Hong Kong is moving towards a transparent path for cryptocurrency regulation
Months after outstanding industry players lamented the dearth of registration paths for cryptocurrency exchanges in Hong Kong, a respite may finally be on the horizon. On April 27, Julia Leung, director general of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), revealed that the regulation of virtual asset trading platforms (VATPs) stays one in all the committee’s key priorities, stating:
“The SFC has received over 150 responses to a consultation on the proposed regulatory requirements for VATP licensed operators and can issue conclusions and final guidance in May before the brand new regime goes into effect on June 1, 2023.”
Leung also said that Web3 and blockchain technology will bring “enormous advantages to the financial industry when it comes to efficiency” and reiterated the commission’s support for “core distributed ledger technology and responsible innovation within the union.” Nevertheless, the SFC has also issued the next warning:
“The regulator is taking firm and swift enforcement motion against market manipulation, social media ramp and drop schemes, listing abuse, misconduct by brokers and misconduct related to virtual assets. The revised Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLO) will give the SFC latest powers to combat these frauds.”
In February, the SFC sparked a crypto frenzy by launching consultations on proposed regulatory requirements for digital asset trading platforms. April 20 at report as published by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the day by day trading volume of all Hong Kong cryptocurrency ETFs averaged around $1.19 million between December 2022 and early February.
Alibaba is all in favour of multichain
On April 26, Ant Financial, an affiliate of Chinese e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba, announced at its annual Digital Technologies Developer Conference that it has officially open source its cross-chain AntChain Bridge protocol to developers world wide.
The AntChain Bridge is designed based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) blockchain interoperability standard, one in all the primary standardized communication protocols in its category. Yan Ying, technical director of AntChain, said that cross-chain technology “is important to unleash the total potential of Web3” and would enable “large-scale digital asset portability.”
In a live demonstration, AntChain Bridge is developing several commemorative NFTs for various blockchains. Developers can access cross-chain systems or business smart contracts by downloading the cross-chain plug-in from the AntChain Openlab Github repository page. Two months earlier, the Chinese affiliate of the National Basketball Association (NBA) announced that it will expand its partnership with Ant Financial to mint more NFTs on its native AntChain. Blockchain was launched in 2017 with a concentrate on fintech.
Huawei and the GPT craze
On April 27, local news outlet IThome reported that Chinese telecommunications conglomerate Huawei has filed for a national trademark application marked “Huawei NetGPT” under the “scientific instruments” classification. Earlier this month, Huawei developers shared further insights into its other ChatGPT clone, “PanguGPT”, claiming that:
“It has entered the sphere of intelligent document retrieval, intelligent enterprise resource planning, and implemented scenarios akin to enterprise financial anomaly detection, large-scale models in Arabic, etc.”
Like Huawei, Chinese tech giant Baidu revealed its answer to ChatGPT, Ernie Bot, on March 16. A month later, Alibaba also began testing its rival ChatGPT, dubbed “Tongyi Qianwen.” Around the identical day, American business magnate Elon Musk also revealed that he would create his own ChatGPT counterpart, TruthGPT, for seemingly political reasons. Large chat-based language models could have major blockchain applications, akin to smart contract code auditing or audience targeting for crypto trading.
Government officials in Chinese cities will receive salaries in digital yuan
Earlier this week, government officials in the town of Changshu (population 1.56 million) announced that officials Paid Parking in digital yuan (e-CNY) from next month.
The move follows a successful pilot test that began last October, by which elected public officials were reimbursed for public transportation costs via the digital yuan. While the flexibility to spend e-CNY directly is currently somewhat limited nationally, the City of Changshu has began allowing e-CNY payments for utility bills, cell phone bills, cable TV and public transportation.
WeChat can also be expanding the adoption of the digital yuan
On April 26, Chinese social media app WeChat, which boasts greater than 1 billion monthly energetic users, expanded the adoption of the digital yuan to its video content creation platform and “Mini Programs” platform for vendors.
According to local reports, WeChat paid services via e-CNY now include carpooling, online shopping, or ordering takeaways from restaurants. To use this feature, users must first pass a “know your customer” verification. Despite the increased presence of the e-CNY, it accounted for less than 0.13% of the entire Chinese yuan in circulation initially of the yr.
