This weekly roundup of stories from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong makes an attempt to curate the business’s most vital information, together with influential tasks, modifications within the regulatory panorama, and enterprise blockchain integrations.
There are a whole lot of narratives to regulate as China loved a comparatively quiet week on the regulatory entrance and markets rebounded. Layer-two networks continued to make headlines with their massive struggle chests of funds to speculate. Avalanche and Arbitrum are two networks which have rising consciousness in China. Each have been within the information this week with Avalanche’s $180 million fund being introduced and Arbitrum’s launch on September 1.
MCDex, one of many extra lively DeFi purposes in China, took an early first step by launching its mainnet on Arbitrum’s layer-two. MCDex launched on-chain BTC/USDC and ETH/USDC perpetual swaps, one of many first tasks to make the most of Arbitrum’s velocity and scalability. MCDex and some different Chinese language DeFi tasks have been betting large on Arbitrum’s growth, having deployed on the Arbitrum testnet earlier this spring.
Merchants who want to use the present section one deployment on Arbitrum can apply to have their handle whitelisted. Most of the buying and selling corporations in Asia will most likely be learning the liquidity mining rewards rigorously, particularly after the recognition of token-incentivized buying and selling on dYdX.
Punks in Asia
A bodily NFT artwork gallery in Hong Kong would be the new dwelling for two CryptoPunks, bought final week for a complete of 218 ETH, or round $700,000 {dollars}. The artwork gallery is slated to open on September 5 and can now function Crypto Punk #8236 and #1970. It’s rumored that the purchaser of CryptoPunk #8236 is Mike Cai, billionaire founding father of common selfie app Meitu.
Cai’s Meitu is well-known within the Asian cryptocurrency neighborhood after it introduced earlier this 12 months that it purchased round $40 million value of BTC and ETH. With Meitu, Cai efficiently acknowledged the power of the pattern for younger adults to make use of magnificence filters with animated animal ears. That is an encouraging signal for individuals who hope that Cai sees an identical mainstream future for CryptoPunks.

A 3rd Punk was additionally reportedly bought by the Chinese language meme neighborhood behind Losercoin, or LOWB. In response to experiences, the neighborhood bought CryptoPunk #7326 for 79 ETH.
BSN breaking new turf
Korean blockchain agency MetaverseSociety was announced as a brand new portal operator for the Blockchain Service Community. This appears to be like to be a 3rd portal following the institution of the home Chinese language portal and the worldwide model. The home portal is ready to work intently with state owned firms and organizations, whereas the worldwide portal works with extra blockchain tasks in a looser regulatory framework.
This new Korean portal may introduce Chinese language firms to the rising neighborhood of Korean builders and customers. The Blockchain Service Community is a joint initiative between Pink Date Know-how, the Nationwide Data Middle, China Cellular, and China UnionPay.
Thrilled to introduce MetaverseSociety @MarX_Metaverse, the unique BSN portal operator in Korea. The portal will launch in Korea in November 2021 and can empower Korean builders to construct and function blockchain purposes shortly and successfully. Keep tuned! pic.twitter.com/NcebpSDUEV
— BSN (@bsnbase) September 1, 2021
Like an excellent neighbor, eCNY is there
The Financial institution of Communications and China Development Financial institution are exploring new use instances with fund managers to permit customers to pay for insurance with the digital yuan. That is yet one more use case that’s being pushed by the highest down monetary system, posing a severe competitor to personal fee processors like Alipay and WeChat Pay.
In response to the report, China Development Financial institution has already opened up a complete of 8.42 million eCNY wallets for each particular person customers and institutional purchasers, making China a transparent chief in CBDC adoption.
Blockchain meets TradFi
Chinese language regulators, together with the Securities Affiliation of China and the China Securities Regulatory Fee (CSRC), met within the nation’s capital to debate how blockchain could possibly be used to digitally transform the TradFi business.
In response to the announcement, the Science and Know-how Bureau will look to construct a two-tier construction: an asset layer and a enterprise layer for sensible contracts and provide chain. The federal government has continued to push for blockchain purposes the place it offers so-called ‘actual financial worth’, resembling in present industrial sectors.
In case you forgot
As a lot as I needed to finish this column on a excessive word, it wouldn’t be proper to not embody the inevitable reminders from native authorities concerning the risks of cryptocurrency investing. On August 27, the Individuals’s Financial institution of China put out a notice that:
“We as soon as once more remind most people that bitcoin and different digital currencies will not be authorized tender and haven’t any actual worth to help them.”
Yin Youping, deputy director of the Individuals’s Financial institution of China’s Shopper Safety Bureau, mentioned on August 27 that transactions associated to digital currencies are purely funding hypothesis, and the general public ought to be extra conscious of dangers and steer clear of them to guard their “wallets”. The markets barely reacted to the information, exhibiting that an increasing number of affect is shifting away from governments within the area.