HTX hacked again for $13.6M, 100K Koreans test CBDC, Binance 2.0: Asia Express
Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments.
HTX exchange hacked… again
In the fourth hack affecting the HTX (formerly Huobi Global) ecosystem in just two months, the exchange lost $13.6 million via a hot wallet hack that occurred on Nov. 22.
In its Nov. 23 announcement, the exchangepromisedto “fully compensate for the losses caused by this attack and 100% guarantee the safety of user funds,” as well as restore services within 24 hours of the attack. The day prior, the HTX Eco Chain (HECO) bridge was exploited for $86.6 million. An investigation is ongoing.
In September, the HTX exchange was hacked for $7.9 million; this was followed by a $100 million hack against the Poloniex exchange, a related entity, in November. Justin Sun, the Chinese blockchain personality and de-facto owner of HTX (not to mention the owner of Poloniex, founder of Tron and CEO of BitTorrent etc),stated after the attack that “HTX Will Fully Compensate for HTX’s hot wallet Losses. Deposits and Withdrawals Temporarily Suspended. All Funds in HTX Are Secure.” Sun previously also madeassurancesthat “all user assets are #SAFU” in the aftermath of the September hack against HTX.
Huobirebranded to HTXduring this year’s Singapore2049 event in September. Although its executives have repeatedly reassured that the exchange is doing well, the exchange ran into a number ofserious incidentsthis year, including analleged employee revolt.
Binance pleads guilty, settles criminal charges for $4.3 billion
Crypto exchange Binance has agreed to plead guilty to violating the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act, knowingly failing to register as a money-transmitting business, and willfully violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The exchange will pay $4.3 billion in penalties and forfeiture to the U.S. Justice Department.
According to the Nov. 21announcement, Changpeng Zhao, co-founder and CEO of Binance, has also pled guilty to one count of willfully violating the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act. Zhao has since entered his personal plea in the District Court for the Western District of Washington.
At the time, Zhao was granted a $175 million bond that allowed him to reside in Dubai pending his sentencing hearing on Feb. 24. However, the U.S. Department of Justice has since appealed that decision, asking to confine his residence to the U.S. pending the sentencing hearing due to Zhao allegedly possessing an “unacceptable risk of flight.”
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In its indictment, the Department of Justice noted that, in a few noticeable incidents and despite reassurances, Binance facilitated over $1 billion in illicit transactions for Iranian users, the Russian marketplace Hyrdra and cryptocurrency mixer Bestmixer. and it solicited U.S. users without prior registration. Binance was also accused of deliberately masking such actions as “complying with U.S. law would stifle their efforts to grow Binance’s profits, market share, and trading volume.”
The same day, Zhao stepped down as the CEO of Binance. “I made mistakes, and I must take responsibility. This is best for our community, for Binance, and for myself,” he stated.
“Binance is no longer a baby. It is time for me to let it walk and run. I know Binance will continue to grow and excel with the deep bench it has.”
While Zhao still owns a majority in the exchange, he will be barred from being involved in the exchange’s everyday operations. Richard Teng, Binance’s global head of regional markets, was named the exchange’s new CEO. In his inaugural statement, Teng stated that the exchange’s fundamentals were “VERY strong” and that Binance is still “the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume.”
Blockchain analytics firm Nansen has noted that despite the guilty plea, it did not witness any “mass exodus of funds” after the incident. While the exchange witnessed nearly $965 million worth of withdrawals, its total holdings increased to $65 billion. On November 23, CZ’s X account was temporarily suspended after removing “Binance” from his profile name.
South Korea invites 100,000 people to test CBDC
The Bank of Korea, South Korea, and Central Bank will invite 100,000 Korean citizens to purchase goods with deposit tokens issued by commercial banks as part of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot test. The first of such trials began in October.
According to local news reports on November 23, “participants will be restricted to using the currency solely for its designated purpose of payment. Other uses, including personal remittance, will not be permitted at this time.” Although the Bank of Korea has not yet decided to whether or not to implement a CBDC, further trials are expected, including an integration simulation system for carbon emissions trading on the Korea Exchange. It said:
“Recently, the rapid digitalization of the economy has led to a growing demand for a digital form of public currency. This demand is evident in the private sector, where new payment instruments such as stablecoins have been developed and are already widely used in certain sectors.”
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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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