Politics

China dev fined 3 yr’s salary for VPN use, 10M e-CNY airdrop: Asia Express

Published

2 years ago

September 28, 2023

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Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments.

Chinese worker fined $145K over VPN

An unnamed individual in China was fined 1.06 million Yuan ($144,907) for using a virtual private network (VPN) to access restricted websites as part of a remote work routine for a foreign employer.

According to local mediareportsearlier this week, during his employment as a consultant between 2019 to 2022 the unnamed individual accessed GitHub to view source code, answered questions in customer support, held teleconferences via Zoom, and posted multiple threads on Twitter with the help of a VPN.

Images from the China Digital Times story.

Based on a document issued by City of Chengde Police, the individual’s income earned with the aid of a VPN was deemed as “proceeds of crime.” The police issued a penalty of $144,097, equivalent to three years of the individual’s salary.

Chinese law prohibits the use of VPNs to bypass the country’s “Great Firewall” that blocks popular sites such as Google, Wikipedia, and Facebook. The ruling has spooked many in China’s IT and Web3 circles, who often rely on VPNs for similar remote-work tasks.

City of Hangzhou airdrops 10M e-CNY

The City of Hangzhou is airdropping 10 million digital yuan central bank digital currency (e-CNY), worth a total of $1.37 million, to incentivize food and beverage spending as it hosts the 19th Asian Games.

Anyone within the municipality of Hangzhou, locals and visitors alike, can receive the e-CNY airdrop for use in food delivery platforms. Individuals can receive up to three vouchers that reimburse merchants, in e-CNY, up to 20% to 30% of the value of food items after purchase.

The airdrop will renew every five days until the balance is emptied. The vouchers, although denominated in e-CNY, are only effective for five days and can only be tendered through select food delivery platforms. Earlier this year, the City of Hangzhou airdropped 4 million e-CNY, worth $590,000, in an effort to boost the CBDC’s adoption.

15 detained over largest alleged Ponzi scheme in Hong Kong’s history

Hong Kong police have detained 15 individuals linked to the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange JPEX.

As of September 27, Hong Kong Policeclaimthey have received over 2,392 complaints claiming a total loss of 1.5 billion Hong Kong dollars ($191.6 million) in the apparent Ponzi scheme. Since the investigation began mid-September, police say that they have seized 8 million HKD ($1 million) in cash and frozen bank accounts worth 77 million HKD ($10 million) suspected of being proceeds of crime.

On September 13, the Hong Kong Securities & Futures Commission (SFC) issued a warning regarding JPEX being an unlicensed exchange within its jurisdiction. The move led to several arrests of its key executives and the abandonment of its corporate booth in Token2049 Singapore. Prior to its collapse, JPEX was one of the most heavily marketed crypto exchanges in Hong Kong, with corporate ads displayed across the city’s metro lines and taxis.

The incident is shaping up as potentially the worst Ponzi scheme in Hong Kong’s history in terms of monetary loss. Shortly after its discovery, the SFC began publishing a list of crypto exchanges awaiting registration or are unlicensed within the special administrative region of China.

CoinEx resilient despite $70M hack

Hong Kong crypto exchange CoinEx will resume services despite falling victim to a $70 million wallet hack orchestrated by North Korea’s infamous Lazarus Group.

According to a September 22 statement, CoinEx claims to have resumed deposits and withdrawals on 190 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, USD Coin, and Tether. The firm stated:

“The wallet system is operating safely and steadily at present. We will gradually resume deposit and withdrawal services for the remaining 500+ cryptos. Since the resuming operations will be processed frequently, there will be no further or separate announcements for each crypto.”

As part of its new wallet system, CoinEx updated the deposit addresses of all crypto assets, rendering old addresses invalid. On September 12, a leak of the exchange’s hot wallet keys led to the theft of over $70 million worth of users’ cryptos. Despite the incident, CoinEx said that cold wallets were not affected and that the CoinEx User Asset Security Foundation would “bear the financial losses from this incident.”

Multiple blockchain security firms, such as Elliptic, have pointed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group as the perpetrator of the exploit. The CoinEx team has since offered a “generous bounty” for the return of stolen funds. Prior to the hack, the exchange disclosed it had around $260 million worth of major cryptocurrencies in its proof-of-reserves report.

Alibaba moves into digital wallets

Chinese tech conglomerate Alibaba wants to launch its own wallet service.

According to the September 28 announcement, Alibaba’s Cloud subsidiary has partnered with crypto custodian Cobo to create an enterprise wallet-as-a-service solution for developers and organizations, integrating crypto wallets into software through APIs and SDKs. Cobo says it is incorporating its custodial wallet and multi-party computation technology to build the Alibaba Cloud wallet.

“This collaboration marks a significant step towards setting new standards in security, performance, and accessibility of the digital wallet infrastructure for Web3,” said Dr. Changhao Jiang, co-founder and CTO of Cobo. The firm claims to hold partnerships with over 500 institutions, with billions of digital assets in custody through its wallet solutions. In June, crypto-friendly executive Joe Tsaibecame the chairmanof Alibaba Group, replacing his predecessor Daniel Zhang.

Zhiyuan Sun

Zhiyuan Sun is a journalist at Cointelegraph focusing on technology-related news. He has several years of experience writing for major financial media outlets such as The Motley Fool, Nasdaq.com and Seeking Alpha.

Politics

Solana’s Loopscale pauses lending after $5.8M hack

Published

2 hours ago

April 26, 2025

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<div>Solana's Loopscale pauses lending after .8M hack</div>

Solana decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Loopscale has temporarily halted its lending markets after suffering an approximately $5.8 million exploit.

On April 26, a hacker siphoned approximately 5.7 million USDC (USDC) and 1200 Solana (SOL) from the lending protocol after taking out a “series of undercollateralized loans”, Loopscale co-founder Mary Gooneratne said in an X post.

The exploit only impacted Loopscale’s USDC and SOL vaults and the losses represent around 12% of Loopscale’s total value locked (TVL), Gooneratne added.

Loopscale is “working to resume repayment functionality as soon as possible to mitigate unforeseen liquidations,” its said in an X post.

“Our team is fully mobilized to investigate, recover funds, and ensure users are protected,” Gooneratne said.

Solana's Loopscale pauses lending after $5.8M hack — *Loopscale’s ‘Genesis’ lending vaults. Source: Loopscale*

In the first quarter of 2025, hackers stole more than $1.6 billion worth of crypto from exchanges and on-chain smart contracts, blockchain security firm PeckShield said in an April report.

More than 90% of those losses are attributable to a $1.5 billion attack on ByBit, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange, by North Korean hacking outfit Lazarus Group.

Unique DeFi lending model

Launched on April 10 after a six-month closed beta, Loopscale is a DeFi lending protocol designed to enhance capital efficiency by directly matching lenders and borrowers.

It also supports specialized lending markets, such as “structured credit, receivables financing, and undercollateralized lending,” Loopscale said in an April announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

Loopscale’s order book model distinguishes it from DeFi lending peers such as Aave that aggregate cryptocurrency deposits into liquidity pools.

Loopscale’s main USDC and SOL vaults yield APRs exceeding 5% and 10%, respectively. It also supports lending markets for tokens such as JitoSOL and BONK (BONK) and looping strategies for upwards of 40 different token pairs.

The DeFi protocol has approximately $40 million in TVL and has attracted upwards of 7,000 lenders, according to researcher OurNetwork.

Magazine: Ripple says SEC lawsuit ‘over,’ Trump at DAS, and more: Hodler’s Digest, March 16 – 22

Politics

US Senator calls for Trump impeachment, cites memecoin dinner

Published

5 hours ago

April 26, 2025

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US Senator calls for Trump impeachment, cites memecoin dinner

United States Senator Jon Ossoff expressed support for impeaching President Donald Trump during an April 25 town hall, citing the President’s plan to host a private dinner for top Official Trump memecoin holders.

“I mean, I saw just 48 hours ago, he is granting audiences to people who buy his meme coin,” said Ossoff, a Democrat, according to a report by NBC News.

“When the sitting president of the United States is selling access for what are effectively payments directly to him. There is no question that that rises to the level of an impeachable offense.”

Senator Ossoff said he “strongly” supports impeachment proceedings during a town hall in the state of Georgia, where he is running for reelection to the Senate.

The Senator added that an impeachment is unlikely unless the Democratic Party gains control of Congress during the US midterm elections in 2026. Trump’s own Republican Party currently has a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Conflicts of interest

On April 23, the Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin’s website announced plans for Trump to host an exclusive dinner at his Washington, DC golf club with the top 220 TRUMP holders.

The website subsequently posted a leaderboard tracking top TRUMP wallets and a link to register for the event. The TRUMP token’s price has gained more than 50% since the announcement, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

The specific guest list is unclear, but the memecoin’s website states that applicants must pass a background check, “can not be from a [Know Your Customer] watchlist country,” and cannot bring any additional guests.

On April 25, the team behind TRUMP denied social media rumors that TRUMP holders need at least $300,000 to participate in an upcoming dinner with the president.

“People have been incorrectly quoting #220 on the block explorer as the cutoff. That’s wrong because it includes things like locked tokens, exchanges, market makers, and those who are not participating. Instead, you should only be going off the leaderboard,” they wrote.

Law, Politics, Senate, Donald Trump, trumpcoin, Memecoin — *The TRUMP token jumped on news of the private dinner plans. Source:* *CoinMarketCap*

Legal experts told Cointelegraph that Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures, including the TRUMP memecoin and Trump-affiliated decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol World Liberty Financial, raise significant concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

“Within just a couple of days of him taking office, he’s signed a number of executive orders that are significantly going to affect the way that our crypto and digital assets industry works,” Charlyn Ho of law firm Rikka told Cointelegraph in February.

“So if he has a personal pecuniary benefit arising from his own policies, that’s a conflict of interest.”

Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions

Politics

Crypto sentiment recovers, but weekend liquidity risks remain

Published

8 hours ago

April 26, 2025

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Crypto sentiment recovers, but weekend liquidity risks remain

Crypto investor sentiment has seen a significant recovery from global tariff concerns, but analysts warn that the market’s structural weaknesses may still result in downside momentum during periods of weekend illiquidity.

Risk appetite appeared to return among crypto investors this week after US President Donald Trump adopted a softer tone, saying that import tariffs on Chinese goods may “come down substantially.”

However, the improved investor sentiment “does not guarantee that Bitcoin will avoid volatility over the weekend,” analysts from Bitfinex exchange told Cointelegraph:

“Sentiment improvements reduce fragility, but they do not eliminate structural risks like thin weekend liquidity.”

“Historically, weekends remain vulnerable to sharp moves — especially when open interest is high and market depth is low,” the analysts said, adding that unexpected macroeconomic news can still increase volatility during low liquidity periods.

Bitcoin (BTC) staged a near 11% recovery during the past week, but its rally has previously been limited by Sunday liquidity dynamics.

Bitcoin fell below $75,000 on Sunday, April 6, despite initially decoupling from the US stock market’s $3.5 trillion drop on April 4 after US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that Trump’s tariffs may affect the economy and raise inflation.

The correction was exacerbated by the lack of weekend liquidity and the fact that Bitcoin was the only large liquid asset available for de-risking, industry watchers told Cointelegraph.

“While improved sentiment creates a more stable foundation, cryptocurrency markets are still susceptible to rapid movements during periods of reduced trading volume,” according to Marcin Kazmierczak, co-founder and chief operating officer of RedStone blockchain oracle firm.

“The sentiment recovery provides some cushioning, but traders should remain cautious as weekend liquidity constraints can still amplify price movements regardless of the current market mood,” he told Cointelegraph.

Crypto investors may have “maxed out on tariff-related fears”

Cryptocurrency markets may have priced in the full extent of tariff-related concerns, according to Aurelie Barthere, principal research analyst at crypto intelligence platform Nansen.

“It feels like we’ve maxed out on tariff-related fear,” she told Cointelegraph, adding:

“While many remain uncertain about where things are headed over the next month or so, it also seems like markets were just waiting for the slightest signal that we’re back in the game.”

“Whether the rally is sustainable depends on whether we can break through previous resistance levels, at least in isolation. It could have legs, as markets now seem to believe there’s a ‘Trump put’ under equities, the US dollar and US Treasurys,” Barthere added, warning of more potential volatility amid the upcoming negotiations.

Nansen previously predicted a 70% chance that crypto markets will bottom and start a recovery by June, but highlighted that the timing will depend on the outcome of tariff negotiations.

The tariff negotiations may only be “posturing” for the US to reach a trade agreement with China, which may be the “big prize” for Trump’s administration, according to Raoul Pal, founder and CEO of Global Macro Investor.