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Demand for crypto in Hong Kong is mainly driven by institutional investors rather than retail customers, Zodia CEO said. Zodia, the institutional cryptocurrency custody platform co-owned by British banking giant Standard Chartered, Japanese SBI Holdings and the financial firm Northern Trust, is expanding its services to Hong Kong. Zodia Custody is launching services in Hong Kong in response to growing demand for crypto from institutions, Zodia CEO Julian Sawyer said, according to a CNBC report on Oct. 29. According to Sawyer, the crypto demand in Hong Kong is mainly driven by institutional investors rather than retail customers, ideally matching Zodia’s crypto custody offering. He also mentioned that Hong Kong’s stance on crypto aligns with Zodia’s ambitions as the local government “sees digital assets as the future and also wants Hong Kong to be a hub.” Zodia’s launch in Hong Kong comes as the firm aggressively scales operations in Asia, opening services in Japan, Singapore and Austr...

WeChat operator, Tencent, announced the launch of a new digital yuan smart contract enterprise credit solution platform. The new platform aims to bring a more convenient and efficient financing service for small and medium-sized enterprises. The project will use the digital yuan as the payment tool for companies that utilize the new platform. The new solution will imply the Tencent Blockchain platform technology, a scalable blockchain infrastructure that supports various applications and scenarios. The new initiative will combine elements such as the smart contract engine, the digital yuan wallet, and the enterprise credit system. Tencent and digital yuan Tencent, one of the largest Chinese companies, has shown significant interest in developing and implementing the digital yuan, China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC). As the operator of China’s most widely used internet application, WeChat, Tencent has been designated as a critical player in the rollout of ...

China has launch ed its first industrial park dedicated to developing and applying the digital yuan, or e-CNY, in the city of Nanjing, Jiangsu province. The park, which covers an area of 10 square kilometers, aims to attract more than 100 enterprises and institutions related to the digital currency ecosystem, such as financial technology, blockchain, big data, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing. The park was officially opened Oct. 12 by signing a strategic cooperation agreement between the Nanjing municipal government, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank’s Nanjing branch and the Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone. The agreement outlines the park’s vision, goals and plans, which will serve as a platform for innovation, experimentation and promotion of the e-CNY. You might also like: People’s Bank of China Pledges to “Accelerate” Blockchain Development, Boost Local Industry The park will also host several pilot pr...

Citi Token Services will help enable instant transfers globally. The new service will be accessible via its existing systems. Citi shares are down over 15% versus their year-to-date high. Citigroup Inc is in focus today after launching “tokenized deposits” for institutional clients. Tokenized deposits will help enable instant transfers Citi Token Services will change deposits into digital token s to enable instant transfers even outside of business hours to anywhere in the world. According to Shahmir Khaliq – its Global Head of Services: The development of Citi Token Services is part of our journey to deliver real-time, always-on, next-gen transaction banking services to our institutional clients. The multinational investment bank worked for months with Maersk to test this latest foray into the blockchain-enabled payment solution. Its shares are currently down more than 15% versus their year-to-date high. Note that Citi Securities Servi...

PayPal has introduced its stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD), marking its latest foray into digital currency. A global payment platform PayPal launch ed its own stablecoin on August 7, PayPal USD (PYUSD), making it the first large financial company to do so. The PYUSD, backed by US dollar deposits, short-term Treasuries, and other similar cash equivalents, is a product of a partnership between PayPal and Paxos, making its debut on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. Today, we’re unveiling a new stablecoin , PayPal USD (PYUSD). It’s designed for payments and is backed by highly liquid and secure assets. Starting today and rolling out in the next few weeks, you’ll be able to buy, sell, hold and transfer PYUSD. Learn more https://t.co/53RRBhmNHx pic.twitter.com/53ur2KmjU7 — PayPal (@PayPal) August 7, 2023 The creation of this stablecoin is a part of PayPal’s strategy to boost its influence in the digital payments landscape. With the use of this new technology, PayPal aims to faci...

Coinbase’s Base network began onboarding end users through a bridge UI, and the team announced Aug. 9 as the platform's official launch date. Coinbase’s Base network has released a user interface (UI) for its official bridge, allowing end users to onboard for the first time without relying on developer tools, according to an Aug. 3 announcement. The team has set Aug. 9 as Base’s “official” release date. The team will award over 100 Ether (ETH), worth approximately $184,000, in grants to developers and content creators as part of a month-long launch event called the “Onchain Summer.” Base is now open for bridging Base opens for everything on August 9 We’re helping throw an onchain festival to celebrate ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴏɴᴄʜᴀɪɴ ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴇʀ https://t.co/p8KTcnkbbx — Base ️ (@BuildOnBase) August 3, 2023 The Base mainnet launch ed for builders on July 13, but it lacked a functioning UI for its bridge from Ethereum. At the time, the only way to use the network was to employ command-line develop...

The latest proof system promises to better throughput than the current 100 TPS rate and reduce costs in the long term. Ethereum (ETH) layer-2 scaling solution zkSync Era has  launch ed a new STARK- based proof system called Boojum that promises to run on consumer-grade GPU system s. zkSync Era is one of a handful of Ethereum scaling protocols that makes use of zero-knowledge rollups (ZK-rollup) to increase capacity and speed while reducing fees. ZK-rollups mostly use two prominent proof systems, namely zk-STARK and zk-SNARK. zk-SNARK stands for a zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge, while zk-STARK stands for zero-knowledge scalable transparent argument of knowledge. The new Boojum proof system is based on a Rust- based cryptographic library from zkSync that implements an upgraded version of arithmetic circuits for zkSync Era and its ZK developer stack. Most importantly, it allows Boojum provers to be run on everyday personal computers, as opposed to po...

Join Our Telegram channel to stay up to date on breaking news coverage Coinbase Global continues its pursuit of global expansion as the exchange faces an uncertain crypto regulatory framework in the United States. The exchange has announced that it will be increasing the range of services that are available to its customers in Singapore. Coinbase expands Singapore services Coinbase has already announced plans to increase its international footprint. Coinbase is the largest crypto exchange in the US, but its growth in the market is being threatened by the uncertain regulatory framework and the actions being taken by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) The country director for Singapore at Coinbase, Hassan Ahmed, said, The message here is the world is sort of moving on with or without the US, and we are very committed as a global company to keep moving forward on international expansion. Coinbase obtained approval to offer cryptocurrency services in Singapore in O...

Bitcoin futures on CME have traded 550,000 contracts since inception. On Mar. 13, American derivatives marketplace CME announced the launch of Bitcoin (BTC) futures event contracts . The exchange, which is fully regulated and has cleared administrative review, will henceforth facilitate cash-settled, daily expiring contracts tied to Bitcoin futures with a "lower-cost way for investors to trade their views on the up or down price moves of bitcoin." Tim McCourt, global head of equity and FX products at CME Group, commented: Our new event contracts on Bitcoin futures provide a limited-risk, highly transparent way for a wide range of investors to access the bitcoin market via a fully regulated exchange. These cash-settled, daily expiring contracts will further complement our existing suite  which have traded more than 550,000 contracts to-date. On Mar. 10, Cointelegraph reported that asset manager VanEck's spot Bitcoin trust application was denied by the U.S. Securities ...