No civil protection for crypto in China, $300K to list coins in Hong Kong? Asia Express
Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments.
Hot week for Hong Kong exchanges
Hashkey Exchange — one of the first regulated crypto exchanges in Hong Kong — has announced insurance coverage for clients assets stored in its hot and cold wallets. accounts. The policy will cover 50% of Hashkey’s digital assets in cold wallets and 100% of digital assets in hot wallets and pay out anywhere between $50 million to $400 million in the event of a claim.
Hashkey’s partnership with fintech OneDegree will also see the pair co-develop novel crypto security solutions for the exchange to manage server downtime, data back-up, and load control. “Getting insurance cover from OneInfinity by OneDegree not only fulfills the Securities and Futures Commission requirements, we believe the collaboration can also enhance our financial, technical, and service infrastructure to provide our customers with comprehensive protection,” said Livio Wang, COO of Hashkey Group.
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Wang also disclosed that the exchange plans to submit four major altcoins for listing approval to the Hong Kong Securities & Futures Commission. Since its license was approved in August, Hashkey has grown to over 120,000 customers with a cumulative trading volume surpassing $10 billion.
BC Technology Group, the owner of another licensed exchange called OSL, has announced a $91 million strategic investment from BGX crypto group. BGX CEO Patrick Pan called the investment “a strategic move that reflects our belief in the immense potential of the digital asset market.” Last month, Bloomberg reported that BC Technology Group was seeking to spin off the OSL exchange for $128 million, whcih the company denied at the time.
While Hong Kong crypto exchanges are gaining traction, the barrier to entry for users and token developers alike appears to be high. In an announcement on November 15, Hashkey stated that token developers must pay a non-refundable application fee of $10,000 for listing their coins or tokens on the exchange.
Hashkey also warned that developers should expect a total cost of $50,000 to $300,000 for the listing process, if approved, when combined with due diligence or advisory fees.
The Block gets a fresh start
Crypto media publication The Block has received a $60 million investment for 80% of its equity from Singaporean venture capital firm Foresight Ventures but will still operate as a separate company.
As told by CEO Larry Cermak on November 13, the deal “gives The Block a fresh start ahead of the bull market and provides us with more capital to build out new exciting products and expand our footprint into Asia and the Middle East.”
Forrest Bai, CEO of Foresight Ventures, told Cointelegraph that “the purchase of The Block marks a crucial milestone, substantially strengthening Foresight Ventures’ position in the cryptocurrency sector.”
The Block became embroiled in the FTX scandal last year when it came to light that former CEO Mike McCaffrey took millions of dollars in loans from FTX founder and convicted felon Sam Bankman-Fried. Much of the capital was used to buy out his shares. The Block reportedly laid off 33% of its staff due to the overall market downturn and the fallout arising from the incident.
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No civil protection for crypto in China
A third Chinese court has voided a crypto investment contract on the basis that cryptocurrencies contravene the spirit of its crypto ban and therefore are not protected by law, at least in civil disputes.
As narrated by the Liaoning Zhuanhe People’s Court on November 14, the plaintiff, Wang Ping, lent the equivalent of $552,300 Tether (USDT) to a friend, Zhao Bin, for the purposes of investing in altcoins in 2022. The transaction resulted in heavy losses for Wang, leading them to subsequently file a lawsuit demanding the return of principal. The defendant, Zhao, refused.
At trial, the presiding judge ruled that the plaintiff had no right to judicial relief as transactions between cryptocurrencies are classified as “illegal activity.” Therefore, all “virtual currency and related derivatives violate public order and good customs, and the relevant civil legal actions are invalid, and the resulting losses shall be borne by them.”
“Virtual currency does not have the same legal status as legal currency. Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities. It is also an illegal financial activity for overseas virtual currency exchanges to provide services to residents in my country through the Internet.”
The ruling follows other precedents set by Chinese civil courts earlier this year. However, recently, the Chinese government has clarified that certain criminal acts pertaining to virtual currencies, such as theft of nonfungible tokens, are prosecutable under the penal code. Chinese has enforced its crypto ban since 2021.
Philippines to issue tokenized bonds
The Philippines’ Bureau of Treasury (BTr) is seeking to raise the equivalent of $180 million from its domestic capital market through the issuance of tokenized bonds.
As announced on November 16, the tokenized bonds are one-year fixed-rate government securities that pay semi-annual coupons offered to institutional investors starting next week. The bonds will be issued in the form of digital tokens and maintained in the BTr’s Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Registry. “As part of the National Government’s Government Securities Digitalization Roadmap, the maiden issuance of TTBs aims to provide the proof of concept for the wider use of DLT in the government bond market,” the institution said.
In July, Cointelegraph reported that nonprofit The Blockchain Council of the Philippines partnered with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to foster Web3 adoption in the Southeast Asian country. The organizations will be working to educate and collaborate with local stakeholders within the Philippine blockchain ecosystem, including government bodies, Web3 developers, and civil societies.
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Tulip Siddiq has told Sky News her “lawyers are ready” to handle any formal questions about allegations she is involved in corruption in Bangladesh.
Asked whether she regrets apparent links with the Bangladeshi Awami League political party, Ms Siddiq said “why don’t you look at my legal letter and see if I have any questions to answer… [the Bangladeshi authorities] have not once contacted me and I’m waiting to hear from them”.
The London MP resigned as a Treasury minister in January after being named in several corruption inquiries in Bangladesh.
In her first public comments since leaving government, Ms Siddiq said “there’s been allegations for months on end and no one has contacted me”.
Last month, the interim leader of Bangladesh told Sky News the MP had “wealth left behind” in the country “and should be made responsible”.
Lawyers acting for Ms Siddiq wrote to the Bangladeshi Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) several weeks ago saying the allegations were “false and vexatious”.
The letter said the ACC must put questions to Ms Siddiq “by no later than 25 March 2025” or “we shall presume that there are no legitimate questions to answer”.
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Staff from the NCA visited Bangladesh as part of initial work to support the interim government in the country.
In a post online today, the former minister said the deadline had expired and the authorities had not replied.
Sky News has approached the Bangladeshi government for comment.
The allegations against Ms Siddiq are focused on links to her aunt Sheikh Hasina – who served as the prime minister of Bangladesh for 20 years.
Ms Hasina was forced to flee the country in August following weeks of deadly protests.
She is accused of becoming an autocrat, with politically-motivated arrests, extra-judicial killings and other abuses allegedly happening on her watch. Hasina claims it’s all a political witch hunt.
Electrocuted on their genitals and mouths sewn up: Inside Bangladesh’s ‘death squad’ jails
Ms Siddiq was found to have lived in several London properties that had links back to the Awami League political party that her aunt still leads.
She referred herself to the prime minister’s standards adviser Sir Laurie Magnus who said he had “not identified evidence of improprieties” but added it was “regrettable” Ms Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt.
Ms Siddiq said continuing in her role would be “a distraction” for the government but insisted she had done nothing wrong.
Cryptocurrency exchange OKX reportedly hired former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to advise it over the federal probe that resulted in the firm pleading guilty to several violations and agreeing to pay $505 million in fines and penalties.
Cuomo, a New York-registered attorney, advised OKX on legal issues stemming from the probe sometime after August 2021 when he resigned as New York overnor, Bloomberg reported on April 2, citing people familiar with the matter.
“He spoke with company executives regularly and counseled them on how to respond to the criminal investigation,” Bloomberg said.
The Seychelles-based firm pled guilty to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business in violation of US Anti-Money Laundering laws on Feb. 24 and agreed to pay $84 million worth of penalties while forfeiting $421 million worth of fees earned from mostly institutional clients.
The breaches occurred from 2018 to 2024 despite OKX having an official policy preventing US persons from transacting on its crypto exchange since 2017, the Department of Justice noted at the time.
A spokesperson for Cuomo, Rich Azzopardi, told Bloomberg that Cuomo has been providing private legal services representing individuals and corporations on a variety of matters since resigning as New York governor.
“He has not represented clients before a New York city or state agency and routinely recommends former colleagues for positions,” Azzopardi added.
OKX reportedly wasn’t willing to comment on its relationships with outside firms.
Cuomo also influenced OKX to make executive appointments: Bloomberg
Cuomo, who is now running for mayor of New York City, also advised OKX to appoint his friend US Attorney Linda Lacewell to OKX’s board of directors, Bloomberg said.
Lacewell, a former superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, was added to the board in 2024 and was named OKX’s new chief legal officer on April 1, according to a recent company statement.
Source: Linda Lacewell
Related: New York bill aims to protect crypto investors from memecoin rug pulls
After the investigation concluded, OKX said it would seek out a compliance consultant to remedy the issues stemming from the federal probe and bolster its regulatory compliance program.
“Our vision is to make OKX the gold standard of global compliance at scale across different markets and their respective regulatory bodies,” OKX CEO Star Xu said in a Feb. 24 X post.
Magazine: Financial nihilism in crypto is over — It’s time to dream big again
United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing reciprocal tariffs on trading partners and a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries.
The reciprocal levies on will be approximately half of what trading partners charge for US imports, Trump said. For example, China currently has a tariff of 67% on US imports, so US reciprocal tariffs on Chinese goods will be 34%. Trump also announced a standard 25% tariff on all automobile imports.
Trump told the media that tariffs would return the country to economic prosperity seen in previous centuries:
“From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff-backed nation. The United States was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been. So wealthy, in fact, that in the 1880s, they established a commission to decide what they were going to do with the vast sums of money they were collecting.”
“Then, in 1913, for reasons unknown to mankind, they established the income tax so that citizens, rather than foreign countries, would start paying,” Trump said.
Full breakdown of reciprocal tariffs by country. Source: Cointelegraph
Trump presented the tariffs through the lens of economic protectionism and hinted at returning to the economic policies of the 19th century by using them to replace the income tax.
Related: Bitcoin rally to $88.5K obliterates bears as spot volumes soar — Will a tariff war stop the party?
Trump proposes eliminating federal income tax and replacing it with tariff revenue
Trump proposed the idea of abolishing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and funding the federal government exclusively through trade tariffs while still on the campaign trail in October 2024.
According to accounting automation company Dancing Numbers, Trump’s plan could save each American taxpayer $134,809-$325,561 in taxes throughout their lives.
US President Donald Trump addresses the media about reciprocal trade tariffs at the April 2 press event. Source: Fox 4 Dallas
The higher range of the tax savings estimate will only occur if other wage-based taxes are eliminated at the state and municipal levels.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who assumed office in February, also voiced support for replacing the IRS with the “External Revenue Service.”
Lutnick said that the US government cannot balance a budget yet consistently demands more from its citizens every year. Tariffs will also protect American workers and strengthen the US economy, he said.
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