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Bitmain’s IPO challenges; Terra funded by top 4 exchanges; FCoin stop servicing mainland; Baidu and Guangzhou follows suit with China ban edit

Thank you for your support for Global Coin Research for the last year.

Many readers may not know that Global Coin Research is actually headquartered in New York City, despite our focus on Asia. We have a strong and amazing community in New York and we always look for ways to give back.

For New York City-based Crypto folks, our Blockchains for Schools Mentorship Program have officially started accepting applications for mentors for the school year.

The mentees are 40 high school students from all over New York City, and each of them has gone through a rigorous interview process to make sure that they have a basic understanding of blockchain.

The program meetup will take place once a month, on a weekend, for 1.5 hours in the city. You will be matched with a mentee once you fill out this application here, it literally takes 1 minute.

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Top News in Asia from Monday to Wednesday

Bitmain: IPO and Technical Challenges, an in-depth analysis of the business. http://bit.ly/2PcJn27
Also, China’s financial publisher, Caijing, destroys Bitmain IPO in its latest report. http://bit.ly/2PhvEqR

Alipay and its parent company Ant Financial to partner with local Chinese authorities to use blockchain for ensuring the authenticity of rice. http://bit.ly/2Nx5PT1

A self-regulatory organization founded by the People’s Bank of China has added a “token sales” category to its platform that allows the public to report on potentially illegal financial activities. http://bit.ly/2MCe2cq

Baidu, the operator of China’s dominant internet search engine, has shut down some of its popular cryptocurrency-related chat rooms. http://bit.ly/2N04l6I

China’s Guangzhou city is following the lead of Beijing’s financial district in banning activities that promote cryptocurrencies. http://bit.ly/2NsZQ1C

A report by South Korea’s state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) suggests that North Korea has been mining cryptocurrencies. Also, a technology firm in the country is developing an exchange platform for bitcoin. http://bit.ly/2MEctdM

*China media* Starting 8/28, FCoin will not provide services to users in mainland China. Google translated

A nationwide ‘Blockchain Reform’ kicks off in China despite the cryptocurrency ban. http://bit.ly/2PeCiOw

Deals

Four of the world’s largest crypto exchanges — Binance Labs, OKEx, Huobi Capital, and Dunamu — the firm behind Korea’s Upbit — have all poured $32mn capital into Terra, a stable-coin. https://tcrn.ch/2Pdt8BY

South Korean accelerator and fund network SparkLabs Group has made the first close of its second venture capital fund at $6.18 million. http://bit.ly/2MEay94

Coin and Token News

Digital CarPass, a project that Volkswagen and IOTA (MIOTA) are working on, is near completion and will soon be unveiled for the public use. http://bit.ly/2NrIlyO

EOS developers mitigated a RAM exploit issue. http://bit.ly/2NnoUqO

Tron has begun trading on KuCoin, a Singapore based cryptocurrency exchange, against Bitcoin and Ethereum. http://bit.ly/2MZ5WtD

Exchange News

OKEx will no longer be allowing withdrawals by unverified users. http://bit.ly/2NrAuRL

Randi Zuckerberg, the elder sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, has joined the advisory board of cryptocurrency exchange Huobi to develop Huobi’s new public blockchain.
http://bit.ly/2MX72pD

Bithumb, South Korea’s second-biggest crypto exchange by daily trading volume behind UPbit, will officially resume registrations for new investors as early as this week. http://bit.ly/2Nsakys

Regulation News

Singapore and Chongqing, China, forms a new fund on communicationand media, covering technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet-of-Things, virtual and augmented reality, robotics, and blockchain technology. http://bit.ly/2LvbM1a

Monetary Authority of Singapore and Dubai Financial Services Authority strengthen ties in FinTech- including payments, cryptocurrency and blockchain. http://bit.ly/2Phwh3x

Despite an infamous crackdown on digital assets, the Reserve Bank of India has created a task force to explore avenues and unique use-cases pertaining to blockchain technology, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies. http://bit.ly/2MzT4ej

Business News

Content Box, the reverse ICO of the global audio content platform Castbox, will be listed on the Korean cryptocurrency exchange CpDAX. To learn more about the reverse-ICO phenomenonin Korea, check out the podcast we had with GBIC. http://bit.ly/2MxPL7f

Bitmain, Canaan Inc and Ebang, three of the world’s largest bitcoin mining equipment makers plan to raise billions of dollars with initial public offerings in Hong Kong. http://bit.ly/2MCtFAE

India mobile phone operators are currently reviewing blockchain technology-based solutions to curb unsolicited commercial communication. http://bit.ly/2LwSLv7

Samsung has unveiled its blockchain based platform, BankSign, to allow people to make transactions at different Korea banks more easily. http://bit.ly/2MEktvq

Cambodian rice farmers turn to blockchain to gain pricing power. Blocrice is intended to promote contract farming between farmers’ cooperatives and exporters, rice cracker makers and other buyers. https://s.nikkei.com/2LzPTOf

What did you guys think of our Global Coin podcast thus far? What do you want to read or learn more about on Asia?

Check our past 7 weekly pieces on Southeast Asia Cryptocurrency Developments, A Guide to Asia Crypto funds/investors, Takeaways on Asia Crypto from Techcrunch Zug, Cryptokitties, Binance, Bitmain, and China’s Crypto winners