Our weekly news roundup from East Asia selects the most important developments in the industry.
Binance is once again under investigation.
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has been accused of firing its own investigators after discovering that its VIP client, prop trading firm DWF Labs, was involved in alleged market manipulation.
According to a May 9 Wall Street Journal report, DWF Labs engaged in market manipulation, wash trading, and inflated trading volumes worth $300 million through its dealings with cryptocurrency projects. After the exchange’s surveillance team recommended offboarding customers, Binance reportedly sided with DWF Labs and fired the investigator, claiming there was insufficient evidence for the claims.
Binance denied involvement. “We ensure a rigorous market surveillance program. We do not tolerate market abuse.” said Exchange with tweets. “Market maker competition is fierce and our investigative team’s job is to remain neutral and look at the evidence without any bias, including any bias that may result from claims made by market makers against competitors.”
According to the exchange, over the past three years, employees who violated its terms of use have outboarded 355,000 users and $2.5 trillion in trading volume.
DWF Labs also denied these claims. He continued, “I want to make it clear that many of the claims recently reported in the media are unfounded and distort the facts.” “DWF Labs operates with the highest standards of integrity, transparency and ethics and is committed to supporting you and our 700+ partners across the cryptocurrency ecosystem.”
The spouse of Binance co-founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao ironically wrote the following response. writing:
“I am very grateful to WSJ for its consistent and long-term commitment to Binance. This has significantly increased our exposure and saved us a lot of marketing budget. However, I have noticed an interesting phenomenon in which some mainstream media articles are increasingly driven by emotion and bias rather than fact. For example, a former employee’s complaint could be the basis of an article, but Binance’s active support of law enforcement in investigating and arresting those behind Zkasino would be deemed (in fact) not worth reporting. ”
DWF Labs is a prominent trading company in the cryptocurrency industry. Founded in 2021 by Andrei Grachev, the company invests in promising projects and provides long-term financial support, as stated on its website.
Thailand Web3 Music Festival Ends
Music Idol Protocol Fansland’s Bangkok Music Festival in Thailand attracted over 30,000 audiences from May 4th to 5th.
Perhaps the Web3 aspect was less appealing than a performance by South Korean pop star Psy, the creator of ‘Gangnam Style’. Over 20 artists including Guangdong hip-hop artist Edison Chen, powerful vocalist Henry Lau, Gen1es, BKPP, Chanyeol, BUS, Dreamnote, Pretzel, Sistar19, Taemin, and 24k Golden. lit up the stage.
The organizer breathlessly said, “Their thrilling performance set the stage on fire, creating an atmosphere overflowing with pure excitement and energy that left the audience in awe.”
In addition to human performances, the festival featured tokenized music products and AI-generated music idols.
The festival features a unique NFT ticketing system where tickets are issued as NFTs on Fansland and can be traded on secondary markets. Tickets can also be used as an access point to interact with Fansland DeFi.
Holders of the music festival’s first NFT tickets will automatically become early participants in Fansland.AI, unlocking perks such as token airdrops and future whitelist eligibility.
Fans Land aims to build a decentralized fan economy infrastructure so that music lovers around the world can interact with its singers and idols. Focuses on Web3 Music Festivals, NFT Ticketing, and Real Asset DeFi. Last month, Fansland secured a $10 million funding round led by IME, Linear Capital, and Falablock.
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Hong Kong ETF raises $317 million, but can it last?
Total assets managed by the six Hong Kong spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs have surpassed $317.4 million since their launch on April 30.
Data from local cryptocurrency exchange OSL, which also acts as a trading platform and sub-custodian for some of the aforementioned ETFs, showed inflows of 2,079.42 Bitcoin (BTC) and 396.79 Ethereum (ETH).
“Together, we have solved some of the industry’s most complex challenges, including managing regulated digital assets, ensuring stable liquidity, and connecting traditional financial markets with the speed of on- and off-chain operations,” said Patrick Pan, CEO of OSL.
The Hong Kong Spot Cryptocurrency ETF is denominated in three fiat currencies and investors can subscribe and redeem ETF units in both crypto and fiat currencies. However, most of the ETF’s assets under management (well over $200 million) appear to have been subscribed prior to its listing.
Total asset flows into the six ETFs have totaled just $24.7 million since April 30, according to data compiled by Farside Investors. This is just a tiny fraction of the tens of billions of dollars that went into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs in their first week of launch.
Nonetheless, many industry veterans remain optimistic.
“A $310 million Hong Kong ETF is equivalent to $50 billion in the U.S. market.” said Bloomberg ETF senior analyst Eric Balchunas noted the relative size and liquidity of the Hong Kong market compared to the United States on April 6. “So in that respect, these ETFs are already having as much of an impact on the local market as the U.S. market.”
Thomas Driver, co-founder of ApolloSats assert “There are rumors that approval is pending for a Hong Kong stock market link that would allow investment from mainland China and ignite this market.” However, this is just a rumor and mainland Chinese investors are currently barred from accessing Hong Kong cryptocurrency ETFs, with over 1 billion people barred from entering them.
$128 million pledged to Hong Kong cryptocurrency ETF liquidity fund
Market makers remain optimistic about the prospects for Hong Kong ETFs.
On May 8, digital asset managers LD Capital, Antalpha Ventures and Highblock committed a total of $128 million to provide market-making services to Hong Kong ETFs with the aim of improving liquidity, improving capital flow efficiency and reducing associated risks. . There are liquidity fluctuations and trading volatility.”
LD Capital is a digital asset fund focused on primary and secondary blockchain investments, with over 300 blockchain companies in its portfolio. Antalpha Ventures is a financial services platform affiliated with Bitmain, a leading manufacturer of Bitcoin mining ASICs.
Founded by former executives of a major international digital asset trading platform, Highblock Limited has over 10 years of experience in blockchain quantitative trading. The company is licensed for digital asset quantitative trading in Hong Kong and provides quantitative trading and investment portfolio management services in the digital asset sector.
Adding liquidity could be important due to limited liquidity in the Hong Kong market and the ongoing market downturn in China, with the six spot cryptocurrency ETFs seeing only about $100 million in first-day trading volume.
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Jyuyuan Line
Zhiyuan Sun is a journalist at Cointelegraph specializing in technology news. He has years of experience writing for major financial outlets such as The Motley Fool, Nasdaq.com, and Seeking Alpha.
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