Our Man in Shanghai has refused to let recent regulations slow down the news coming from China. Enterprise blockchain, central bank digital currencies and start up projects continue to make a positive impact in a region hoping to grow economic value through technology. Death march for El Salvador The debate around El Salvador continued this week as media and officials tried to digest the adoption of Bitcoin as a national currency. JPMorgan stated that there was little economic benefit, and John Hopkins University professor Steve Hanke warned that the move could “completely collapse the economy” of the small nation. The …
China Construction Bank, the world’s second-largest bank by assets, is cooperating with Malaysian and Singaporean partners to test blockchain technology for use in the bond market. As previously reported, China Construction Bank’s branch in Labuan, Malaysia, had initially pursued a partnership with a Labuan-based fintech firm to issue what was hailed as prospectively the first-ever blockchain-based digital security to be issued by a Chinese financial institution. CCB Labuan’s plan had been to use the Ethereum blockchain to issue bonds and raise up to $3 billion in total, starting with a tranche of $58 million, from both individuals and institutions. Within …
Recently, a blockchain-backed cross border platform pilot was implemented in the Chinese city of Qingdao. The companies involved have now made their first trades with partners in North America and Southern Asia. As reported on April 22 by local newspaper, Sina, the companies are praising the pilot program, and claim that the city’s banks will continue to improve the service. Trades made with other countries via blockchain About 37 Qingdao businesses have done business with foreign enterprises through the blockchain platform, located in the United States, Mexico, India, and a number of other countries. Sina reported that the pilot platform …
China Everbright Bank (CEB), a major commercial bank in China and one of the world’s largest public companies, is debuting a blockchain-based supply chain finance solution by Ant Financial. Ant Financial, the financial arm of Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, has partnered with CEB to collaboratively implement Duo Chain — a network services platform designed to handle supply chain-related financial transactions. Ant Financial started working on the Duo Chain in 2019 CEB and Ant Financial initially formed their partnership during the second half of 2019. CEB is the first Chinese bank to deploy Ant Financial’s Duo Chain, as reported by local …
In the past year, we’ve seen the crypto economy undergo exponential expansion as heaps of money poured into various cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance (DeFi), nonfungible tokens (NFT), crypto indices, insurance products and decentralized options markets. The total value locked (TVL) in the DeFi sector across all chains has grown from $18 billion at the beginning of 2021 to $240 billion in January 2022. With so much liquidity in the ecosystem, the crypto lending space has also grown a significant amount, from $60 million at the beginning of 2021 to over $400 million by January 2022. Despite the exponential growth and the …