What Crypto insiders are reading on Asia.
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In this episode, Joyce Yang from Global Coin Research is joined by Jake Smith and Mike Malley, both of whom are advisors to bitcoin.com. Both Jake and Mike grew up in the state but have spent a combined over 30 years in Asia, specifically China and Japan. Fun fact- Jake was the first person to make a retail transaction in Bitcoin in China in 2013.
In our conversation, we cover topics including the differences between the United States, and Japanese and Chinese Cryptocurrency communities and culture, growing adoption locally in Japan and the international adoption of Bitcoin Cash.
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Quote of the week
“In the United States, especially in the Bay area, alot of these blockchain cryptocurrency startups are usually small teams, they are very pie in the sky I would say. They would say something like “we are going to put supply chain on the blockchain, don’t have a product yet but coming soon”. In Asia, the bitcoin and blockchain companies are much more product focused, much more pragmatic, you have all the mining companies and you have exchanges, some remittance startups, [generally] much more productized version of bitcoin. And I think the people on the west don’t understand the magnitude of these companies, I think Bitmain right now has more than 2000 employees , all of the various exchanges usually have hundreds of employees. So I don’t think people realize how big the space is, especially in Asia.”
- one of the many interesting insights between the difference between the East and West from Jake Smith, advisor to Bitcoin.com after spending years in the cryptocurrency community in Japan, China and the United States. Listen to the podcast here
Top News from Wednesday through Friday
Bitmain has started to explore policies and behaviors that aim to increase transparency and foster greater dialogue between them and the cryptocurrency communities at large. http://bit.ly/2NOOQeY
BNB Holders now can receive loans collateralized by BNB with Libra Credit and also Binance Labs invested in Libra Credit. http://bit.ly/2NSv3uS
Huobi announces Peer-to-Peer Exchange is going live In India, featuring Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Tether. http://bit.ly/2NRwmKu
“The bill should be passed as soon as possible.”-Korea’s regulator calls for ‘urgent’ cryptocurrency laws. http://bit.ly/2NT4Ex7
To clearly differentiate token categories, the Thailand SEC has divided ICOs into three types: investment tokens, utility tokens and cryptocurrency. http://bit.ly/2NU3sK7
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology [MIIT], the same department that published rankings for cryptocurrencies, has teamed up with Tencent to report on the implications of blockchain, including that blockchain has a “big role” in payments. http://bit.ly/2NT9nPn
Vietnam’s financial regulator has banned local businesses from engaging in any issue, transaction or brokerage activities related to virtual currencies. http://bit.ly/2NT9Dhj
Coin and Token News
An indepth medium article covering how Bitmain indeed mines coins in secret. http://bit.ly/2LVQoDn
An extensive list of all the EOS Chinese BPs and details on what they each have done for the community so far. http://bit.ly/2LTCHER
Exchange News
Binance partners with Malta presidency to launch the Blockchain charity Foundation. http://bit.ly/2NOUgqk
Binance’s fierce competition upon entering in Korea- UPbit and Bithumb with nearly 90% market share since 2017. http://bit.ly/2LSZZdY
Business News
A Chinese social network of 130mn users that seeks to create the country’s most influential platform for content and knowledge creation, has announced a blockchain based initiative to rebuild its ecosystem, with support of Huobi. http://bit.ly/2LTyyAN
Korean team introduces “Uber” on the blockchain in Singapore- TADA is a service that uses blockchain and digital tokens and charges its drivers zero commission. http://bit.ly/2uVhioq
Korean market landscape is quite unique, with cryptocurrency awareness rate being at nearly 100%. And any politician that doesn’t support the crypto industry will find themselves out of the job eventually, said CZ. http://bit.ly/2NSncgS
IBM and Krungsri, one of Thailand’s largest financial institutions with 8.6mn credit cards, sales finance, and personal loan accounts, announced a five-year US$140M engagement, to build out digital banking including blockchain technology. https://on.mktw.net/2LX1LLf
“Public blockchain, not individual DApps themselves, will breed something like “FANG”, namely Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google. — Dr. Xiao Feng, CEO of Shanghai Wanxiang Blockchain and a heavyweight figure in China’s blockchain space. http://bit.ly/2NPhmNm
Regulation News
Japanese class action against Withcoin after viral promotions on the internet inviting investors to purchase the coin in advance that was going to be listed on a crypto exchange. http://bit.ly/2NSz6rc
The Indian state of Telangana announced it will sign several memoranda of understanding with blockchain firms as to eventually implement the technology in state applications. http://bit.ly/2NU9mL
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 6 weekly pieces on A Guide to Asia Crypto funds/investors, Takeaways on Asia Crypto from Techcrunch Zug, Cryptokitties, Binance, Bitmain, and China’s Crypto winners