With its partial autonomy, the island city of Hong Kong has traditionally served as “a gate to China” — the local trade center, backed by transparent English-style common law and an openly pro-business government strategy. Could the harbor, home to seven million inhabitants, inherit this role in relation to the crypto industry, becoming a proxy for mainland China’s experiments with crypto? An impulse to such questioning was given by Arthur Hayes, the former CEO of crypto derivatives giant BitMEX in his Oct. 26 blog post. Hayes believes the Hong Kong government’s announcement about introducing a bill to regulate crypto to …

Chinese cryptocurrency mining firm Canaan will continue to expand operations despite the ongoing bear market and an associated drop in earnings, according to the company’s CEO. Canaan posted a 90% over-the-quarter decrease in net income in Q3 2022, the firm officially announced on Nov. 14. The firm’s Q3 net income amounted to 61.1 million renminbi (RMB), or $8.6 million, which is a 88% decrease from the same period in 2021, Canaan noted. The company’s revenues dropped about 41% from 1.7 million RMB ($230,000) in Q2 2022, while gross profit plummeted 75% from 940 million RMB ($130 million) posted in the …

In this week’s newsletter, read about how trademark applications for nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse have grown in the United States. Check out how NFT marketplace OpenSea has launched a tool that can enforce NFT royalties on-chain and how the Chinese city of Wuhan backpedaled on its NFT plans while still pursuing the growth of metaverse economies. In other news, find out how NFTs can turn passive fans into active community members. And don’t forget this week’s Nifty News featuring South Korea testing purchasing NFTs with their central bank digital currency (CBDC). Trademarks filed for NFTs, metaverse and cryptocurrencies …

The United States will go to the voting booths on Nov. 8 to decide the fate of all 435 members of the House of Representatives and 34 out of the 100 Senate seats. The outcome will decide the prevailing power balance in Washington and has the potential to affect the crypto industry. Perhaps that’s why 38% of eligible voters will consider candidates’ positions on crypto, according to a recent survey. Another survey suggests that crypto regulation is a bipartisan issue, with 87% of Democratic and 76% of Republican respondents saying they want clarity from the U.S. government on digital assets. …

The Chinese city of Wuhan had reportedly shelved its aspirational nonfungible tokens (NFTs) plans amid growing regulatory uncertainty around the crypto and Web3 technologies in the country. Wuhan first announced its plans to support metaverse and NFTs in the aftermath of the coronavirus breakout as a measure to boost its economy ruined by the pandemic. The city was the epicenter of the COVID-19 breakout. The Wuhan government’s draft industrial plan for the city’s metaverse economy development included a line about NFTs. However, that part has now been omitted from the latest version, according to a report by South China Morning …

Chinese central bank governor Yi Gang, in a recent speech at Hong Kong Fintech Week, talked about the progress of their national digital currency called the digital yuan. He outlined the progress and the adoption of the national digital currency. During his speech, Yi noted that the digital yuan is being positioned as an alternative to cash in China, a country with a robust digital payment infrastructure. He added that “privacy protection is one of the top of the issue on our agenda.” He went on to describe the two-layer payment system that would offer controllable anonymity to the users. …

Arthur Hayes, the former CEO of crypto derivatives giant BitMEX, believes the next crypto bull run will start when China moves back into the market, and Hong Kong has a vital part to play in this process. In his Oct. 26 blog post titled "Comeback", Hayes outlined why he thinks the Hong Kong government's announcement about introducing a bill to regulate crypto is a sign China is trying to ease its way back into the market. This could be because Hong Kong acts as “the proxy through which China interacts with the world." “When China loves crypto, the bull market …

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has released the full details of its mBridge pilot project to use central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) for foreign exchange. Commercial banks in four jurisdictions made cross-border transfers using CBDCs and distributed ledger (blockchain) technology in the project, which was heralded as a success. Twenty commercial banks in Hong Kong, China, the United Arab Emirates and Thailand used the custom-made mBridge Ledger platform and CBDCs issued by their respective central banks to conduct payment and foreign exchange payment-versus-payment transactions on behalf of their corporate clients between August 15 and September 23. Over $12 million …

The United States Department of Justice has announced charges against two Chinese intelligence officers who allegedly bribed a double agent with Bitcoin. In an Oct. 24 announcement, the Justice Department said Guochun He and Zheng Wang had attempted to obstruct the prosecution of an unnamed global telecommunications company based in China, which allegedly involved paying a U.S. government employee roughly $61,000 in bribes using Bitcoin (BTC). However, the individual was a double agent working on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and did not move against authorities in the Eastern District of New York in the case against the …

For over a year, the oil-rich Central Asian country of Kazakhstan has maintained its position as the third-biggest contributor to Bitcoin (BTC) mining after surpassing Russia back in February 2021. As of January 2022, Kazakhstan contributed to 13.22% of the total Bitcoin hash rate, positioned right after the historical leaders the United States (37.84%) and China (21.11%), as shown below. Along similar timelines, Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance data estimated that Kazakhstan’s absolute hash rate contribution (monthly average) was 24.8 exahashes per second (Eh/s). Meanwhile, the US and China contributed 71 Eh/s and 39.6 Eh/s, respectively. The International Energy Agency …

Hong Kong is taking action to regain its status as a global cryptocurrency hub by launching several legal initiatives related to the crypto industry. A city and special administrative region of China, Hong Kong is willing to distinguish its crypto regulation approach from the blanket crypto ban in mainland China. The government of Hong Kong is considering introducing its own bill to regulate crypto in its own China-free way, according to Elizabeth Wong, head of the fintech unit at the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC). One of the SFC’s initiatives is allowing retail investors to “directly invest into virtual assets,” …

Researchers from a Chinese state-run think tank have floated the idea of an Asia-wide digital currency with the aim to reduce its reliance on a United States dollar-based economy. The views of researchers Liu Dongmin, Song Shuang, and Zhou Xuezhi from a unit of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) were published in an issue of the “World Affairs journal” posted online in late September, who said the establishment of an “Asian yuan” token would lower Asia’s reliance on the U.S. dollar. Much like similar existing and trialed Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), the researchers said distributed ledger technology …