India admits no crypto data; Korean crypto investor numbers plummet

Transcript

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Welcome to the Daily Forkast, July 29th, 2021. I’m Angie Lau, Editor-in-Chief of Forkast.News covering all things blockchain.

Coming up, crypto mining investment outside China booms. India’s government admits it collects no data on crypto exchanges. And the number of new crypto investors plummet in South Korea. Let’s get you up to speed from Asia to the world.

First up, crypto mining investment outside China continues to boom. China-based BIT Mining is expanding its operations in Kazakhstan with the purchase of 25,000 Bitcoin mining machines for a cool US$6.6 million.

The company says it expects the machines to increase its total cash rate capacity by around 165 petahashes per second. Now, one petahash, by the way, is equal to one quadrillion hashes per second.

The company already has almost 4,000 machines running in Kazakhstan, with a further 4,000 awaiting deployment.

Meanwhile, Genesis Digital Assets has announced a US$125 million equity funding round to support its expansion plans. The cash came from UK-based private equity fund Kingsway Capital. The cash will be used to purchase equipment and build new data centers in the United States and the Nordic region. Genesis Digital Assets currently has a Bitcoin mining capacity of 2.6 exahashes per second — that’s about one quintillion hashes per second. And it says it expects to double that capacity in a year. A further 5.5 exahashes per second will be online by then.

Meanwhile, India’s government admits it has no idea how much money is swirling in crypto exchanges or even how many investors are in crypto in India. The admission came from India’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman. In response to parliamentary questions on crypto exchanges.

The Minister was asked if the government has information on the number of crypto exchanges operating in the country and how many investors are using them. According to the Business Insider, Sitharaman’s response was that no such data is collected by the government. Crypto exchange CoinDCX told Forkast.News they’re not surprised by the admission, but the government should sharpen its intel as it considers policy.

“Well, I think right now, the government is in the phase of understanding what is the best way to regulate. My sense is that government will soon or basically should start working with the exchanges and try to collect this data. As an exchange, we are more than happy to share whatever information we have in the system so that the government can get to the exact numbers.”

Gupta says they do not have any regular contact with government right now, and without any relevant data, it would seem difficult for the government to find the best way forward for its currently stalled discussion on crypto legislation.

And onto the markets now, Bitcoin trading flat and hovering just under that psychologically important US$40,000 mark. That’s as of 4 pm local Hong Kong time today at the end of a positive Asian trading day following the Fed’s move to retain its accommodative monetary policy.

And in the top 10 for cryptocurrencies, Polkadot up almost 2%, while potentially some profit taking over Ripple down almost 3% after the surge it saw in the wake of its On-Demand Liquidity, or ODL, to serve the US$1.8 billion Japan-Philippines remittance market.

And finally, the number of new crypto investors in Korea has apparently fallen off a cliff. The number of investors joining the four largest exchanges Upbit, Bithumb, Korbit and Coinone went from more than 1.6 Million, signing up in April to just 120,000 in June. One expert told News that while the country’s strict new regulations on crypto exchanges have spooked a lot of investors for the moment, we could still see some winners.

“The exchanges that survive the regulations will receive huge benefits because the digital assets market is going to continue growing. And only four to five exchanges are going to share the ‘pie’ that was previously shared by more than 60.”

All eyes remain on that crucial September 24th deadline for exchanges to comply with the new regulations in South Korea. Consolidation by regulation, it seems, in Korea.

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.