Search results: India

Reserve Bank of India’s chief sends crypto warning. In addition, Korean crypto execs gets jailed

The Philippine Digital Asset Exchange (PDAX) has raised US$50 million in a Series B funding round led by Tiger Global.  Fast facts UBX, the venture fund of UnionBank of the Philippines, Kingsway Capital, Jump Capital, U.S. blockchain payments company Ripple, among others, also participated in the round.  The funding round started in August last year […]

PBoC pushes for e-CNY standardization, meanwhile Indian crypto unicorn CoinDCX hits 10 million users

After a poor start to the year, the market needed some good news. Industry watchers urge caution.

Thailand’s financial authorities have unveiled a plan to issue regulations that would “limit the widespread adoption of digital assets as a means of payment for goods and services” in a bid to protect the country of 70 million people. Fast facts Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ministry of Finance (MOF) and The Bank of […]

Global NFT sales are exploding in 2022, but experts predict this is only the beginning of a bigger surge in Asia.

Top blockchain and crypto news: Asian governments target crypto. Managing MATIC. China’s expanding metaverse.

Polygon’s upgrade, which piggybacks off Ethereum’s EIP-1559, makes MATIC deflationary while allowing users to estimate gas fees more accurately.

Top blockchain and crypto news: Bandwidth bust in Kazakhstan. Binance chief CZ tops rich list. Digital yuan app adoption grows.

How has layer-2 innovation saved Bitcoin from becoming a victim of its own success? Blockstream chief Adam Back explains.

What’s behind the crypto cheerleading by U.S. mayors? Are their city coins savvy moves — or will the bespoke crypto end up worthless?

Top blockchain and crypto news: CBDCs at the crossroads. A token gesture from Samsung. NFTs survive in China.

Bitcoin is now a teenager but it’s not a celebration for some as Indian tax authorities raid crypto businesses.

The world’s largest crypto exchange continues struggling to stay compliant, but it has seen some luck in the Middle East.

Countries acted to encourage — or discourage — cryptocurrency and other blockchain-based assets, sending markets wildly up and down.

From China’s ban to FATF’s travel rule, crypto regulations have been top of mind this year. How might regulatory impulses and current trends play out?

Despite the looming parliamentary debate over banning private digital currency in India, the founder of Mumbai-based crypto exchange WazirX predicts thousands of new crypto startups.

Crypto finance platform XLD Finance wants to enable users to spend GameFi tokens and stablecoins to pay for real-world goods and services. Fast facts The company has launched its first project, xSpend, which allows users from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines to purchase mobile prepaid credits on the platform using GameFi tokens and stablecoins. Users may also pay Philippine-based […]

Binance withdraws Singapore application meanwhile, Security tokens are on the rise.

India-based Layer 2 Ethereum scaling platform Polygon has acquired zero-knowledge technology developer Mir for US$400 million as part of Polygon’s continued focus on ZK tech. Fast facts Mir will help Polygon build its new project — Polygon Zero, a highly scalable, Ethereum compatible ZK rollup. A zero knowledge protocol is a cryptographic algorithm that allows […]

Polygon envisions a world where value can be exchanged without borders. In this Forkast.News explainer, find out how Polygon works and why its MATIC token is defying crypto market gravity — again.

OpenSea IPO plans in choppy waters. Crypto markets crumble. Bitcoin mining power struggles.

Tourism officials want to attract more crypto-wealthy travelers to Thailand’s shimmering shores. But will the crypto faithful come if Thailand still has a ban on SHIB and Dogecoin?

Shiba Inu and Luna on a tear, also K-pop bets on digital assets

Korea crypto tax postponed, meanwhile CoinDCX looks to IPO

Twitter’s stock rose 10% on the news, and his other company, Square, also opened up 4%.

Omicron hits markets meanwhile Japanese novel released as NFT

Luxury fashion houses set trends that trickle down to the rest of culture. Here’s where brands like Prada and Burberry are headed on the blockchain curve.

The US Infrastructure Act has provisions that should make crypto advocates shudder, writes Alex Shipp of Offshift. Who will stand up for crypto’s core values?

Ethereum Layer 2 solutions — protocols built on top of the Ethereum blockchain that handle transactions off the Ethereum mainnet — have been on the rise as developers work on improving Ethereum’s scalability as its number of users and applications continue to grow. Polygon, a Layer 2 Ethereum scaling platform, today announced the launch of […]

LuLu Exchange, a financial services company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Pakistan’s Bank Alfalah are partnering to bring faster and more cost-effective cross-border payments and remittances from the UAE to Pakistan using RippleNet. Fast facts Bank Alfalah’s integration with RippleNet — Ripple’s global payments network for financial institutions — and its launch with […]

Covid laid bare the gaps in people’s access to banking services. Moeda Seeds is looking not just to fill the gaps but to change the banking paradigm.

Bitcoin & Beyond

While El Salvador carved out its place in history as the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, there are others that may follow for an array of reasons.

Amid the global energy crisis, nine companies from four countries — China, Japan, Australia and Saudi Arabia — announced they will jointly build a blockchain documentation platform to speed up customs clearance and cargo delivery to trade the commodities of energy, chemical products and metal. Fast facts Platform participants includes Sinochem Energy, Mitsui.Co, Macquarie CGM, Saudi […]

Mastercard has partnered with three crypto companies in Asia Pacific — Hong Kong-based Amber Group, Bitkub in Thailand, and CoinJar in Australia — to launch crypto-funded payment cards, according to a Nov. 8 media statement. Fast facts The three companies are the first APAC-based cryptocurrency platforms to join Mastercard’s global Crypto Card Program, which enables […]

The familiarity of centralized systems may feel comforting, but decentralized technologies like blockchain are the wave of the future, writes Corey Petty of Status.

Canaan sues over patent infringement also, PayTM considers crypto services

London-headquartered fintech startup Revolut is looking to build its own crypto exchange, according to a new job posting. Fast facts The selected candidate will lead neobank Revolut’s “technical team to architect and build Revolut Crypto exchange,” the job posting says. The candidate will need experience in building order matching engines, like those used on crypto […]

The global AML watchdog provides clarifications on how crypto is to be regulated — and why DeFi could see more scrutiny.

Bitcoin is awakening humanity to its own sovereign capacities, says Ben Caselin of AAX. Here’s why the world’s first cryptocurrency is still at the cutting edge of finance and culture.

Top blockchain and cryptocurrency news: Bitcoin grows up. Facebook’s metaverse journey. China’s crypto investors find a workaround.

Estonia revoked more than 70% of all crypto licenses last year. Its recently appointed anti-money-laundering chief wants to nullify the rest.

East Asia’s share of global cryptocurrency transactions plunged to 14% in June 2021 from 31% in April 2019 when it was by far the world’s largest crypto economy, according to blockchain data provider Chainalysis’ 2021 Eastern Asia Report published today. Fast facts China’s crypto crackdown in May saw East Asia — with China the biggest […]

As non-crypto players like Twitter and PayPal take up digital assets, Coinbase, Binance and others look for ways to expand offerings.

Sri Lanka has formed a panel to recommend a regulatory framework covering the growth of digital banking, blockchain and cryptocurrency mining, the government has announced. Fast facts Developing an integrated system of digital banking, blockchain and cryptocurrency mining is crucial for Sri Lanka to keep up with its regional neighbors while expanding international trade, the […]

Coinswitch Kuber becomes unicorn meanwhile Australians reminded over crypto tax

Korea crypto tax pause called for meanwhile Tiktok jumps into NFTs

Much of the growth in the region is driven by strong grassroots adoption rates led by Vietnam, India and Pakistan, new data from Chainalysis shows

The country sees a rise in the amount of illegal currency transactions across the border while the use of virtual assets makes it almost impossible to track down.

The Hainan International Art Exchange Center on Wednesday launched an NFT art-trading platform that supports e-CNY payments, according to China News’ report. According to the staff of the center, the blockchain platform provides services for the purchase and sale of art between art institutions. Institutional traders will be able to tokenize physical artworks as NFTs […]

China’s crypto crackdown and what it means

Blockchain and parametric insurance offer a bigger safety net for the world’s most vulnerable, writes Jan Stockhausen of Etherisc. Here’s how it works.

Top blockchain and crypto news: Walmart dispels Litecoin hoax. Cardano’s real work begins. Beijing bears down on NFTs.

Ernst & Young, one of the Big Four consulting multinationals, announced today it has integrated India-based Polygon, a Layer 2 Ethereum scaling solution, to allow its corporate clients to process blockchain-based transactions on the Ethereum mainnet. Fast facts EY has connected the public Polygon commit chain with EY’s blockchain services including EY OpsChain and EY […]

Why is Axie Infinity so popular, and what is the potential of play-to-earn gaming? Two venture capitalists share insights on Asia’s special place as GameFi’s hub.

A Canadian-American citizen, who laundered tens of millions of dollars for cybercriminals including North Korea’s military intelligence agency hackers, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice announced. Fast facts Ghaleb Alaumary, 36, pleaded guilty to money laundering in 2020 and has been asked to pay US$30 million in restitution […]

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban says Coinbase should “go on the offensive” against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in its feud over high-yield savings account Lend. Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple — which is itself embroiled in ongoing litigation with the SEC — quipped “Welcome to the party” in a GIF tweet. Fast facts In […]

Following crypto’s adoption in one struggling economy, nations in Latin America and elsewhere are now weighing the pros and cons of digital currency

FTX is the latest crypto exchange to join the NFT bandwagon. “Make your own NFTs,” CEO Sam Bankman-Fried tweeted. 

The United States, Vietnam, Thailand, China and the United Kingdom lead global adoption in decentralized finance (DeFi), according to Chainalysis’ Global DeFi Adoption Index published this month. Fast facts “While grassroots cryptocurrency adoption generally is highest in emerging markets, DeFi adoption is strongest in high-income countries that already had substantial cryptocurrency usage, especially amongst traders […]

The founder of the now-defunct crypto exchange BitConnect is being sued for a US$2 billion “textbook Ponzi scheme” by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a Reuters report. Fast facts The SEC alleges BitConnect’s founder Satish Kumbhani, an Indian citizen, lied about the exchange’s ability to earn 40% returns on investments of BitConnect’s […]

The multiplayer online role-playing game is widely popular elsewhere, while Korea bans play-to-earn crypto and NFT trading.

Prominent Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan will release his own non-fungible token collection later this year. Fast facts The NFTs will be rolled out on BeyondLife.club, a joint venture between Indian film production company Rhiti Entertainment and Guardian Link, a decentralized legitimacy protocol for NFT exchanges. BeyondLife.club allows users to buy NFTs with credit cards or […]

MetaMask, a non-custodial wallet that allows users to interact with the Ethereum blockchain and Ethereum-compatible networks such as Polygon, has seen its monthly active users surge over 1,800% in the past year to surpass 10 million, according to ConsenSys, an Ethereum blockchain software developer. Fast facts Alongside the explosive growth of the Ethereum ecosystem from […]

The9 launches NFT platform meanwhile HK SFC issues crypto warning

Facebook’s Novi is ready to launch. Here’s why the Diem crypto wallet might find an especially warm welcome in places like the Philippines and Malaysia.

Though crypto is not yet part of daily life, it may be a matter of time, writes Simon Yu of StormX. Here are the keys to the industry’s long-term success.

Amid the immense growth in the non-fungible token market, leading Singapore-based crypto exchange AAX is planning to launch its own NFT marketplace in the “near future,” according to a press release shared with Forkast.News. Fast facts In preparation for the launch, AAX is running a campaign in which its users can auction NFTs for charity […]

Top blockchain and crypto news: Is another Bitcoin bull run coming soon? Punks rocking NFTs. Why crypto contracts may not be enforceable in China.

Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday launched a public consultation on its proposed amendments to regulations for the custody of crypto holdings in digital asset businesses. Fast facts The additional regulations — which the SEC said are intended to enhance investor protection — include requiring digital asset businesses to comply with “the principles […]

In another sign of decentralized finance’s continued growth, Celsius Network has just announced it now has more than US$20 billion in assets under management – making it one of the largest DeFi platforms in the world. Fast facts These figures came from Celsius’ most recent quarterly internal audit, according to a company press release, which […]