GCR

What Crypto insiders are reading on Asia.

Top Asia News from this Week

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) Chairman on declining mining equipment sales: “We don’t want to specify too much of the segment, particularly it belongs to one of the big customers.” http://bit.ly/2FIZ13I

Huobi claims to have $20 billion worth of trading activities on the derivatives marketplatform platform, which is double from the previous 2 weeks’ number. http://bit.ly/2T82PzD

Binance plans to expand to eight new countries in 2019, according to a report from crypto outlet The Block, Jan. 17. Following the report, a Binance spokesperson has declined to confirm six of the alleged locations in comments to Cointelegraph.http://bit.ly/2FJXHxt

Thailand’s official Stock Exchange is applying for a cryptocurrency license:http://bit.ly/2Mh14gF

OKCoin Founder Star Xu Seeks to Acquire Public Firm for $60 Million.http://bit.ly/2FI9lsN

BTC Korea, the operator of Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb, laid off 30 employees, or ~10% of staff: http://bit.ly/2FH7VyN

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Most Clicked on From Last Newsletter

Hong Kong-based digital currency exchange BitMEX ditches clients in US, Quebec amid regulatory pressure. http://bit.ly/2RMEphw

Mongolia starts off 2019 with its eyes on crypto payment adoption with the help of governmental involvement and experimentation with the technology:http://bit.ly/2AP2TwR

South Korea Government approves seven out of 21 cryptocurrency exchanges’ security policy: http://bit.ly/2ANVhea

A recent Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on Border Security and Immigration has revealed that Mexican drug cartels are now more than ever relying on Chinese cryptocurrency money laundering networks: http://bit.ly/2ALzCD4

Deals

Ceyuan Ventures Joins Pre-A Round In Chinese Blockchain News Platform DeepChain. http://bit.ly/2FKAN9a

Go-Jek has acquired a stake in Coin.ph, a blockchain-enabled mobile wallet from the Philippines. http://bit.ly/2FNAfPQ

Exchange News

Binance CEO Chengpeng Zhao (“CZ”) has come under attack after appearing to advise crypto holders to store their holdings on exchanges instead of on personal storage devices like USB drives or hardware wallets: http://bit.ly/2MmBDKU

OKEx launches Tron perpetual swaps and increases leverage on those of Ethereum (ETH) and EOS: http://bit.ly/2Mjqevk

Binance has frozen tokens sent to its wallet by the entity who allegedly hacked New Zealand exchange Cryptopia, CEO Changpeng Zhao reported in a tweet:http://bit.ly/2MiYtTv

Binance has launched a new fiat-to-crypto exchange on the island of Jersey, a British self-governing dependency: http://bit.ly/2MmyFpK

Japan Welcomes Huobi Crypto Exchange as Fully Licensed Platform, Thanks to BitTrade Merger ://bit.ly/2FKCmE4

OKCoin Lists Tron Cryptocurrency, Claims it’s not a Security. http://bit.ly/2FOmWPx

Binance burns $9.4 million worth of BNB on its 6th quarterly coin burn:http://bit.ly/2Mg5SCU

Regulation News 

China Plans $1 Trillion Buying Spree to Reduce US Trade Deficit. http://bit.ly/2FOnIfp

Business News

China Telecom BestPay, the third largest payment platform operator in China, has raised 945 million yuan ($140 million) purposefully for bringing in blockchain and artificial intelligence advances; http://bit.ly/2MijxcR

Converse with Chinese crypto foudner and founder of Hoo.com Wang Ruixi on his six years in crypto from miner reseller to wallet operator: http://bit.ly/2MhrPBM

DON’T MISS IT

This past weekend, we shared our take on China’s new blockchain service regulations, and examine the news of Bitmain’s co-CEOs stepping down.

THE QUICK TAKE

It’s been relatively quiet in the last month in China, except starting from the last week of December and beginning of this year. We saw the Cyberspace Administration of China announcing new blockchain service regulations, which we break down the details below and ultimately conclude them as a more stringent version, and an extension of the regulations announced in October 2018. We also look at Bitmain’s recent layoffs, and examine the recent announcements of the co-CEOs, Jihan Wu and Micree Zhang, stepping down and their past relationship. Read more here

We released our 2019 In-House Predictions on Crypto in China, US and the rest of Asia, sharing our thoughts from a global lens on what’s going to happen to the crypto around the world. We highlight the realities of a China digital currency, outlook on the largest exchanges and US projects, the important cities you shouldn’t miss in 2019, and more. Be sure to check it out and share with your friends.