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This weekly news summary from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong attempts to plan the most important news in the industry, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory environment, and enterprise blockchain integration.
Limping out of 2021
Last week, we believe that the Chinese exchange has bottomed out because Bitmart unfortunately suffered a $150 million hack.This week, the situation is about the same because AscendEX lost 80 million U.S. dollars due to similar theft Affect its Ethereum, BSC and Polygon hot wallets. On December 16, AscendEX published a security post-mortem analysis detailing the attack:
An in-depth security audit determined that the vulnerability was caused by the exploitation of a hardware-level vulnerability in the third-party infrastructure used by AscendEX. The infiltration is carried out by highly experienced perpetrators. We have been working closely with law enforcement agencies and blockchain forensics companies to further understand the incident.
Like Bitmart, AscendEX responds quickly, assuring the community that their funds will be safe and properly handled, thereby limiting the damage to its reputation. AscendEX, formerly known as BitMax, has done a relatively impressive job in attracting global users, and just completed a US$50 million Series B financing in November 2021. This round of financing includes big names such as Polychain Capital, Alameda Research, and Jump Capital. After suffocating Chinese regulations, it provides exchanges with the motivation to embrace a truly global growth strategy.
A difficult period for Huobi?
On December 15, one of the longest operating exchanges restricted the accounts of millions of Chinese users. Chinese users must access the user-to-user OTC service before the end of December, presumably so that they can choose to cash out before the service is completely stopped. Most savvy users may discover regulatory loopholes by extracting to on-chain wallets or exchanges with more flexible policies.
Before Binance achieved incredible growth during the 2017 ICO boom, Huobi has been the world’s largest exchange in terms of trading volume and liquidity. Focusing on Chinese users, it first tried to cooperate with local regulators, set up an office in Beijing, and set up special innovation zones in Hainan and other parts of China. After regulators adopted a zero-tolerance approach to cryptocurrency exchanges earlier this year, this strategy proved to be short-sighted, forcing exchanges to slowly cancel services for Chinese traders. Huobi has almost no room to hide, because its “first mover advantage” makes it too conspicuous to evade supervision.
Wu Kelin wrote Regarding the internal difficulties of Huobi, it was mentioned that COO Zhu Robin retired from the management, while some other key members have left, including other exchanges including Bybit. One notable departure includes the charismatic head of global assets Ciara Sun. She has built her reputation in China with efficient business development and her iconic cat pictures.
✨Some personal messages✨
After more than 2 years @Huobi Global, I will continue to work on a new enterprise aimed at enhancing the capabilities of the next generation #Web3 and #元节 application. ♥️
More details, but first, a quick thread ????????
— Ciara Sun (@Crypto_Ciara) December 13, 2021
Nevertheless, the former top exchange may have room for a rebound, as Huobi announced two weeks ago that its new regional headquarters will be located in Singapore. Considering that Binance revealed on December 13 that it had abandoned its plan to launch an exchange in Singapore, this is an interesting choice. Although the island nation is known for its regulatory progress, the process of obtaining a license can be very rigorous, especially for Binance, which has been targeted by many policymakers for violating the rules.
If Huobi can wisely replace key management personnel, it can use its financial and strategic resources in Asia to start regaining market share. Currently, Huobi ranks fifth in FTX’s transaction volume monitor, which is about the same size as KuCoin and Bybit, but lags far behind its old rival OKEx. OKEx is the biggest winner in recent weeks, gaining a large amount of trading volume from Huobi and becoming the world’s second largest exchange.
Government officials in hot water
A national security inspection investigation found that 34 state-owned enterprises are actively engaged in cryptocurrency mining using national resources (including equipment and networks). Unclear penalties were imposed on 48 people, including 21 party and government cadres. Another 70 people were interviewed and were warned for failing to provide adequate education on the issue.
Adopt in Hong Kong
18% of Hong Kong residents are active cryptocurrency investors and 13% are passive investors. New survey Visa was released on December 9. This is second only to the United States in the reviewed market. Considering the number of physical cryptocurrency stores and companies established in the Special Administrative Region, this is not surprising. The Visa survey collected 6,430 online responses in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Hong Kong, South Africa, the United States, and the United Kingdom from August 25 to September 13.
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