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Huobi Eco Chain, an open-source, decentralized public blockchain, today announced 11 new partners, including Hong Kong-based blockchain gaming company Animoca Brands and crypto data website CoinMarketCap — which is owned by Huobi rival Binance — that will run validating nodes to improve the stability and decentralization of the network. Fast facts Other new validators include […]

CoinShares, Europe’s largest digital asset investment firm, today announced that is acquiring Elwood Technologies’ Exchange Traded Fund Index Business and its equity research unit in a US$17 million equity swap. Fast facts The deal will see CoinShares adding over US$1 billion in assets under management through the Invesco Elwood Global Blockchain Equity UCITS ETF, which […]

Centralized data management is outdated and vulnerable to hacking, says Li Jun of Ontology. Here’s how blockchain can make data more secure.

A legislator from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea today announced a proposal to defer tax on virtual assets for one year, after which income derived from cryptocurrencies would be treated as financial investment income for tax purposes. Fast facts Noh Woong-rae proposed deferring the levying of tax on income from crypto transactions until January […]

The supply of BTC held on exchanges has hit its lowest point since January, suggesting the worst of the coin’s selloff is over, according to data from crypto analytics firm Santiment. Fast facts Santiment tweeted yesterday: “The 6-month low is a promising sign, as it generally will indicate there is a decreased risk of more […]

Global resort group Pavilions Hotels & Resorts will allow its customers to use crypto to book stays as of tomorrow, its managing director for Asia has told Forkast.News. Fast facts Scot Toon said Pavilions had partnered with British payment service Coindirect to allow guests paying in more than 40 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, to […]

Japan’s plan to launch a digital yen is likely to come into sharper focus in late 2022, a lawmaker overseeing the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s digital currency strategy has told Reuters.  Fast facts The Bank of Japan launched the first phase of a central bank digital currency experiment in April. It hopes to move to […]

British lender Barclays is preventing its customers from making payments to Binance following a regulatory crackdown on the crypto exchange by the country’s Financial Conduct Authority last month, the Financial Times reports. Fast facts The bank said the move would not impact customers’ ability to withdraw funds from Binance, and that it would continue to […]

Institutional sentiment appears to be shifting back to being positive toward crypto as crypto investment products saw inflows of US$63 million for the first time in five weeks, according to a report by CoinShares, Europe’s largest digital asset investment firm. Previously, there were four straight weeks of crypto fund outflows. Fast facts: “For the first […]

In the wake of crackdowns on crypto mining in China, investment firm IBC Group has announced it plans to shut all BTC and Ethereum mining operations in the country and relocate elsewhere.

JYP Entertainment, a South Korean entertainment conglomerate that counts K-pop acts including 2PM and TWICE among its stars, has unveiled a plan to partner with blockchain company Dunamu to set up a non-fungible token platform dedicated to K-pop. Fast facts JYP’s partnership with Dunamu, the operator of Korea’s biggest crypto trading platform, Upbit, will involve […]

Input Output Hong Kong, one of the companies behind the Cardano blockchain, is expanding the Cardano ecosystem through partnerships with Nexo, a cryptocurrency lending platform and decentralized finance liquidity aggregator Orion Protocol. Fast facts Input Output Hong Kong is partnering with Nexo to integrate ADA — the native cryptocurrency of the Cardano blockchain — to the […]

The price of Ether has jumped to a fortnight high as Ethereum’s London EIP-1559 upgrade draws close and investors look to get back into alt-coins.

Three of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea have tightened restrictions on virtual currency trading by their employees in a move designed to comply with the nation’s crypto regulations. Fast facts Bithumb announced that starting this month, it had banned its employees from trading cryptocurrencies using Bithumb accounts. The exchange has made employees sign […]

The Philippine Stock Exchange wants to be the country’s platform for trading crypto assets when regulators issue rules to govern the sector, according to a report by CNN Philippines.  Fast facts Stock exchange President and CEO Ramon Monzon said the bourse’s management had first discussed the idea of setting up a domestic crypto exchange two […]

The Bureau of Economics and Information Technology in the Chinese city of Wuhan plans to cultivate more than 100 blockchain companies within three years. Fast facts Authorities in Wuhan issued a document outlining the blueprint, according to which rewards of up to 2 million yuan (about US$309,000) and blockchain technology research program subsidies of 500,000 yuan (US$77,250) […]

Marathon Digital Holdings mined 265.6 Bitcoins last month, a 17% increase over the previous month, according to a company press release. Fast facts That mining increased the company’s holdings to 5,784 bitcoins with an estimated market value of US$206.1 million. The total includes a bulk purchase of 4,182 bitcoins the company bought in January for […]

The Korea Institute of Virtual Asset Valuation, launched last month, is set to release its first report in July 15, evaluating 10 domestic cryptocurrencies. The new non-profit organization is aiming to provide information to help protect investors from buying crypto coins based on misleading disclosures. Fast facts At the end of every month, 10 domestic […]

Vietnamese Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính has asked the country’s central bank to pilot a cryptocurrency program from 2021 to 2023, English-language newspaper Việt Nam News reports. Fast facts The plan was signed off in Prime Minister’s Decision No. 942/QĐ-TTg on the country’s broad development strategy of moving towards digital government. It also encompassed artificial […]

Despite uncertainty surrounding cryptocurrency regulation in India, Coinbase — the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States — is stepping up its expansion plans in the world’s second-most populous country and home to fast-growing projects such as Polygon and Instadapp. Fast facts Coinbase is looking to build out its India tech hub, which was announced […]

Being a ‘crypto native’ involves much more than using Bitcoin and DeFi, writes Alvin Lee of DeGate DAO. It’s sharing core values like freedom and inclusion.

Mintable, a Singapore-based non-fungible token platform, this week closed a US$13 million series-A funding round, with U.S. payments technology company Ripple Labs investing. Fast facts Mintable, currently built on the Ethereum and Zilliqa blockchains, enables users to create, buy and sell NFTs using fiat or cryptocurrency. Mintable intends to use the fresh capital to scale […]

As countries step up their implementation of the Financial Action Task Force’s standards, the list of regulators that have Binance in their crosshairs just keeps growing longer. Fast facts Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission today filed a criminal complaint against Binance — the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume — for operating a digital asset […]

Ripple says William Hinman holds important insights into SEC’s stance on Bitcoin, Ether and XRP. How is Hinman’s 2018 speech on crypto relevant to the lawsuit?

The Chinese city of Xiong’an, a prototype so-called smart city, has launched a new round of digital yuan giveaways. Fast facts Unlike previous giveaways, which have been based on a lottery system, authorities are handing out 3 million yuan in e-CNY based on the number of steps people walk in a bid to encourage fitness. […]

Elon Musk has once again sent a coin’s price skyward with a simple tweet; this time more than doubling the price of the memecoin Baby Doge by inserting its name into the lyrics of popular children’s song, “Baby Shark”. Fast facts Replacing the title of the song with the name of the coin, the tweet […]

Japanese conglomerate SoftBank’s Latin America fund has plowed US$200 million into Brazilian crypto exchange Mercardo Bitcoin, according to a Reuters report. Fast facts The investment is SoftBank’s largest in Latin America to date, and brings the valuation of Mercardo’s parent company, 2TM Group, to US$2.1 billion, making it the eighth-most valuable fintech firm in the […]

Deposit account bears closer comparison to distressed debt fund than to mainstream bank account, expert says.

The chief of South Korea’s main finance sector regulator has said that no banks will be exempted from anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism compliance when they sign contracts with virtual asset trading platforms. Fast facts According to South Korea’s crypto exchange regulations, crypto trading platforms must acquire contracts with local banks to provide their […]

Crypto exchange Huobi yesterday issued an announcement in simplified Chinese saying that it would implement a “T+1” withdrawal freezing time for all over-the-counter trades, meaning that traders can transfer cryptocurrency out only 24 hours after depositing it. In some cases, the freeze will last up to 36 hours.  Fast facts At present, the announcement appears […]

Trading platform Robinhood has been fined some US$70 million in a case involving system outages and allegedly misleading information.

Top blockchain and cryptocurrency news: Binance bounced out of Britain. Musk moves Shiba Inu prices again. China’s digital currency gets ready to roll.

What does a fully functioning network with DeFi applications look like, and why is it important to assess? Garrette Furo of Cosmos explains.

Adoption of e-CNY for urban transport networks marks first step in wider introduction of state-backed digital money.

Wealth management firms need to develop new offerings around emerging trends such as the rise of digital assets and sustainable investing, according to Capgemini’s World Wealth Report 2021.

Formula 1 has announced that Hong Kong-based Crypto.com will be an inaugural global partner for the new F1 Sprint series in 2021.

Taiwan is set to enact new anti-money laundering rules that take effect July 1 to further boost AML requirements for crypto exchanges.

Bitmain has signed a deal to sell 30,000 of its Antminer machines to TeraWulf, a U.S. crypto miner that claims to use mostly clean energy.

Institutional demand for cryptocurrency appears to be slowing, according to a report by analytics company Glassnode.

Bithumb — South Korea’s second-largest crypto exchange — has rubbished claims that it is charging token issuers fees to list their coins on its platform.

Nasdaq-listed Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, announced today its plans to expand its business internationally as it seeks to improve its asset-listing process and build a crypto app store. Fast facts: “We’re seeing crypto quickly mature from its initial use case of trading bitcoin to the trading of thousands of new […]

With Theta’s new mainnet 3.0, the network aims to be the go-to blockchain-powered content delivery platform for online streaming. Will Theta succeed?

Hex Trust, a Hong Kong-based digital asset custodian, today announced that it has secured investment from Cyberport, a technology incubator project backed by the Hong Kong government.

Cryptocurrency exchange FTX today announced that American football star Tom Brady and his wife, Gisele Bündchen, are taking equity stakes in it, in a multi-year partnership.

Through tomorrow, a Senate committee is taking public comments on how best to make Australia into a global crypto leader and fintech hub.

Crypto investment in India has grown from about US$200 million to nearly US$40 billion in the past year, driven in large measure by demand among young investors.

Singapore cryptocurrency exchange Coinhako today announced a 500% increase in trading volume during the first five months of 2021 compared to the whole of 2020.

Four executive employees of South Korean crypto exchange V Global have been arrested on charges of alleged fraud involving more than US$1.9 billion.

Agricultural Bank of China has set up a fintech innovation center in Xiong’an, a model for a so-called smart city.

Chinese cryptocurrency exchange Huobi has stopped providing crypto derivative trading services to users in China and Taiwan.

Nansen, a Singapore startup, is the latest darling of venture capitalists like Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) bullish on the growing field of crypto analytics.

Ethereum is bearing the brunt of negative sentiment on crypto, with net outflows from institutional products related to the token hitting a record of US$50 million last week.

Samsung Asset Management, South Korea’s biggest asset manager, has launched a fund tied to a virtual world known as the metaverse.

Mexico’s finance minister reiterated his country’s ban on cryptocurrencies on Monday, saying they are not legal tender and are not to be treated as currencies within the country

Bitcoin’s hashrate fell to 58.7971 exa hashes per second on Sunday — the lowest point since August 2019.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore is inviting proposals for retail central bank digital currency innovations to improve payment services.

FCA says Binance is not permitted to offer regulated activities in the UK, but users of the world’s largest crypto exchange remain unaffected — for now.

Why are so few adopting FATF guidance for VASPs? Money laundering watchdog decries ‘continued misuse of virtual assets through jurisdictional arbitrage.’

Payment for listings raises questions over integrity of cryptocurrencies’ credit scores as compliance deadline nears.

What is blockchain and how can it help smaller companies? A special panel sponsored by Blockchain-based Service Network explores the use cases.

As China shuts down crypto mining over environmental concerns, miners are moving next door to Kazakhstan, one of the most coal-rich countries in the world.

Hong Kong’s financial secretary has reiterated the city’s determination to develop digital versions of the Hong Kong dollar and the mainland Chinese yuan.

Lawmaker Carlos Rejala tamped down speculation that Paraguay might follow El Savador’s footsteps in making Bitcoin legal tender.

Elon Musk set off a new SHIB price rally after tweeting that he would name his Shiba Inu—the dog breed that the joke meme coin is named after—’Floki.’

SEC does not want its former head of Corporation Finance to testify or answer question about XRP. Who is William Hinman — and what might he tell Ripple?

A major Ethereum upgrade via London hard fork — which experts call a ‘seismic shift’ for the industry — is coming soon. Are ‘Ethereum killers’ doomed?

Urged on by the authorities, banks have wasted little time in putting e-CNY infrastructure in place, but now comes the hard part — getting people to use it.

Crypto exchange Gemini has bought US$4 million in carbon credits to offset the environmental impact of its Bitcoin holdings

Accountancy giant KPMG is partnering with Australian property group Mirvac to create a blockchain platform to track the provenance of buildings.

Following Israel’s recent tests of a digital shekel, the Palestinian Monetary Authority is looking to launch its own central bank digital currency.

Chinese crypto mining rig maker Bitmain has decided to suspend global spot sales of its Antminer machines, as some of its clients are reselling their rigs.

Chainalysis, the blockchain and cryptocurrency data analytics firm, announced today that it has raised US$100 million in a Series E funding round with a US$4.2 billion valuation. Fast facts: Headquartered in New York, Chainalysis provides blockchain-based software that enables governments and businesses to detect and prevent cryptocurrency crime and money laundering. Chainalysis’ series E round […]