Canaan sues over patent infringement; PayTM considers crypto services

Transcript

Patent infringements and more Chinese clampdowns are on our minds today.

Welcome to The Daily Forkast November 5, 2021.

I’m Megha Chaddah of Forkast.News, covering all things blockchain, filling in for Editor-in-Chief Angie Lau.

One of the world’s largest Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturers, Canaan has filed a lawsuit against two Chinese companies it accuses of patent infringement. We’ll take a look at that story and a whole lot more coming up.

Let’s get you up to speed from Asia to the world.

Let’s kick off with some of the top stories out of Asia today.

First up, India’s digital payments giant Paytm is considering to launch crypto related services if it becomes a regulated asset class. That’s according to a Bloomberg interview with CFO Madhur Deora.

Cryptocurrencies are currently in a regulatory gray area in India, with finance officials saying a bill to regulate them may be introduced for discussion in the budget session of Parliament next year.

To China then, where state owned news agency Xinhua is training its guns on online and social media accounts promoting virtual currencies in the country.

They say low penalties and limited regulatory resources are why these promotions can still be seen despite cryptocurrency transactions being illegal in China.

You can find more on those stories at Forkast.News.

Staying in China, mining hardware manufacturer Canaan is suing two companies over patent infringement.

Canaan has accused both Shenzhen HighSharp and Sichuan Yinbimei of making and selling Bitcoin mining chips based on their designs.

Forkast.News Timmy Shen reports from Taipei, Taiwan.

According to Chinese media outlet Yicai, court filings showed that Nasdaq listed Canaan is demanding Shenzhen HighSharp and Sichaun Yibimei cease production of the machines it claims are based on designs it had previously patented.

Canaan is also asking for damages of 90 million yuan, or a little over US$14 million.

HighSharp is the chip design partner of AGM Holdings, a former accounting and enterprise planning software company that only pivoted into the Bitcoin ASIC chip manufacturing market over the summer.

The two struck a partnership deal with AGM, promising to source buyers for orders worth US$100 million by March next year in return for a High Sharp prioritizing its Bitcoin ASIC chip design for them.

Since the beginning of October, AGM has announced preorder sales of at least 65,000 units of its mining machines.

Meanwhile, the clampdown on mining within China continues, with Beijing’s Development and Reform Commission saying it is strengthening monitoring of power consumption at data centers, as well as working to identify any abnormal electricity use that could be related to crypto mining.

For Forkast.News, I’m Timmy Shen, Taipei, Taiwan.

And yet more from China, despite warnings from a state run think tank over national security risks involved with metaverse, the rush to get involved is gathering pace.

Internet giants Baidu and NetEase have both jumped in filing for metaverse trademarks.

Forkast.News Carolyn Wright has more.

Chinese companies are scrambling to file trademark registrations related to the metaverse, with Baidu and NetEase just the latest two technology giants to join the ever growing craze.

According to the QiChaCha, a website where you can search for information about Chinese companies, NetEase has applied for three trademarks with metaverse in the name. They are NetEase Metaverse, Leihuo Metaverse and Fuxi Metaverse, while Baidu has applied for a trademark of MetApp.

NetEase is the leading manufacturer of mobile phone games in China, with Identity V and Knives Out both currently listed as examples of hot games on its website, while Baidu is China’s search engine giant.

And they aren’t the only ones, this year has seen a surge in Chinese companies looking to register trademarks related to “Yuan Universe”, which is a literal translation of the characters used for the word metaverse.

According to the QiChaCha, just over 3,700 trademarks containing those characters had been submitted for registration by Friday lunchtime Asia time.

But that number is going up all the time and includes submissions from well-known companies including Tencent, ByteDance and Alibaba.

However, Chinese authorities have recently urged caution over a series of blockchain related emerging fields, including both the metaverse and NFTs.

Just last week, a think tank under the charge of the National Security Agency of China published an article stating that the metaverse may threaten national security due to technological discrimination, cyber attacks and even the social changes that it may cause.

For Forkast.News, I’m Carolyn Wright.

And that’s The Daily Forkast from our vantage point right here in Asia. Hit like, hit subscribe, appreciated always. Help us reach our goal to reach more of you.

For more, visit Forkast.News. I’m Megha Chaddah. Until next time.