China maintains crypto market pressure; J-Pop stars offer NFT advice

Transcript

Welcome to The Daily Forkast, August 2nd, 2021. I’m Angie Lau, Editor-in-Chief of Forkast.News.

Coming up, China’s central bank to maintain pressure on the crypto market.
China clarifies legal validity of blockchain evidence;
And J-pop’s “Cryptocurrency Girls” offer NFT advice to consumers.

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

China is not letting up on crypto; China’s central bank has unveiled its plans for the second half of the year, with pressure on cryptocurrency trading set to continue.

The plan, published by the People’s Bank of China, or PBOC, following its work conference, lays out eight key tasks and crypto is featured prominently in one of them.

Task seven on the list states that the bank will maintain pressure on virtual currency trading hype, noting that there has already been a severe crackdown on illegal activities.

Orient Capital Research, which analyzes China’s macro economy, particularly shadow banking, told us at Forkast.News that that means the private sector will likely be pushed to one side while the PBOC develops a better understanding of digital currencies.

“They’re not going to have much of a role until maybe a year from now, when the dust settles. It is possible that the Central Bank will then say, OK, look, we now have the plumbing in place. We know how to control it, we’ll allow some private sector companies to enter into this as retail parts of the plumbing as long as they know how to toe the line.”

Meanwhile, the bank says pilots of the digital yuan will be expanded. Collier says that he expects to see the PBOC outsourcing some digital currency operations to state-owned banks as they not only have the capacity but are under the control of the government.

Other tasks on the list include improving the green financial system and promoting internationalization of the renminbi.

Staying in China, the highest court in the land, has clarified the legal validity of blockchain evidence.

The Supreme People’s Court shared its “People’s Court Online Litigation Rules”, which came into effect on Sunday; and for the first time, the court outlined the scope of validity of blockchain evidence.

Blockchain evidence is mentioned in three of the articles in the new rules. One clarifies the presumption that data has not been tampered with once it is stored on the blockchain, while the other two clarify authenticity verification rules for blockchain evidence.

China’s Supreme People’s Court had already recognized that blockchain evidence was valid in a regulation issued in 2018, but that gave no clear details of just what was acceptable at that point.

Blockchain in law is on the rise, according to an article published by Allbright Law as of March 2021, 65 cases use blockchain evidence in China.

And on the first trading day of the week in Asia, after reaching its highest price since May, over the weekend, Bitcoin has fallen just over 3.5%, sitting at a little over US$ 40,000, as of 4 p.m. Hong Kong time today.

The fall followed uncertainty over whether crypto will be taxed more broadly in the US. An updated version of an infrastructure bill suggested that new reporting requirements could broaden the range of crypto transactions subject to tax.

That mood filtered through to the top ten for crypto currencies on a mixed day. DogeCoin down just over 4.5% and Cardano down just over 2%.

And finally, some sage advice over the risks involved in buying NFT from a most unlikely source, pop stars.

Japan’s “Cryptocurrency Girls” J-pop band made headlines in 2018, singing zany songs about virtual currencies while wearing outfits adorned very appropriately for their look with various tokens, symbols and insisting on getting paid by their talent agency and crypto assets rather than fiat currency.

After going a little bit quiet since they’re back to explain what NFTs are, as well as offering a warning to potential purchasers that comes in the form of their latest song, “NFT the World”.

Of course, now they’ve explained everything, you’re all set to make your own decision on whether to buy one of the band’s NFTs, due to be released this month.

And that’s The Daily Forkast from our vantage point right here in Asia. For more, visit Forkast.News. I’m Editor-in-Chief Angie Lau. Until the next time.