Global Coin Research: News from the Asia Blockchain Summit in Taipei

This twice-weekly newsletter is republished with permission from Global Coin Research, a global research firm with a focus on Asia blockchain and related technologies. You can find more resources on Asia Cryptocurrency and Blockchain at GlobalCoinResearch.com and on Twitter at @globalcoinrsrch

This week, I’m at the Asia Blockchain Summit in Taipei. Thus far at the conference, Binance has announced to launch crypto futures trading with 20x leverage. While BitMEX is preparing to launch bitcoin zero coupon bond in the “next few weeks,” according to CEO Arthur Hayes. ~Joyce Yang

Top News

Catherine Coley, former head of XRP institutional liquidity at Ripple, has joined Binance.US as CEO. Source

Taiwan Targets October Start Date for World’s First STO Rules: Fundraising through STOs will be capped at TWD300mn (10mnUSD); individual investors will be allowed to purchase up to TWD300,000 (10,000USD) worth of security tokens.

Laura Shin just released an Unchained episode on How Asia’s Trading Culture Results in a Vastly Different Crypto Scene. Source

At the second Ethereum Technology and Application Conference in Beijing just a few days ago- Vitalik Buterin gave a keynote introducing Ethereum 2.0 with more shards. Source

Deals

IOSG Ventures and Fundamental Labs announced the complete of recent fundraising of Polkadot. Along with another institution, these three institutions have invested more than 10 million US dollars in Polkadot. Source

Exchange News

Huobi is partnering with enterprise blockchain project Nervos to develop a new public blockchain dubbed “FinanceChain” to provide defi and decentralized services to businesses. It will allow financial firms in addition to exchanges to deploy their own blockchains, tokenize assets and offer DeFi services. Source

Business

UK bitcoin mining operator Argo Blockchain surpassed its own expectations in Q2,says it saw an increase of approximately 101% from the Company’s May mining results and represents a mining margin of roughly 81%. Source

Deloitte survey: Chinese enterprise employees have expressed the highest rate of confidence that blockchain tech is one of the top-five critical priorities in the country, while the same metrics in the US has accounted for 56%. Source

German Blockchain-as-a-Service provider Advanced Blockchain AG has become the first blockchain development firm to be listed on Germany’s Xetra digital stock exchange, operated by Deutsche Börse. Source

SCMP: Libra will resemble the Hong Kong dollar, whose monetary base is fully backed by US dollar-denominated assets; consumers will have no incentive to use libra, governments have every reason to oppose it. Source

Regulation

Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, is leaving a blockchain project backed by Russia’s central bank, citing slow development and lack of efficiency. Source

IMF Predicts Central Banks to Issue Digital Currencies: several central banks in different countries are considering implementing some form of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Uruguay has reportedly launched a CBDC pilot program already, while the Bahamas, China, Caribbean Currency Union, Sweden, and Ukraine are “on the verge” of testing their systems. Source

Japanese Senate member submitted a virtual currency tax reform petition to the House of Representatives but was not adopted. Source

The Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry has entered a joint initiative to promote the adoption of blockchain trade solutions. Source