This weekly roundup of news from Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong attempts to curate the industry’s most important news, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory landscape, and enterprise blockchain integrations. Huobi Asset Management is looking to be the Grayscale of Asia with the launch of four cryptocurrency-related tracker funds. The funds include a Bitcoin Fund, an Ethereum fund, a multi-asset basket of digital currencies, and a private equity fund for mining businesses. The aim is clearly to entice major institutional investors into the space with a product that feels familiar. The fund and asset management company is set …
On May 26, Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli, a representative from the International Monetary Fund, stated that moving forward, the best way to harness the potential of central bank digital currencies would be by fostering synthetic partnerships between the private and public sectors. Further expounding his views on the matter, the deputy division chief of the IMF’s monetary capital and markets department stated that the vision behind CBDCs being completely under the control of a central bank is now an outdated one and that the entry of private players could help spur innovation. When asked about how such a partnership could even start …
For a tech that was supposed to be democratic and distributed in order to free financial systems from the grip of government-influenced banks and return control of the money supply to the people, cryptocurrencies have turned out to be pretty concentrated. Some 66% of all Bitcoin (BTC) mining now takes place in China, with 54% located in the southwest province of Sichuan, as a recent study revealed. Three Chinese mining pools alone are responsible for nearly half of Bitcoin’s hashrate. The days when a single Bitcoin enthusiast could crunch numbers on their home computer and land a Bitcoin reward for …
China’s foreign exchange reserve regulator, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), is set to pilot a cross-border trade finance blockchain platform. The news was reported by local financial news agency CNStock on April 24. According to the report, the development of the platform was initiated by SAFE and completed in collaboration with the Hangzhou Blockchain Technology Research Institute. The latter, also known as China Banknote Blockchain Technology Research Institute, has reportedly completed the technical undertaking of the project under the China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation, which is directly affiliated to the People's Bank of China (PBoC). Being largely …
Huobi Group CEO Leon Li met with senior Argentinian finance officials this week to discuss the role of blockchain and crypto in the country’s economy, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on March 29. In a meeting in Beijing, Argentina’s Deputy Minister of Finance, Felix Martin Soto, claimed that the government should address crypto and blockchain tech as a way to promote Argentina’s financial inclusion and reduce state costs. Soto, who leads Argentina’s international financial relations, explained that half of the country’s population does not have bank accounts and operate cash transactions by converting their savings to United …