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What Crypto insiders are reading on Asia.

This past weekend, we share what we are seeing in the Asia Crypto funds and investments space for our premium subscribers. You can subscribe here for $150 a year, or just $13 a month, to be the first to get access to all our research and insights. Current subscribers can log in to read.

The Quick Take

Investments from Asia crypto funds have mostly stopped this year, and the Asia markets overall will be relatively quiet going into February as many Asian countries and celebrate Lunar New Year, with the celebration lasting up to 3 to 4 weeks. We are seeing a re-centralization of crypto in Silicon Valley, but such trends of crypto accumulation do not equal to crypto adoption. We then share the crypto-related deals that have happened in Asia this year. Read the full post here

Top 15 Highlights from Binance CEO’s Twitter Livestream, on Upcoming DEX and More

Read the entire post here

? Top News in Asia Tuesday through Friday
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According to the Information- Facebook is said to be developing a stablecoin for use in WhatsApp in India, and has ramped up hiring for its blockchain division in the last few months, recruiting a number of executives from PayPal. While it acquired Chainspace, Facebook also spoke to Algorand, Basis and Keybase. http://bit.ly/2E1K8bH

State of Japanese exchanges, and now according to one Japanese industry insider : “The [local] political battle for influence over the industry has definitely overshadowed the enthusiasm for innovation,” said one industry executive. “Conversations happening in the U.S. and China are much more exciting than in Japan.” https://s.nikkei.com/2WPEzo4

Hong Kong’s local gold exchange will introduce in March a new trading platform called GoldZip, which will adopt blockchain technology to enable trading gold in amounts smaller than 1 tael (37.5grams). http://bit.ly/2GwWOZN

China’s Leading Bank CICC research: Alipay’s blockchain payment system can potentially save Filipino workers HK$100 million a year. http://bit.ly/2Gv397T

?Most Clicked on From Last Newsletter

China’s diehard cryptocurrency fans lash out at scams, lament losses as price plunge bites- some anecdotes of what people are doing in their spare time in the bear market: http://bit.ly/2GoJB59

Global expansion, regulations, and the future of the crypto market: an exclusive interview with OKEx CEO Tim Byun: http://bit.ly/2GoI6nt

United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) chipmaker blame revenue losses on bigdrop of cryptocurrency. The company saw a revenue decline of about 10% in the fourth quarter of 2018: http://bit.ly/2Gp87mL

?Deals

Dubai royal Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum is backing cryptocurrency fund managerInvao as the Liechtenstein-based firm seeks to attract more investors from the United Arab Emirates. http://bit.ly/2GAWCc1

? Coins and mining

Vitalik Buterin spoke out against a number of other platforms that have recently disparaged ETH by claiming to have a higher “transaction volume potential”- he refers them to “centralized pile of trash because we only have 7 nodes running the entire thing”.http://bit.ly/2DZt7yK

Analysis: More than 85% of the current Monero Hashrate is ASICs and each machine is doing 128kh/s. http://bit.ly/2DZOxvG

Fetch.AI announces token sale on Binance Launchpad to build intelligent machine-to-machine economy: http://bit.ly/2WSaQLk

 ? Exchange News

In a bid to serve the institutional clients in the crypto market, South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb has launched an over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk, branded as “Ortus”. http://bit.ly/2GwZQwR

Bithumb, another South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange is holding a “Super Airdrop Festival” to mark its 5th anniversary. http://bit.ly/2Gyxd2j

Major global crypto exchangeHuobi has reported a 100 percent growth in trading volume in 2018 over 2017. http://bit.ly/2GwVXYQ

? Business News

According to the data from ICORATING, the global ICO market has just raised $76 million in the first month of 2019, representing a decrease of 94.1% year on year :http://bit.ly/2WQGMzF

Financial Times: Apple and Huawei woes spell misery for electronics supply chain-combine with collapse of cryptocurrency market and US-China trade war. https://on.ft.com/2WMl2oB

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Alex Gladstein is Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation. He has also served as Vice President of Strategy for the Oslo Freedom Forum since its inception in 2009.

Leonhard (Leo) Weese, is the President of the Bitcoin Association Hong Kong. 

In this upcoming episode, we get Alex and Leo’s take about China and Hong Kong’s approach to Bitcoin from a political, cultural and humanitarian perspective. We also talk in depth about China’s technology and data control policies and mining. Stay tuned for our release next Saturday!

? ICYMI: Report on the State of Asia Crypto: Companies and Investments

This past weekend, we share what we are seeing in the Asia Crypto funds and investments space for our premium subscribers. You can subscribe here

The Quick Take

Investments from Asia crypto funds have mostly stopped this year, and the Asia markets overall will be relatively quiet going into February as many Asian countries and celebrate Lunar New Year, with the celebration lasting up to 3 to 4 weeks. We are seeing a re-centralization of crypto in Silicon Valley, but such trends of crypto accumulation do not equal to crypto adoption. We then share the crypto-related deals that have happened in Asia this year. Read the full post here