Asia

August 29, 2018 @ 7:45 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Following a ban on crypto promotional events in Beijing’s central business district last week, the Financial Development Bureau of Guangzhou (FDBG) has required that, “all relevant units in the district (of Guangzhou) may not undertake any form of virtual currency promotion and publicity activities,” National Business Daily… Read More

August 29, 2018 @ 11:15 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Orbs, an Israel-based hybrid blockchain scaling base-layer protocols, announced on Tuesday it has established a partnership with Ground X, the blockchain subsidiary of South Korean internet company Kakao, for research, development, and business cooperation. Through the partnership, Orbs has expanded into South Korea and opened… Read More

August 29, 2018 @ 10:05 am By JD Alois  |  

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) have strengthened their pre-existing Fintech relationship with a new agreement. According to MAS, this most recent collaboration will see mutual referrals of promising Fintech firms between the two jurisdictions.  The agreement is… Read More

August 28, 2018 @ 10:54 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

SoftBank’s Vision Fund is reportedly looking to invest $100 million into Chinese insurtech startup, ZhongAn. The upcoming investment comes just weeks after ZhongAn announced the launch of its new its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, ZhongAn Technology Intelligent Open Platform for Insurers. ZhongAn, which was launched by Ant Financial,… Read More

August 28, 2018 @ 8:57 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Global innovation platform Plug and Play announced on Monday it recently celebrated the third anniversary of its Plug and Play China program. The organization reported that the program has invested in over 200 startups and accelerated more than 500 startups across a total of eight… Read More

August 27, 2018 @ 8:12 pm By Cali Haan  |  

North Korea, a country more known for its ties to devastating hacks on South Korean crypto exchange than for white hat blockchain development, will evidently host a blockchain conference in Pyongyang this October, The Straits Times reports. The “Korean International Blockchain Conference” is set to take… Read More

August 27, 2018 @ 4:53 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Chinese search giant Baidu will no longer allow discussions of crypto on its popular forum site, Baidu Tieba, China Times reports. The decision is the latest in a spate of recent crackdowns being waged against crypto-industries in China, actions seeking to give teeth to a… Read More

August 27, 2018 @ 9:55 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

LumoXchange, U.S.-based fintech payments company, announced on Monday the launch of its money transfer service to the Philippines. The company reported it has built a platform that allows users to compare exchange rate offers from the leading banks in the Philippines and send money. Users… Read More

August 27, 2018 @ 8:35 am By JD Alois  |  

CoAssets Limited, a crowdfunding platform traded on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX: CA8), has reported its financial results for the full year ended 30 June 2018. According to the company which is based in Singapore, CoAssets experienced its first full year of profitable operations representing… Read More

August 27, 2018 @ 8:07 am By JD Alois  |  

LavidaCoin: “Step Mother of Coin” The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) has issued a statement on the initial coin offering (ICO) “LavidaCoin.” According to a report in the Independent, the cryptocurrency is the creation of a controversial Malaysia socialite who is well known in the country… Read More

August 26, 2018 @ 2:02 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Two-thirds of all trade volume in crypto- or $6 billion dollars per day- is faked, say researchers at the Blockchain Transparency Institute (BIT), and many of the world’s “top” crypto exchanges aren’t even coming close. The researchers made their conclusions after comparing the order books… Read More

August 25, 2018 @ 10:49 am By Cali Haan  |  

Earlier today, and two days after WeChat suspended the social media accounts of 8 Chinese crypto news outlets, WeChat parent company Tencent has announced it will undertake “remediation measures” to monitor and “intercept” cryptocurrency sales and purchases on its WeChat Pay app. Similar news was… Read More

August 25, 2018 @ 9:51 am By Cali Haan  |  

Internet security firm Kaspersky Lab has claimed that hackers with possible ties to North Korea have struck against an unnamed crypto exchange using malware targeting macOS. Kaspersky lab attributes the latest hack to the Lazarus hack group. According to Wikipedia, the Lazarus Group earned its… Read More

August 24, 2018 @ 4:23 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Thailand’s central bank, the Bank of Thailand (BOT), has announced it is trialing a version of R3’s distributed ledger system, Corda, as a means of making wholesale funds transfers more efficient. R3’s distributed ledger will also be used by the BOT to issue a wholesale Central… Read More

August 24, 2018 @ 4:06 pm By JD Alois  |  

Buried within a report from Bloomberg this week was an interesting statement from Japan. Speaking with the relatively new Commissioner of the Japanese Financial Services Agency, Toshihide Endo, the public official shared his thoughts on cryptocurrency and Japan. Japan became a haven of sorts for… Read More

August 24, 2018 @ 12:40 pm By JD Alois  |  

Consumer finance platform Blackfish Technology has closed on a Series o A+ round financing at $50 million. In January, Blackfish closed on a $140 million funding round (950 million CNY). New investors in this most recent round are Lightspeed Venture Partners, Rakuten Ventures, China Growth Capital,… Read More

August 24, 2018 @ 12:19 pm By Cali Haan  |  

More news from China today regarding that country’s ban on citizens’ access to cryptocurrencies. According to The South China Morning Post, China will now block access to an additional 120 foreign cryptocurrency exchanges. Bitfinex, Binance, Huobi and OKEx are already blocked in China. When China announced… Read More

August 24, 2018 @ 10:03 am By JD Alois  |  

In a significant move by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Singapore Exchange (SGX), the government entities announced its intent to offer digital assets including tokenized securities and virtual currencies. MAS and SGX will develop “Delivery versus Payment (DvP) capabilities” by using different blockchain… Read More

August 23, 2018 @ 4:12 pm By JD Alois  |  

Carats.io, a Fintech based in Israel that is building a financial market for diamonds, has partnered wit KELA – a jewelry / diamond retailer operating across Asia. KELA is said to be the largest online diamond retailer in China and has 300 stores across the… Read More

August 23, 2018 @ 3:43 pm By JD Alois  |  

Remitly, the largest private digital remittance Fintech HQed in the US, has boosted its money transfer service to India. The update moves its daily sending limit to $30,000 on money sent to India from the United States. Remittance payments around the world have become a… Read More