Ever since Hong Kong legalized cryptocurrency trading last June, blockchain projects from the West have been paying more attention to the Asian financial hub. Aptos, the a16z- and Tiger Global-backed blockchain network developed by a group of former Meta employees, is one of them. Started by some of the original creators of Meta’s abandoned crypto […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only ..read more

During the pandemic, almost all retailers in Asia established an e-commerce presence and adopted digital payments. But one thing that didn’t change was sourcing, say the founders of cross-border marketplace Markato. Retailers still need to travel to overseas trade shows, cold e-mail new brands and fulfill orders by filling out forms and purchase orders. Markato ..read more

Maple Finance, an on-chain, institutional credit marketplace that’s aspiring to fill a gap left behind by the collapses of crypto lending heavyweights like BlockFi and Celsius, has its sights set on Asia as financial hubs like Hong Kong and Singapore provide more regulatory clarity around digital assets. Maple, which falls under the decentralized finance (DeFi) category, differs from centralized finance or CeFi platforms like BlockFi in that it allows lenders to see loan operations on the blockchain, promising to offer more transparency. Cumulatively, the three-year-old startup has issued $2.2 ..read more

Brinc, the Hong Kong-based accelerator backed by investors like Animoca Brands, is launching a new program for fledgling climate tech startups. The three-month program is tailored for founders who are focused on carbon dioxide removal (CDR). They will receive fundraising support, guidance on how to scale up and introductions to Brinc’s network of follow-on investors, mentors and corporates. Janina Motter, Brinc’s Climate Tech Program manager, told TechCrunch that the accelerator has focused on climate tech for several years through its food tech vertical. “From those successes, we recognized s ..read more

While the Western world debates how to regulate stablecoins, Hong Kong is forging ahead with a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies pegged to traditional financial assets. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is in the process of seeking comments from the public regarding stablecoins and aims to introduce a regulatory framework by the end of 2024, said the city’s Undersecretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Joseph Chan Ho-lim, according to local media. While the U.S. government is toughening its stance on the crypto industry in the wake of TerraUSD (UST)’s collapse and FTX’s ..read more

When an NFT series commemorating the handover of Hong Kong from the U.K. to China generated $260,000 in sales, Artifact Labs, the startup that launched the collection, saw the long-term potential of tokenizing historical artifacts and making them immutable and accessible to the public. Artifact was born out of South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s flagship English newspaper bought by Alibaba for $262 million back in 2015. Its first project comprised non-fungible token versions of SCMP’s front pages from 1997, the year of Hong Kong’s handover, with each item’s rarity level determined by the sig ..read more

On a balmy day in mid-April, thousands of people queued in line to enter the Hong Kong Convention Center where the city’s inaugural web3 festival was underway. Most had flown in from mainland China, but many others had trekked from Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and even the U.S. to see what the city had to offer to crypto ventures at a time regulation over digital assets is intensifying in the U.S. In February, Hong Kong proposed a set of welcoming rules to regulate crypto-related activities. Under the new legal regime, retail investors will be allowed to trade certain digital assets o ..read more

As the collapses of Signature Bank and Silvergate sent crypto companies scrambling, a virtual bank from Hong Kong is extending a warm welcome to web3 startups. Hong Kong-based ZA Bank is now allowed to serve as the settlement bank for regulated web3 companies in the city, the company said today at Hong Kong’s web3 festival, an event that’s backed by the region’s government and has attracted crypto startups and institutions from all over Asia. The online bank is set to facilitate crypto-fiat conversions in conjunction with two licensed exchanges in Hong Kong, HashKey and OSL, where custome ..read more

Hong Kong has an on-again-off-again relationship with crypto: Before China outlawed all crypto-related activities in 2021, the Asian financial hub was the early home to several crypto startups, including the now-defunct FTX, which left for the Bahamas after the ban. Now, Hong Kong is again welcoming crypto businesses, only this time with more regulatory clarity. During its government-backed fintech week late last year, Hong Kong indicated its intention to legalize crypto retail trading and introduce a licensing regime for digital asset providers. The plan took more shape in February when the c ..read more

Circle Ventures, the venture arm of the USDC issuer Circle, has invested in an offshore Chinese yuan-backed stablecoin project, CNHC. It’s hard to overlook the timing and strategic significance of the tie-up. In a matter of several years, stablecoins have grown from a fringe category into a more than $130 billion market. These digital coins are typically backed by traditional assets like the U.S. dollar and are designed to offer a less volatile way to trade than, say, Bitcoin and Ethereum. As the stablecoin industry booms, hierarchy starts to form, mirroring the traditional USD-dominated finan ..read more