Tag: asia

PwC: Crypto M&A and Fundraising in Asia Reports Major Growth

Crypto activity has shifted significantly from the Americas to APAC/EMEA
Crypto equity fundraising ticket sizes have increased by 50%
 Crypto M&A and fundraising activity have increased by 51% in 2019

PwC previewed its latest white paper—PwC Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report—last Thursday at CoinDesk’s Invest: Asia event. The report was further shared by Henri Arslanian, the global crypto leader at PwC, via LinkedIn. This is the first report by PwC on the broader crypto ecosystem, but the firm will continue to publish updates twice a year moving forward.

Insights

Both cryptocurrency M&As and fundraising deals in the Americas have fallen to 41% in H1 2019 in comparison to the 60% of overall global deals reflected in the data for H1 2018. Although the Americas still count as the key driver, Asia and the Middle East now assume the bulk of the activity with five out of the top ten crypto M&A deals.   According to the report, the average crypto equity fundraising tickets have increased from US$6 million to US9million, marking a 50% increase in H1 2019 compared to H1 2018.

Despite a notable drop in the number of deals in Q3 2018, the crypto market rebounded in Q1 2019 and PwC reports an overall increase in crypto M&A of 15% activity at Q2 2019. Fundraising deals have also increased by 51% when comparing Q2 2019 vs Q1 2019.

Trends for Q3 & Q4 2019

Historically crypto fundraising and M&A appears to be positively correlated with the price of Bitcoin. PwC expects this trend to continue and recent surges in market activity should empower the cryptocurrency exchanges and leading industry players with confidence and it is expected that they will look to acquire and expand in the second half of 2019.

The noted rise of 51% in capital allocated to fundraising activities, from Q1 2019 to Q2 2019, indicates that investors may seek further exposure in the crypto market by backing institutional-grade companies.

The surge of activity in the crypto space from Q1 to Q2 2019 has seen many global players, who had up until recently been sitting on the sidelines, rejoin the market. PwC’s report indicates the accelerated involvement of these investors has been accelerated by the anticipated launch of Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra and other recent macro events and announcements from major institutions.  

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DeFi – Find Out What's Happening in Macau on This Exciting Topic

Macau is an awesome place to host a conference. Often dubbed the Las Vegas of China, this tiny strip of land is a buzzing ecosystem resplendent with golden hotels, temples, and resorts. Returned to China since 1999, its Portuguese inheritance is very strong with Portuguese blue-framed houses sitting cheek and jowl beside Chinese temples. The people are friendly and the temperatures warm when we arrive for the 6th Finwise conference in the region – this time theme is DeFi or decentralized finance.

The summit was co-hosted by Mike Costache (Co-Chairman & CEO of FinWise Global and Managing Partner of TaaS Capital), Eric Gu (Co-founder & CEO of DualChain Network Architecture and founder & CEO of Metaverse Foundation, the first Chinese ICO back in Aug 2016) and Hao Zeng, Co-founder & CEO of Ant Node Alliance, a leading blockchain marketing company in China.

Flying into Hong Kong is also without trouble – no protestors airside. Returning home is the same as the ferry between Hong Kong and Macau is all airside: handy to know in these interesting times.

DeFi is a growing meme in the blockchain world. The term emerged some eight months ago but it is still very nascent in this industry. A nascent meme in a nascent industry.

DeFi has a number of primary features. It is permissionless and anyone can access it with a smartphone and an internet connection, thereby removing traditional barriers to finance: notably wealth, geography and location inhibitors. It is decentralized and less prone to hacking. It is censor resistant: transactions in a Defi world cannot be changed, reversed or stopped. This is crucial when living in countries where either inflation has gone through the roof or government governance is compromised.

It is transparent and private allowing users to fully control their own money and transact freely. It is also programmable resulting in low-cost financial services.

The conference was hosted by Brad Pitt film Double, the charming Rob O’Malley along with his Chinese colleague Emma Lee. The conference was also bilingual with simultaneous AI translations of the presenters into both languages; sometimes with unintended comic results.

Hosted by Mike Costache, the DeFi conference was certainly ahead of its time. Notable speakers included local hero Eric Gu, Alex Lightman, Eddy Travia, Franklin Urteaga, Rossco Paddison, Oliver Yates, Paul Murphy, Hans Lombardo, Dan Schatt, Ruslan Gavilyuk, Alexi Lane and Alexander Alexandrov.

There were live video link-ups with Brock Pierce and Tone Vays.  Technology being technology these were glitchy. Perhaps the next time it might be better to pre-record a short video and have a live Q&A afterward.

There were plenty of selfie opportunities as the largely Chinese audience were keen to be snapped with any caucasian subject. As events go, I did feel pretty important by the end as queues of people waited patiently to have their picture taken with me.

The venue was the JW Marriot in the Galaxy Mall. Think end to end designer shops wrapped around a casino. The auditorium was laid out in classroom seating and held upwards of 1000 people. The audience was very vocal during talks, often prompting loud grunts of positive assertions.

I moderated one panel with the interesting topic of Crypto Banking as a service – Will DeFi prevent the next financial crisis? I was joined by a lively bunch of debaters – and got off to a heated start with Alexi Lane declaring he would not put his money in a bank at all. Dan Schatt went on the offensive to say that we were on a continuum and that traditional finance would merge into DeFi over time. Vadim Pushkarev, as befits the token Russian on the panel, spoke up of revolution and said that we were in the middle of one. Ruslan Gavrilyuk spoke of institutional investors driving the services forward – or sideways depending on your viewpoint, while David Wang opted for regulation in line with current best practices.

The 30 minutes were over in a flash but we all reckoned there was still a new financial crash happening despite the best efforts of DeFi.

However, the best takeaway comment of the conference has to be from Rossco’s panel when he compared the current market as akin to the period after the dot com crash. He pointed out that there is an inflection point that happens – which we forget time and again – where we hit a topping point and what is only imaged now becomes reality.

Welcome to the world of Defi.

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Thailand’s SEC to Eradicate Any Stumbling Blocks to Digital Asset Advancement

Asian nations are gearing towards incorporating digital assets into their economies as the world gets ready for the fourth industrial revolution or 4IR touted to be transformative. For instance, it is speculated that China is setting a precedent in blockchain adoption. 

Thailand is also not wasting any time because it intends to open up the digital asset sector by amending the present regulations.

According to the Bangkok Post, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Thailand has revealed plans to revise the royal decree on digital asset businesses in 2020 to boost digital assets’ growth, as well as shield investors from avoidable risks. 

The secretary-general of the SEC, Ruenvadee Suwanmongkol, acknowledged that it would scrutinize whether the royal decree has any stumbling blocks to digital asset businesses. 

She acknowledged: “Laws should not be outdated and should serve market needs, especially for new digital asset products, and be competitive with the global market. We need to explore any possible obstacles.”

The royal decree was effected in May 2018, and it listed four secondary business intermediaries, namely brokerage firms, dealers, crypto exchanges, and token portal service providers or ICO portals. 

As specified by the SEC, the royal decree caters for digital tokens, cryptocurrencies, and any other electronic data unit. 

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RippleNet Expands Access to Cross-Border Payments in the Asian Market with Thai FinTech Partnership

A Thai FinTech startup, DeeMoney, specializing in remittances and cross-border payments for users, has partnered with RippleNet for global payment. Bangkok-headquartered DeeMoney has joined hands with RippleNet to enable it to process faster and cheaper money transfers to its customers.

New Partnership to Support Fast Cross-Border Payments

Through RippleNet, an enterprise blockchain-based payment solution provider, which already has attracted over 300 financial institutions across the world payments network, DeeMoney is offering more efficient international money transfers at the best rates and lowest fees. DeeMoney is the first non-bank institution in Thailand to make use of Ripple’s blockchain-based solutions.

The competition to offer cross-border payments has driven non-banks and banks to introduce faster and lower-cost international transfer channels for workers. Via RippleNet ,the Thai FinTech Start-up can process inbound payments into Thailand from various nations, including Indonesia, Middle East and Gulf regions, Israel, South Korea, and Singapore. It is currently estimated that there are about a million Thai nationals working globally who are transferring money back home. The company plans in the near future to leverage RippleNet for outbound transfers from Thailand to other countries.

Marcus Treacher, Senior Vice President of customer success at Ripple, stated that the digital banking revolution is a significant trend taking Thailand by storm and recognized DeeMoney as a major player in this revolution. He elaborated that by using RippleNet payment solutions, DeeMoney redefines the rules and boundaries of engagements by offering efficient international transfers at low transaction fees.   

Ripple Keen on Global Expansion

Ripple, the California-headquartered firm, is aggressively focused on its global expansion in the Asian market by making major moves along remittance corridors in Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and the Philippines.

Ripple partnered with Azimo, London-based remittance service, to provide cheaper and faster payment in the Philippines. Furthermore, Ripple joined hands with three remittance firms (WireBarey, Hanpass, and Sentbe) in South Korea to process money transfer real fast in the neighboring countries. Ripple also entered Japan and Vietnam markets to make efficient cross-border money transfer to clients.

The recent partnership with DeeMoney enables Ripple to continue positioning itself as a leader in cross-border crypto payments. The new development aims to support payments in the Asian market as both Ripple and DeeMoney focus on building capacity and ensuring that they expand their presence.

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PwC Reports Huge Shift in M&A and Fundraising from US to Asia and EMEA in 2019

In 2019, crypto fundraising and M&As began migrating over to Asia, Europe and the Middle East and saw a lack of new VC investments as the majority of funding came from crypto firms within the industry, according to PwC’s latest report released on April 6.

PwC Global Crypto Lead, Henri Arslanian discussed the 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report’s findings with Blockchain.News and offered his take on what they mean for the digital ecosystem.

Crypto fundraising and M&A moving to Asia and EMEA 

As outlined in the report, the majority of global crypto fundraising and M&A deals in 2019 took place outside of the United States with increased activity in both APAC (29%) and EMEA (22%) recorded.

In 2019, it was found that traditional VCs, crypto-focused VCs and family offices represented the majority source of new funding, with a share of 57%, for crypto companies. These new findings mean that crypto firms now represent the majority of M&A in the sector which is an increase compared to 2018’s 42%.

Arslanian said, “We expect to see APAC and EMEA play a bigger role in the global crypto fundraising and M&A space. In particular, we expect to see more APAC and EMEA based family offices looking at the market turbulence as a good time to invest in promising crypto companies.”

In total, the number of M&A deals recorded in the report dropped from 189 in 2018 to 114 in 2019, while the actual value of M&A deals plummeted by 76 percent from nearly two billion dollars to just under half a billion. Arslanian commented, “The crypto industry is not immune to the global headwinds and the number and value of crypto fundraising and M&A deals may be impacted in 2020.”

Top 5 Investor Deals in 2019 Compared to 2018Per the report, while 2018 saw traditional VCs andincubators among the top investors, 2019 saw a contrast with the majority of funding provided by crypto-focused incumbents like Coinbase and ConsenSys.Source: 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report

Crypto Companies Offer Complimentary Services to their Core business 

Whilst 2018 saw a lot of crypto fundraising in blockchain infrastructure projects or M&A in the crypto mining space, 2019 saw a rise in investments in solutions for the crypto ecosystem like compliance and regulation; as well as M&A activity in the crypto service providers.

 “We expect to see further consolidation in 2020 with some of the larger or more profitable players acquire firms that offer ancillary services to their current offering in areas like crypto media, research or even compliance,” said Arslanian.

PwC’s Global Crypto Team  

These latest insights come from PwC’s Global Crypto Team which has continued to lead research in the space since its inception. Henri Arslanian discussed the ever-growing role of his team in interview with Blockchain.News in January.

   

In the last 2 years, PwC has conducted over 320 crypto engagements globally, spanning across 15 different countries. “I think it’s very exciting to see how PwC is getting involved in the crypto ecosystem,” said Arslanian. “Our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems and there is a big need for that in the crypto and blockchain ecosystem. We set up this PwC crypto team almost three years ago as the crypto ecosystem was growing, to support crypto firms not only on areas like strategy or fundraising but also on day-to-day functions such as crypto accounting, tax or KYC/AML reviews.” Arslanian believes that firms like PwC are essential for the ecosystem to “go from 1.0 to 2.0,” and “that PwC has a big role to play.”   

Blockstack’s STX Token Starts Trading on KuCoin Today

Blockstack is increasing its presence in Asia with the addition of its token Stacks (STX) to popular Asian-based cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin.  

Blockstack PBC is a creator of software for a user-owned internet and secure app ecosystem. As announced, Blockstack’s Stacks token (STX) will be available for trading at 6am ET today May 27, by non-U.S. persons on KuCoin, a popular Asia-based cryptocurrency exchange.

KuCoin currently serves 1 out of every 4 cryptocurrency holders globally and has more than 5 million registered users. The live trading of STX on this exchange will increase global access to the Blockstack network.

Muneeb Ali, CEO of Blockstack PBC commented on the STX addition to KuCoin, “This listing is an important one for our overall ecosystem. KuCoin’s strong global presence will enable the Blockstack ecosystem to make further progress after a very busy 12 months for the company. Kucoin prides itself on conducting extensive research to list quality projects in the blockchain industry, and we are thrilled for our project to be a part of its community.”

The Stacks token plays a very vital role in Blockstack’s ecosystem. STX tokens are used for registration of internet assets and will be consumed as fuel for smart contracts written in Clarity. The Stacks token is also a key aspect of the upcoming Stacks 2.0 launch. With the launch of Stacks 2.0, STX miners will be able to forward bitcoin (BTC) to participate in mining, and STX holders will be able to earn Bitcoin by participating in consensus.

Stacks are vital to Blockstack’s ecosystem and are used for registration of internet assets and will be consumed as fuel for smart contracts written in Clarity. As part of the anticipated Stacks 2.0 launch in mid-2020, internet assets on the Stacks blockchain will anchor to Bitcoin. The interconnection of Stacks with Bitcoin provides a scalable foundation for a Web 3.0 rooted in the security of Bitcoin.

This listing follows Blockstack’s first annual report filed with the SEC. The Stacks (STX) token is believed to be the first and only crypto asset listed on CoinMarketCap for which regular disclosures are filed with the SEC, reflecting an unparalleled level of transparency in the crypto industry.

STX tokens are also currently available for trading on Binance’s global exchange and HashKey Pro’s institutional exchange.

China Passes Civil Code Which Will Allow its Citizens to Inherit Cryptocurrency

At the Thirteenth National People’s Congress held in Beijing China, the parliament passed a new civil code that protects the civil rights of inheritance, marriage, property, personality, and contract infringement. 

According to Lixin Yang, a professor at Renmin University of China, the civil code states that “When a natural person dies, the legacy is the personal legal property left by she/he.”

Personal legal property in this case also means “internet property” including virtual currencies. Chinese citizens will be able to leave their cryptocurrency and virtual assets to their heirs, coming into effect on January 1, 2021. 

Dovey Wan, founding partner at Primitive Ventures took it to Twitter and said Bitcoin users should care more about their Bitcoin private keys, rather than the new law.

Asian stocks slip as China passes Hong Kong security law

During China’s most important annual political event of the year, officials from around the country set the decision to impose a new national security law in Hong Kong. The annual event had come to an end and important decisions were made. 

Stocks in the Asia Pacific region has slipped as investors have been monitoring the market’s reaction to the national security law that was approved for China’s semi-autonomous city. 

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropped 0.71 percent, while HSBC shares dipped 2.16 percent. 

While China’s international hub’s stocks slid, mainland Chinese stocks climbed higher during the afternoon on May 29.

China to consider Hong Kong stablecoin amid national security law implementation

Chinese officials are to consider a cross-border Asian stablecoin in Hong Kong, to facilitate a cross-border payment network between three Asian countries, and four currencies – China, Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong. The world’s second-largest economy is aiming to build Hong Kong into an international financial center in the digital economy era.

Neil Shen, also known as Shen Nanpeng, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and managing partner of Sequoia Capital China has submitted five proposals to the two sessions this year. One of the proposals includes the innovation and technology development of the Greater Bay Area, which he has submitted consecutively in the past three years.

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Monetary Authority of Singapore Sets Up New Institute of Digital Finance for Boosting Fintech and Digital Asset Research

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has teamed up with the National Research Foundation, and the National University of Singapore to set up a research institute that will develop and support the needs of digital financial services in Asia. 

Jointly developed by the three entities, the Asian Institute of Digital Finance (AIDF) will strengthen education, research, and entrepreneurship in digital finance in the region. 

According to the MAS announcement, the AIDF will focus on inter-disciplinary research projects on digital infrastructure, performance optimization, anti-money laundering, cyber fraud, and business processes.

In developing financial services in Asia that will be able to meet sustainability and resiliency needs, the MAs said that the potential areas of focus include digital assets and ledger technology, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, digital finance platforms, and 5G networks. 

Ravi Menon, the Managing Director of the MAS said:

“AIDF will be an important addition to Singapore’s rich and vibrant FinTech ecosystem. Through applied research and active collaboration with industry, AIDF will help to build strong capabilities in digital finance and FinTech. Located in the heart of the fastest-growing digital finance market in the world, the Institute will facilitate the expansion of knowledge and skills among FinTech leaders in the region and support the digitalization of economies in ASEAN and beyond.”

Sopnendu Mohanty, the Chief FinTech Officer at MAS wrote, “We hope in years to come; we will build a diverse and strong AIDF alumni network of international leaders who will serve the digital finance needs of Asian Market and beyond.”

The MAS proposes new regulations for the crypto industry

The MAS published a consultation paper in late July 2020, proposing a new set of regulations that may stiffen the emergence and activities of crypto industries in the country.

The new regulation which seeks to “Enhance Effectiveness” in Addressing Financial Sector-Wide Risks has four basic provisions. 

These provisions give MAS the power to prohibit unsuitable individuals from working in the financial industry. It will also expand the scope of anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) requirements to persons in Singapore who provide digital token services overseas in line with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guidelines.

With enhanced powers, the MAS will also have extensive oversight responsibilities on indigenous crypto firms who conduct businesses abroad.

Microsoft Loses TikTok to Tech Giant Oracle – What This Means for Bitcoin and Blockchain Industry

TikTok, the multibillion-dollar video sharing platform owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance and popularized by millennials and Gen Z, has chosen Oracle Corporation as its tech partner over Microsoft.

Trump: TikTok is a Threat to National Security

The news comes at a crucial time after US President Donald Trump had vehemently decreed that TikTok must sell its operations in the United States by September 15, stipulating that the social media app was a threat to national security due to it sneakily collecting user information, as revealed by an analysis from Wall Street Journal.

President Trump had accused TikTok, which is fully owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, of gathering information of millions of US users and of sharing the confidential data with the Chinese government. Parent company ByteDance has denied all claims directed towards it regarding data and security breach. 

In order to keep the operations in the US, Microsoft had previously been working in collaboration with Walmart to acquire ownership of TikTok. However, after its offer was released, it was disclosed to Bloomberg that “Oracle Corp. is the winning bidder for a deal with TikTok’s US operations.”

US-China, Caught in a Tech and Blockchain Battle

President Trump’s previous user data breach allegations directed at TikTok come at a critical time, with presidential elections looming and set for the month of November. In addition, the US and China have been caught in a cold technology war, with the rise of blockchain and China gaining tremendous momentum in the race to be the first to release an officially regulated central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Previously, Donald Trump had publicly stated:

“As far as Tiktok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States.”

Why did TikTok Pick Oracle?

Though Microsoft had jumped at the opportunity of acquiring TikTok’s US assets, which boasts of over 150 million users, the booming video-sharing application has gone another way and chosen Oracle Corp. as its tech partner in the United States. Microsoft announced in an official statement on Sept. 13:

“ByteDance let us know today that they would not be selling TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft. We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests.”

The multinational tech company added, “We would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combatting disinformation.”

Will President Trump be Appeased?

Oracle has not released an official statement or commented on the situation yet. However, it is speculated that in partnering with ByteDance and acquiring TikTok, Oracle will conduct a restructuring of the video application. In any case, if the multibillion-dollar application was to survive in the United States market, it seems as though Oracle would have no choice but to do so, to appease President Trump’s fears of a national security breach and potential espionage from the Chinese government.

Furthermore, with Oracle in the works to buy TikTok US operations, this would enable TikTok’s data to run on Oracle’s cloud servers.

Bitcoin and Crypto Implications

At the time of writing, there is still speculation on whether Trump will be appeased with the partnership between Oracle and TikTok. If the US President decides to go forward with a ban of TikTok, this may result in other decentralized social media platforms picking up the American GenZ subscribers that were formerly subscribed to the video-sharing application. Downloaded around 2 billion times globally, TikTok boasts of approximately 100 million monthly active users in the United States.  

Block.one, a high-performance blockchain platform that hosts its social media platform Voice, would be among those benefitting from a TikTok ban. If the partnership between TikTok and Oracle proves to be unsatisfactory for the White House and the Trump administration, other blockchain-based social media giants would greatly benefit. Subsequently, this may result in a cryptocurrency and Bitcoin (BTC) market boom as well.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $10,357.18, dipping by 1% since yesterday. The dip is speculated to be a result of crypto miner sell-offs, and investors are actively anticipating the digital asset’s next bull run, with Bitcoin bulls like the Winklevoss twins pumping up the price.

How Blockchain Can Benefit TikTok

There seems to be much work to be done for TikTok. According to a report released by CheckPoint Research on January 8, the dilemmas that the application encountered were – hacking of TikTok user accounts and manipulating content; deleting videos; uploading unauthorized videos; making private “hidden” videos public, and revealing personal information saved on the account, such as private email addresses.

More research seems to indicate that ByteDance could greatly benefit from leveraging blockchain as a solution to fight security problems encountered by TikTok. Employing blockchain to run its application would enable the personal data of millions of influencers and content creators worldwide to be better protected and secured through a distributed decentralized ledger. Blockchain has been increasingly adopted throughout Asia and Europe for its robustness, scalability, and overall stable architecture.

DeFi Booms – Aave Dominates

Currently, Ethereum is the most leveraged blockchain ecosystem for decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and projects. The decentralized finance sector is estimated to have a total value locked (TVL) of around $8 billion, according to data from DeFi Pulse. Currently, DeFi protocol Aave is leading the pack, with a TVL of $1.50 billion at the time of writing. 

OKEX Suspends Withdrawals Causing a Bitcoin and OKB Token Price Plunge

Leading Asian cryptocurrency exchange OKEx has caused a mild selling panic in the crypto markets after suddenly suspending its services to cooperate with an investigation. The suspension of services immediately stirred a reaction in the Bitcoin price which plunged 3% while OKB took a 15% hit. 

According to an announcement by the major crypto exchange today, OkEx has suspended all cryptocurrency withdrawals as one of its private key holders is now cooperating with a public security firm in regard to an ongoing “investigation.”

Per the OKEx statement:

“One of our private key holders is currently cooperating with a public security bureau in investigations where required […] In order to act in the best interests of customers and deliver exceptional longtime customer service, we have decided to suspend digital assets/cryptocurrencies withdrawals as of [October 16, 2020 at 11:00 (Hong Kong Time)]. We assure that OKEx’s other functions remain normal and stable and the security of your assets at OKEx will not affected.”

OKEx serves many Chinese retail investors and is one of the three largest Chinese crypto exchanges along with Huobi and Binance.

The company’s CEO, Jay Hao addressed the withdrawal suspension on Weibo:

“Please be assured that the company, operation, and business are not impacted. It’s a matter of a private key holder’s personal issue, which is why we suspended withdrawal.”

The exchange has not been able to contact the private key-holder in question and claims to be unable to complete the associated authorization requests—OKEx assures the public that cryptocurrency withdrawals can resume as soon as the key-holder is able to authorize the transaction in question.

The Bitcoin (BTC) price has fallen nearly 3% following the news and OKEx’s own token OKB has crashed around 15%.

Is it Money Laundering?

While the information is largely unverified—a Beijing based reporter named Colin Wu has been following the event and tweeted:

“OTC merchant on OKEx had mistakenly received 500,000 CNY from the fraud group and was hunted by the police across the provinces.”

Wu also reported that the notice of the end of the withdrawal suspension fluctuates constantly between 12pm and 3pm. He further suggested that the events may be related to money laundering.

Wu wrote:

“The Chinese government is cracking down on money laundering using cryptocurrency for telecom fraud, and centralized exchanges are in a very dangerous state.”

More updates will come soon as more information on the OKEx suspension is revealed.

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