit access for more consumers.”

An example of the power of the FICO Score is the distribution of accounts across the score range. As shown below, the risk decreases sharply as the score rises, with consumers scoring in the highest-risk decile (300-442) representing about nine times the risk of consumers scoring in the lowest-risk decile (682-850).

According to TransUnion’s Q2 2024 Consumer Pulse Study, financial inclusion in Kenya continues to improve. Its insights showed that 36% of consumers felt they had sufficient access to credit compared to 33% who felt the same a year ago. The increase in financial inclusion is noteworthy because well over half (60%) of consumers said they were considering applying for new or refinancing existing credit within the next 12 months.

“We welcome this global innovation in Kenya and are confident that the industry will adopt these solutions to drive the country’s financial inclusion agenda. Financial inclusion remains a key focus for the industry, as it is essential for fostering economic growth and empowering communities. By embracing these new technologies, we can ensure broader access to financial services, in turn supporting sustainable development and prosperity for all,” said John Gachora, Chairman of the Kenya Bankers Association (KBA).

 Discover more about CreditVision Variables here and the FICO Score here.