Yuan stablecoin team arrested, WeChat’s new bitcoin prices, HK crypto rules: Asia Express

RMB stablecoin team reportedly arrested

Local news outlet PANewsLab on May 31 informed of Developers of offshore Chinese RMB and Hong Kong dollar stablecoin issuer CNHC have reportedly lost contact or been taken away by law enforcement. A photo shows what appears to be an empty office building in the Shanghai division of CNHC, with the following message posted:

“Properties in the building have been seized by law enforcement; Vandalism is prohibited.

In March, CNHC raised $10 million in its Series A led by KuCoin Ventures, Circle, and IDG Capital. The team then stated that it planned to use the funds for “expansion in the Asia Pacific region” and was in the process of relocating its headquarters from the Cayman Islands to Hong Kong.

The reported move appears to be part of a wider crackdown on cryptocurrencies by the Chinese authorities. On May 24, Asia Express reported that the tokens of Singapore’s inter-blockchain communication protocol Multichain had plunged 30% on rumors of a delayed backend upgrade and the arrest of its main developers by Chinese police.

Although MultiChain says it is still operational, it said on June 1 that it was still “unable to contact CEO Zhaojun and obtain the necessary server access for maintenance,” and as a result, the protocol has been suspended for several affected cross-platforms. There will be a need to suspend -chain services.

Over the past two days, the Multichain protocol has experienced a number of issues due to unforeseen circumstances. The team has made every effort to keep the protocol running, but we are currently unable to contact CEO Zhaojun and obtain the necessary server access to…

– Multichain (formerly Anyswap) (@MultichainOrg) May 31, 2023

Hong Kong Opens Retail Crypto Licensing

Despite censorship and restrictions on the mainland, the adoption of cryptocurrency exchange regulation in Hong Kong proceeded as scheduled. On May 31, the Hong Kong Virtual Asset Consortium was formed to list the top 30 cryptocurrencies by market cap and conduct a quarterly review of registered digital asset exchanges to ensure compliance with licensing regulations that came into effect on June 1.

On another front, notable crypto projects such as Avalanche, Conflux, EOS, and Phantom have joined Hong Kong’s Web3Hub Ecosystem Fund unveiled in April, according to a research report published by multichain wallet provider BitKeep. With a budget of $10 million, the fund will encourage Web3 projects to set up subsidiaries or headquarters in China’s Special Administrative Regions (SARs). The fund is headed by Paul Chan Mo-po, Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong SAR.

Despite the growing popularity, BitKeep researchers remind that HK regulations remain strict for the time being:

The new rules explicitly limit the types of tokens that can be traded and the types of services that can be provided by the exchange. Cryptocurrencies must meet strict regulations from the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), which insist that only non-security tokens can be traded, have a history of at least 12 months, and allow the token to Included in the cryptocurrency index.

Furthermore, exchanges are prohibited from providing wealth management products as well as the provision of lending and deposit services, as well as derivatives transactions such as perpetual crypto contracts. “However, the regulator recognizes the importance of derivatives trading in the crypto market and will conduct further research and consideration,” the researchers said.

WeChat allows BTC price quotes

As of June 1, WeChat, China’s largest social media app with over 1 billion users, has indexed bitcoin price quotes in its search queries. The move is significant, given that China has banned pretty much all crypto-related activities such as exchanges, crypto mining, and fiat-crypto on-ramping from 2021.

However, if history is any guide, WeChat bitcoin search queries probably won’t last long. In the past, billion-user platform China Central Television and Chinese TikTok variant Douyin allowed something similar, only to have authorities pull them down days after launch.

All Nippon Airways launches NFT marketplace

On 30 May, All Nippon Airways (ANA), Japan’s largest airline, reported revenue of over $12.2 billion in the last fiscal year. launched Dubbed its aeronautical-themed NFT marketplace “ANA GranWhale,” the developers wrote:

“NFTs have primarily been used as a technology to convey ownership of digital assets in areas such as art and music. This time, ANA Group will apply NFTs to the aviation industry.”

As its inaugural move, ANA Granvhel will debut aerial photographer Luke Ozawa’s first digital photograph in his career as an NFT with an asking price of 100,000 yen. The second installment, starting June 7, will feature a 3-D model NFT conversion of the first specially painted Boeing 787 aircraft launched by ANA. Development of the NFT marketplace began last August as part of ANA’s vision of building a Web3 virtual travel platform.

“With a view to commercialize NFTs from various parts of Japan as specialty products, we aim to improve the value of the customer experience, including local and overseas, through the ‘Granwhale NFT Marketplace’.”

The Fed Pushes the ASTAR Network to Improve Tokennomics

On May 28, Sota Watanabe, founder of the Japanese blockchain ASTAR (ASTR) network, Express His desire to improve the token economics of the protocol, adding that the US government was also targeting an inflation rate of 2% compared to the current level of around 8.4%. Taking further inspiration from the Federal Reserve, Watanabe proposed updating the blockchain’s token inflation rate on various factors every quarter or every six months to reflect the decisions of the Fed meeting, writing:

“Decentralizing one of the Fed’s roles can be a challenge but also an interesting test.”

The crypto executive said he would like to either fix the total supply of ASTR and have an inflation rate that gets smaller and smaller like bitcoin, or automatically set an inflation rate based on network usage, as whether in Ethereum, or use a mix of both models.

Astar, a multichain decentralized application proposition, recently launched the second iteration of its smart contracts, supporting both the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and the WebAssembly Virtual Machine (WASM VM) on its mainnet for developing new cross-chain apps.

bitFlyer and travel rules

according to recent AnnouncementJapanese cryptocurrency exchange BitFlyer will comply with the country’s Financial Services Agency’s new travel rule starting June 1. The Travel Rule states that a crypto asset exchange operator sending crypto assets shall, upon user request, provide specific information about the sender and the recipient. The exchange operator receiving the transfer.

In addition, further restrictions have been placed on crypto transfers to any of the 21 countries using the Coinbase-led Travel Rule Universal Solution Technology (TRUST), such as Japan, Switzerland, Canada, the Bahamas, Hong Kong and the US.

BitFlyer customers who want to transfer crypto to any of the 21 trust countries can only send bitcoin or ethereum and select ERC-20 tokens. Such requirements do not apply to transfers to addresses identified with any of the remaining non-trust countries. As BitFlyer pointed out:

“The purpose of the travel rule is to prevent terrorists and other criminals the ability to track digital funds transfer systems as well as unauthorized use.”

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jiyuan sun

Zhiyuan Sun is a reporter at Cointelegraph focusing on technology related news. He has many years of experience writing for major financial media outlets such as The Motley Fool, Nasdaq.com and Seeking Alpha.