Columns
Samsung’s Bitcoin ETF, $700M bust, Coinbase exits Japan: Asia Express
Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments. Samsung’s new Bitcoin ETF On Jan. 13, Samsung Asset Management, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the namesake South Korean conglomerate, successfully listed the Samsung Bitcoin Futures Active ETF on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. According to local news outlet Edaily, the ETF debuted under the ticker 3135:HK and seeks to replicate the performance of spot Bitcoin by investing in Bitcoin futures listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). The ETF will also simplify the procedures for investors seeking exposure to regulated Bitcoin products in the Asia-Pacific time zone. Park Seong-jin, head of Samsung Asset Management’s Hong Kong office, commented: “Hong Kong is the only market in Asia where B...
Huobi employees revolt, GameFi lives, Antminer on steroids: Asia Express
Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments. Huobi’s disgruntled employees According to local media reports, cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Global has terminated all year-end employee bonuses and benefits, as well as axed its entire core development staff located in mainland China. The laid-off staff will be instead switched to “advisory contracts” that do not receive protection under Chinese labor laws. Employees also claim that their leftover paid vacation days and sick leave days for 2022 were set to zero without prior notification. Moreover, executives allegedly imposed a messaging ban on all major Huobi employee chat groups. In response, employees reported formed a 400-member strong “rights maintenance group” and have since sought ...
Asia Express: China’s NFT market, Moutai metaverse popular but buggy…
In a joint effort between the state-owned Chinese Technology Exchange, the state-owned Art Exhibitions China and the corporation Huban Digital Copyrights Ltd, China’s first national NFT marketplace is scheduled to come online this week. It’s designed as a secondary market for trading digital collectibles, along with copyrights for digital assets. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s built on China’s national Wenbao, or “cultural protection” blockchain, which helps verify the authenticity of artifacts and commercial goods. Currently, only the NFT platform’s landing page is accessible. 1400 blockchain firms in China On Dec. 29, the state-owned China Academy for Information and Communications Technology, or CAICT, disclosed in its national white paper that over 1,400 blockchain firms are operating in...
Mati Greenspan’s boss bribed him with 1 BTC to join Twitter: Hall of Flame
Name: Mati GreenspanAnonymous: NoTwitter followers: 48,000Known for: The “face” of eToro for years, Greenspan is a rare moderate voice on Crypto Twitter. Who is this guy anyway? The friendly but cynical Mati Greenspan became a well-known crypto market commentator in publications such as Forbes, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal as a senior market analyst for eToro until he set off on his own by founding research and advisory firm Quantum Economics in 2019. He’s been on Cointelegraph’s Top 100 Notable People in Blockchain for the last two years. Unlike the talking croissants and anime whales on Twitter, Greenspan is personally accountable for his views, which may explain why he’s a lot less bolshie and provocative than some. With 48,000 followers, Greenspan doesn’t have the biggest acco...
Socios boss’ goal? To knock crypto out of the park
What is a sports fan’s dream come true? To be the announcer at an AC Milan home game, in front of 75,000 roaring Rossoneri fans? To play a football match on the hallowed turf of your beloved FC Barcelona? To tour the garage of an F1 team pre-race, then watch the Monza Grand Prix from a VIP box? These are some of the biggest rewards handed out as incentives to join Chiliz, or CHZ-based, fan token schemes on Socios.com. There are also lesser, but still desirable prizes, like meeting your sports idols, choosing the music to be played when your team scores a goal, or voting on the design of next year’s team strip. Socios.com has now partnered with over 170 sporting clubs across 25 countries and 10 sports, including American football, soccer, basketball, cricket, esports, ice hockey, mixed mart...
6 Questions for Tongtong Bee of Panony
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Tongtong Bee, co-founder of Panony — an incubator, investor and adviser for blockchain and Web3 business. I’m Tongtong Bee, the co-founder of Panony and founder and editor-in-chief of PANews. I started my professional journey as a journalist at China’s traditional news outlets, including China News Service, Jiemian and Cailian Media Group. Since 2015, I’ve been covering blockchain and fintech news as one of the few journalists in China to focus on these sectors at the time. My focus on economic issues and emerging technologies led to me being selected to report on the “Two Sessions” (NPC and ...
6 Questions for Kim Hamilton Duffy of Centre
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Kim Hamilton Duffy, director of identity and standards at Centre Consortium — an open-source technology project designed to create a more inclusive global economy. Kim is a leader in the emerging decentralized identity field and has architected successful open-source projects such as Verite, Blockcerts and the Digital Credential Consortium toolkit. 1 — Which countries are doing the most to support blockchain, and which ones will be left behind? Rather than assessing this through the narrow lens of whether certain crypto transactions are taxed, I think about whether countries are supporting innovati...
6 Questions for Pat Duffy of The Giving Block
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Pat Duffy, co-founder of The Giving Block — a crypto donation solution that provides an ecosystem for nonprofits and charities to fundraise Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Pat is co-founder of The Giving Block, and has raised over $100,000,000 in crypto for nonprofits in the last year. From 2020 to 2022, Pat and his co-founder Alex Wilson grew The Giving Block from a four-person team into one of the fastest growing companies in the nonprofit sector, with thousands of nonprofit clients and the world’s largest crypto donor community. 1 — What is the main hurdle to mass adoption of blockchain tech...
6 Questions for Lisa Fridman of Quadrata
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Lisa Fridman, the president and co-founder of Quadrata, a network that brings an identity and compliance layer to DeFi across existing public blockchains. Lisa Fridman was previously the head of blockchain strategy at Springcoin (Spring Labs). Prior to joining Spring Labs, Lisa served as a co-head of strategy at Martlet Asset Management, CEO of PAAMCO Europe and the global head of research at PAAMCO. Lisa is an experienced investor and a business builder. Throughout her career, she has worked closely with institutions, delivering bespoke solutions. She received her Master of Business Administration...
6 Questions for Alyssa Tsai of Panony
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Alyssa Tsai, founder and CEO of Panony — an incubator, investor and adviser for blockchain and Web3 business. My name is Alyssa Tsai, and I’m the founder and CEO of Panony. There are three pillars of businesses under our group umbrella. PANews is one of the earliest crypto media outlets in Greater China and South Korea. It has published over 20,000 articles, with an average of over 5 million page views per month. At Panony, we invest in blockchain projects worldwide and consult Fortune 500 companies for integration and expansion into the industry, spanning the entire spectrum of the blockcha...
Better than Axie Infinity: Kieran Warwick’s 2032 plan for Illuvium
Kieran Warwick created the play-to-earn game Illuvium with his brothers Aaron and Grant — all siblings of DeFi maverick Kain, the founder of Synthetix. He shares his alpha on how NFT game mechanics can be designed in such a way that playing them can be fun and profitable in the long term. Warwick entered the retail world right out of high school, eventually becoming an online shopping entrepreneur. He got his start in the crypto world at brother Kain’s company BlueShyft, which first made Bitcoin and crypto exchange payments available over-the-counter at more than one thousand physical retailers around Australia in 2015. Kieran Warwick is riding Illuvium until 2032. Years later, with a number of business projects under his belt, Kain encouraged him to reenter the space, which led to the cre...
6 Questions for Daniel Yan of Matrixport
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Daniel Yan, founding partner and chief operating officer at Matrixport — a digital assets financial services platform where users can invest, trade and leverage crypto assets. Hey guys, this is Dan — I am a founding partner at Matrixport. I have been COO of the company since 2019 overseeing the day-to-day operation of the company. Late last year, I started to spend most of my time building Matrixport Ventures — the venture investment arm of the company. It has been a great experience for me both personally and professionally. There has not been a boring day since I dipped my toes into crypto, let’s...
