Tencent’s AI leviathan, $83M scam busted, China’s influencer ban: Asia Express
Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments.
$500B firm partners with Polygon
South Korea’s Mirae Asset Security Token Working Group, with over $500 billion in assets under management (AUM), is collaborating with Ethereum layer-two scaling solution Polygon (MATIC) for security tokenization initiatives.
According to a Sept. 7 press release, Mirae Asset Securities has signed a memorandum of understanding with Polygon Labs for “helping domestic and international tokenized securities networks.”
“Mirae’s foray into tokenization will undoubtedly help accelerate the mass adoption of web3 among other financial institutions,” commented Polygon Labs’ executive chairman Sandeep Nailwal.
Meanwhile, Ahn In-sung, head of the digital division at Mirae Asset Securities, wrote: “Through technical collaboration with Polygon Labs, Mirae Asset Securities aims to establish global leadership in the field of tokenized securities.”
Previously, Polygon Labs partnered with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and key financial institutions in its Project Garden asset tokenization initiative. Last November, Project Guardian executed foreign exchange and sovereign bond transactions via Polygon.
Tencent launches the largest LLM model ever
Tencent’s new Hunyuan Large Language Model (LLM) has over 2 trillion parameters. Previously, the largest LLMs have contained upwards of 175 billion training data parameters.
During the Chinese IT conglomerate’s Global Digital Ecology Conference on Sept. 7, Tencent unveiled its Hunyuan AI competitor to ChatGPT which is now available through Tencent Cloud. Users are able to directly connect their software APIs to Hunyuan, or use it as a basis for a variety of applications in mechatronics, customer service and enterprise operations.
Tencent claims that Hunyuan is capable of processing “tens of trillions” of data per day and can reduce risk analysis procedures in automobile manufacturing from four hours to less than 30 minutes. The company has invested a combined $31.4 billion into cloud and AI research and development within the past five years. The firm wrote:
“In response to the problem that large models are prone to ‘babbling nonsense,’ Tencent has optimized the pre-training algorithm and strategy, reducing the illusion of the mixed-element large model by 30% to 50% compared with mainstream open source large models.”
Coinbase introduces stricter KYC measures for Singaporean customers
Singaporean clients of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase must now provide know-your-customer information (KYC) when sending crypto to addresses other than Coinbase.
In accordance with MAS regulations, Coinbase’s Singaporean customers will need to provide info on recipients’ wallet type, counterparty exchange name, full name and country of residence when sending crypto off the exchange. In addition, users who receive external crypto on Coinbase will need to provide similar KYC information on the sender in order to access their deposits.
The new KYC checks will not affect transfers between Coinbase accounts. MAS’ anti-money laundering requirements for digital asset transactions took effect in January 2020 and were last revised in March 2022. It’s not immediately clear as to why the exchange only implemented the regulations just now.
Government officials in China’s Shangdong Province have set key performance indicators (KPIs) for local bureaucrats to expand the province’s metaverse industry to 15 billion Yuan ($2.05 billion) by 2025, or for a cyclically adjusted growth rate of 15% per annum. In addition, the KPIs include the incubation of 100 metaverse ecosystem projects, 3,000 metaverse-related patents, and at least 30 metaverse experiences at public service centers. The Shangdong People’s Government wrote:
“[It is necessary to] build a Shandong cultural dedicated network, Shandong cultural big data center and cultural database to form a cultural tourism metaverse big data system. Focus on cultural tourism resources such as A-level tourist attractions, cultural centers, libraries, and museums, and develop a number of immersive tourism service products such as VR [Virtual Reality] cloud tours.”
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80 Chinese crypto influencer accounts banned
Sina Weibo, one of China’s largest social media platforms with over 580 million monthly active users, has banned 80 Chinese crypto influencer accounts with a combined follower count of over 8 million.
According to a Sept. 5 announcement, the accounts were banned due to “promotion of crypto trading activities” in accordance with eight legislations that together form China’s “Crypto Ban,” which has been in force since August 2021. One user commented:
“Even more [crypto] groups have been removed. A large part of those who were with me six years ago have now removed as well. Those who have not been removed have also been greatly restricted. Please go and promote them on Twitter. Weibo is no longer a good environment.
Though the Crypto Ban has been in effect for some time, China has only taken a harsh stance on enforcement starting this year. It has resulted in the removal of criminal enterprises, legitimate projects, and caused collateral damages to foreign investors alike.
$83M crypto scam group busted in South Korea
South Korean police have busted a 110 billion Won ($83 million) crypto scam.
Authorities say that on Sept. 5, 22 individuals were arrested on charges of deception and fraud. The unnamed group, accused of orchestrating a Ponzi scheme, allegedly solicited $83 million from 6,610 individuals based on promises of investment returns in the crypto markets as high as 300%.
An investigation subsequently revealed that business entities created by the group advocating token listings and entry into digital asset exchanges were falsified. Local news reported that assets linked to the unnamed group have been seized in criminal proceedings. A police official wrote:
“We will strictly respond to various financial crimes that infringe upon the people’s livelihood by exploiting the desperate psychology of ordinary people who want to improve economic conditions and the virtual asset investment craze.”
OKX in final stages of licensing in Hong Kong
According to local news reports on Sept. 3, cryptocurrency exchange OKX is in the advanced stages of receiving its virtual asset provider license from Hong Kong regulators. Zhikai Lai, the firm’s CCO, said that he expects OKX to receive the regulatory license by June 2024 and hopes to attract anywhere between 100,000 to 200,000 retail Hong Kong crypto investors within the first year. The executive noted:
“Banks have held a conservative attitude towards the virtual currency industry for many years. It was not until the government promoted Hong Kong as a global virtual asset center last year, and the Securities and Future Commission and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority gave a clear message that banks were required to prepare resources to focus on the industry. After that, their attitude became positive.”
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Harriet Harman has suggested a “mini inquiry” into issues raised by the grooming gangs scandal and called on Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch to discuss “terms of reference”.
The Labour peer told Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast that there should “openness” to a future probe as long it does not repeat the previous investigations.
In particular, she said people need to be “trained and confident” that they can take on matters “which are in particular communities” without being accused of being racist.
“I think that whether it’s a task force, whether it’s more action plans, whether it’s a a mini inquiry on this, this is something that we need to develop resilience in,” Ms Harman said.
The grooming gangs scandal is back in the spotlight after Elon Musk hit out at the Labour government for rejecting a new national inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham, saying this should be done at a local level instead.
The Tories also previously said an Oldham inquiry should be done locally and in 2015 commissioned a seven-year national inquiry into child sex abuse, led by Professor Alexis Jay, which looked at grooming gangs.
However, they didn’t implement any of its recommendations while in office – and Sir Keir has vowed to do so instead of launching a fresh investigation into the subject.
Ms Harman said she agreed with ministers that there is “no point” in a rerun of the £200m Jay Review, which came on top of a number of locally-led inquiries.
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Grooming gangs are ‘in every single part of our country’, Jess Phillips says
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Grooming gangs: What happened?
However, she said there’s “always got to be an openness to further analysis, further consideration of what proposals would move things forward”.
She called on the Conservative Party to start “sensibly discussing with the government what should be the parameters of a future inquiry”, as they “can’t really be arguing they want an absolute repeat of the seven years and £200 million of the Jay inquiry”.
She said the Tories should set out their “terms of reference”, so “the government and everybody can discuss whether or not they’ve already got that sorted”.
Girls as young as 11 were groomed and raped across a number of towns in England – including Oldham, Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford – over a decade ago in a national scandal that was exposed in 2013.
In many cases the victims were white and the perpetrators of south Asian descent – with the local inquiry into Telford finding that exploitation was ignored because of unease about race.
The Jay review did not assess whether ethnicity was a factor in grooming gangs due to poor data, and recommended the compilation of a national core data base on child sex abuse which records the ethnicity of the victim and alleged perpetrator.
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PM: People ‘spreading lies’ are ‘not interested in victims’
Ms Harman’s comments come after the Labour Metro Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said he believed there was a case for a new “limited national inquiry”.
He told the BBC that a defeated Tory vote on the matter was “opportunism”, but a new probe could “compel people to give evidence who then may have charges to answer and be held to account”.
Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister who has born the brunt of Mr Musk’s attacks, has told Sky News “nothing is off the table” when it comes to a new inquiry – but she will “listen to victims” and not the world’s richest man.
Sir Keir has said he spoke to victims this week and they do not want another inquiry as it would delay the implementations of the Jay review – though his spokesman later indicated one could take place if those affected call for it.
Tory leader Ms Badenoch has argued that the public will start to “worry about a cover-up” if the prime minister resists calls for a national inquiry, and said no one has yet “joined up the dots” on grooming.
New reports suggest the US Senate Banking Committee is looking to create its first crypto subcommittee, while Trump is reportedly eyeing a pro-crypto CFTC Commissioner to take the agency’s helm.
The UK Treasury has amended finance laws to clarify that crypto staking isn’t a collective investment scheme, which a lawyer says is “heavily regulated.”
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