Thailand bans its citizens from trading virtual assets such as cryptocurrencies

Countries around the world have gradually clarified the control of cryptocurrencies and virtual assets in recent years. The Thai authorities recently announced that citizens are prohibited from using virtual assets as trading tools, but they can be held and sold as assets.

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand recently announced that it prohibits the use of cryptocurrencies and other virtual assets as trading instruments, although the trading of virtual assets itself is not affected. Because if there are pricing units other than legal currency (Thai baht) in the market, it will increase the cost of economic activities and affect the utility of the government’s monetary policy. In order to maintain the stability of the financial and economic system, virtual assets are not allowed to become transaction payment tools.

In addition to Thailand, the United Kingdom, the European Union, South Korea and Malaysia have similar regulations, but the public is generally quite accepting of cryptocurrencies. The proportion of the population that owns cryptocurrencies is among the top in the world, and the national virtual asset value reaches 3.4 billion US dollars. It is now banned for transaction payments, which is believed to have a certain impact on the popularization of cryptocurrencies in Thailand, but it remains to be seen whether it will cause a rebound in public opinion.

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Japan’s first cryptocurrency industry, Coincheck to go public in the United States

Coincheck, a Japanese cryptocurrency (virtual currency) company, will be listed on the Nasdaq in the United States within this year through a merger with a SPAC (special purpose merger and acquisition company). It will become the first Japanese cryptocurrency company to list in the United States.

Japanese financial services company Monex Group announced on the 22nd that its subsidiary, Coincheck, which operates a cryptocurrency exchange, will be listed on Nasdaq in the United States. The merger will be listed on Nasdaq in 2022. If the above listing plan comes true, Coincheck will become the first Japanese cryptocurrency company to list in the United States.

Monex pointed out that a new intermediate holding company “Coincheck Group BV (hereinafter referred to as CCG)” will be established, and Coincheck and the above-mentioned SPAC companies will be incorporated under CCG’s banner. After that, CCG will be listed on Nasdaq in 2022 with the stock code “” CNCK”, and CCG will remain a connected subsidiary of Monex after listing.

Coincheck started operating a cryptocurrency exchange business in 2014. Currently, it has more than 1.5 million accounts, has a market share of nearly 30% in the Japanese market, and has assets under custody of US$3.8 billion (approximately 450 billion yen).

Coincheck had a large-scale theft in January 2018, and about 58 billion yen worth of cryptocurrency was stolen. It was twice requested by the Japanese Financial Services Agency to carry out business improvement measures, and then became a full subsidiary of Monex in April 2018.

The enthusiasm for currency speculation has cooled, and cryptocurrency investment products have lost blood for two consecutive weeks

The overall performance of the cryptocurrency market this year has been weak, with Bitcoin consolidating around $40,000, and investors’ enthusiasm for currency speculation has cooled. According to the latest statistics, cryptocurrency investment products and funds saw a net outflow of funds for the second week in a row last week.

According to Reuters, data from digital asset management company CoinShares on the 21st showed that digital asset investment products had a total outflow of $47 million in the week ended March 18, a net outflow for two consecutive weeks and a previous seven consecutive weeks of net inflow. Bitcoin investment products saw outflows of $32.8 million, and a massive blood loss of $101 million in the past two weeks, but there has been a net inflow since the beginning of the year, with a cumulative net inflow of $64 million.

Digital asset investment products suffered capital outflows last week, mainly due to regulatory messages from governments around cryptocurrencies. On the 9th, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order requiring major agencies to assess the benefits and risks of issuing central bank digital dollars, as well as other cryptocurrency-related issues.

Mikkel Morch, executive director of digital asset hedge fund ARK36, said that the recent pullback in bitcoin prices should not be seen as a negative reaction to specific geopolitical or market movements. As long as the price remains above $40,000, the market outlook is in good shape. .

According to CoinDesk quotations, in mid-November 2021, Bitcoin hit a record high of $68,990.90, and as of 1:30 pm on March 22, Taipei time, the price fell back to $42,868.98, down 7.28% since the beginning of the year.

I counter your counterattack! Russia may evade European and American economic sanctions with a secret weapon

After the war between Russia and Ukraine, when the United States and European countries launched sanctions against Russia, experts strongly urged countries to pay more attention-digital currency and cryptocurrencies may become the solution for Russia to evade sanctions in Europe and the United States.

Economic sanctions intensify, Russia kicked out of SWIFT
On February 24, after Russia started a full-scale war with Ukraine, the United States subsequently issued a joint statement with the European Commission (European Commission), France, Germany, Italy, Canada and the United Kingdom, jointly offering economic sanctions against Russia, Some large Russian banks have been expelled from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), an international payment system, in the hope of cracking down on Russia’s global trade channels and causing losses to the Russian economy.

“It’s naive to think Russia is not prepared”
However, there are various signs that Russia’s sanctions against Europe and the United States seem to be prepared this time. Experts have called for the possibility of using digital currencies in Russia’s transactions with other countries to bypass the penalties and influence of European and American countries.

“It would be naive to think Russia didn’t think about the consequences,” warned Michael Parker, a former U.S. federal prosecutor who is now an anti-money laundering and sanctions researcher at Ferrari & Associates.

Russia implements “de-dollarization”
The U.S. dollar is the strongest currency in the world and the most effective diplomatic tool for U.S. economic sanctions. Russia has experienced the severity of US sanctions since its annexation of Crimea in 2014, and it loses about 50 billion US dollars (about 1,402.5 billion Taiwan dollars) every year.

But since then, Russia has gradually reduced its reliance on the US dollar, and also envisaged that it may be kicked out of the international payment system SWIFT after the war with Ukraine in the future, so it began to develop its own SPFS system (System for Transfer of Financial Messages) to reduce Shock, and consider emerging currencies, digital currencies and cryptocurrencies, as a solution to avoid the US dollar and the traditional financial system, but also to trade with other countries.

The digital currency “digital ruble” has been launched
The Russian government is actively issuing their digital currency, the digital ruble. As early as October 2020, the Central Bank of Russia announced plans to issue digital rubles to resist U.S. economic sanctions, and in November 2021 last year, it launched the test of the digital platform as planned.

In October 2021, the U.S. Treasury Department also issued a warning that new payment methods for digital currencies may reduce the effectiveness of U.S. economic sanctions and bypass the traditional banking system for transactions; some experts have also issued repeated reminders recently that Russia may Among other countries sanctioned by the United States, looking for objects that can be traded in digital currencies, including China.

The New York Times reported that at the beginning of February this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russia jointly issued a declaration that the two countries have “no limit to friendship and no restricted areas for cooperation”. In addition, China has also issued an official digital currency in recent years. In the future, the two countries will It is possible to take the transaction form of digital currency into consideration.

Cryptocurrency, Russia has unique resources to “mining”
In January this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin also expressed his appreciation for Russia’s “competitive advantage” in cryptocurrencies, because Russia has abundant oil, electricity and low temperature, providing a suitable environment for “mining” (Mining). In February, the Russian government reached an agreement with the central bank to formulate a draft to expand the supervision of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies into the country.

In addition to the possibility of mining to supplement Russia’s income, Russia’s dark web is also very active. The largest black market on the dark web, Hydra, is based in Russia. The previous blockchain analysis platform Chainalysis found on February 14th. 74% of the world’s ransomware revenue went to Russia-related units, with an amount exceeding $400 million (about 11.2 billion Taiwan dollars).

There are precedents in other countries
In fact, Russia is not the first country to use digital currency or cryptocurrencies to evade international sanctions. Iran and North Korea have already used cryptocurrencies to increase their country’s income. London-based blockchain analysis company Elliptic estimated in May 2021 that after Iran started mining, the annual Bitcoin (Bitcoin) revenue could reach 1 billion US dollars (about 28 billion Taiwan dollars), successfully survived the US ban on oil, Banking and Shipping Industry Sanctions.

In February, a United Nations report also pointed out that North Korea is likely to continue to finance expensive missile development by stealing cryptocurrency.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation Fedorov (Mykhailo Fedorov) thanked all parties for their cryptocurrency donations on Twitter, and announced the wallet address of Ukraine’s cryptocurrency in the tweet, welcoming more responses.

War and sanctions boost cryptocurrency circulation
War and international sanctions have made emerging currencies—especially cryptocurrencies, which have the characteristics of breaking through the state’s restrictions on the free transfer of assets and decentralization—become a more convenient and “safe-haven” asset in times of war. Especially in the Ukrainian War.

After Russia declared war on Ukraine, the ruble slumped to a record low, but the Russian cryptocurrency market rose instead of falling on February 28. Bitcoin rose 10.4% to about $41,000 (about 1.12 million Taiwan dollars). The exchange of Russian rubles for bitcoin in Ukrainian hryvnia (UAH) has reached a new high in months after Russia went to war with Ukraine on Feb. 24, according to cryptocurrency market data provider Kaiko.

The beneficiaries are not only Russia
And just two days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine received about $4 million worth of cryptocurrency donations for a military-supported organization alone, excluding other Ukrainian non-profit and government organizations inside.

The Censorship Resistant feature of cryptocurrencies means that funds donated by donors through cryptocurrencies will never be intercepted, and are more suitable for cross-border donations.

“It turns out that cryptocurrencies can also be a powerful way to fund wars,” said Tom Robinson, founder of London-based blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.

“Rich Maker” Zhao Changpeng is worth more than the founder of Google and Meta. Who can copy the legend of riches?

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index has boosted the worth of Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao to the 11th richest man in the world. Binance, which he founded, can be called a “rich maker”, which distributes cryptocurrencies as bonuses to employees and leads them to become billionaires. One Binance coin is now worth more than 13,000 Taiwan dollars. Do ordinary people still have a chance to replicate his road to riches?

Standing on the other side of the phone screen, Changpeng Zhao was in Dubai when he was interviewed by Foresight. The cryptocurrency exchange he founded, Binance, just signed a cooperation agreement with the Dubai World Trade Center Authority (DWTCA). , to jointly promote the establishment of a “global industrial center of virtual assets” in Dubai.

Wearing a black T-shirt with the Binance logo printed on it, three buttons and two buttons neatly, and a soldier-like flat head, Changpeng Zhao does not look like the richest man at all. Standing all the way to the end of the conversation, completely hiding the momentum of the personal net worth of up to 96 billion US dollars (about 2.65 trillion Taiwan dollars).

Hot search on both sides of the strait, who is Changpeng Zhao?

To become the richest man in the new Chinese, first of all, the Chinese media “Caijing” published an article on Weibo, estimating that Changpeng Zhao’s worth surpassed that of China’s richest man and the chairman of Nongfu Spring, Zhong Suisui, to become the “Chinese richest man” and ranks among the top ten richest people in the world. As soon as the news came out, everyone was shocked and became a common hot search on both sides of the strait that day. Without exception, they all asked, “What is the origin of Changpeng Zhao?”

That happened on December 1, 2021. His worth was estimated at $90 billion. After only two months, his name reappeared on the US media “Bloomberg” billionaire index, and his worth skyrocketed. to $96 billion.

In the list of billionaires on January 10, 2022, he surpassed Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in Asia and chairman of India’s Reliance Group, and also beat Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google founder. Larry Page.

With the title of the richest man falling on the heads of people in the currency circle, the cryptocurrency that is invisible and intangible, is it a hyped Ponzi scheme? Or the new gold of the digital age? Makes it even harder to see. But Bitcoin’s crazy rally in 2021 may prove that the currency circle is becoming more and more influential.

Binance invests $200 million in Forbes, winning one of the largest shareholders

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, plans to take a stake in century-old publisher Forbes for $200 million.

CNBC, citing people familiar with the matter, said the funding helped Forbes merge with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) to go public in the first quarter. Binance accounted for half of the $400 million that Forbes announced in August last year from institutional investors, making Binance the top two Forbes shareholders and two of nine board seats.

Forbes will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “FRBS.” This move shows that the cryptocurrency industry is creating many new billionaires and has an increasing impact on the real world. It is also the first major investment of the cryptocurrency industry in traditional American media.

Forbes was founded in 1917, the first issue was on September 15, 1917, and has a history of 104 years; In 2014, Forbes sold 95% of its shares to the Hong Kong investment group “Beijing Whale Media Investment” for about US$475 million. “Integrated Whale Media Investments”, is composed of several Asian investors including Xie Weiqi, the co-founder of ASUS Computer, and Ren Dezhang, the former chairman of Fenglin Group.

According to Bloomberg, Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao was worth $96 billion in January, making him the richest man in the cryptocurrency industry. This figure is only a conservative estimate and does not include cryptocurrency holdings.

LINE Pay Japan will open the encrypted asset LINK as a payment channel

LINE Pay, a digital wallet and fintech service under LINE, announced today that during the trial operation period from March 16 to December 26, 2022, LINE users can hold LINE’s encrypted asset “LINK” in some online stores to spend in Japan.

During the trial operation, users can choose to pay with LINK when checking out in some online stores of LINE Pay, such as LINE POINTS, with no handling fee. By connecting LINE Pay and LINK, in addition to expanding payment options and improving convenience, it can also increase the daily use of LINK.

LINK is based on LINE Blockchain, a blockchain network owned by LINE, and has continued to expand its application range since its launch. Taking Japan as an example, LINE BITMAX, an encrypted asset exchange operated by LVC, allows users to pay transaction fees with LINK when trading encrypted assets, and can also deduct money from their LINE Pay account or bank account.

LINE Tech Plus, a subsidiary of LINE’s global crypto asset and blockchain business, has recently continued to promote the popularization of LINK and accelerate the realization of the goal of a cashless society, including LINE Pay marketing promotion and original research.

LINE Pay also plans to open Bitcoin, Ethereum and other encrypted assets as payment options in the future, and actively establish a blockchain business partnership. In order to make LINK a “Designed For Everyone” (Designed For Everyone), LINE will continue to strive to expand daily uses and promote the popularization of encrypted assets.

Bitcoin Returns to $40,000 as 50 Million Air Force Makes Heroic Sacrifice

Big Brother is back! Bitcoin surged 11% yesterday, recovering $40,000 in lost ground, with bottom-feeders laughing and a large number of airmen sacrificing themselves in just a few hours.

Bitcoin, the big brother of cryptocurrency, finally broke free from its two-week struggle in the $38,000 range and surged in the early hours of Feb. 5, literally.

At 11 p.m. on February 4, Bitcoin was still hovering around $37,900, but an hour later, the calendar flipped to the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, and something really “went wrong” for the Air Force. In just one hour, Bitcoin climbed $2,000, directly hitting the $40,000 barrier.

According to market watcher Coinglass, about $50 million of Bitcoin’s air force has been shorted in the past four hours, and the overall cryptocurrency market has been shorted by as much as $100 million.

Today’s surge exceeded many optimistic analysts’ expectations. Analysts who predicted last week that bitcoin would pull in at $39,600 were laughed at for being illiterate believers, but they didn’t expect bitcoin’s crazy rally to be a direct slap in the face to the bearish.

As of this writing, Bitcoin is trading at $41,345, up 11.45% in a single day, with a total market cap of $783.4 billion, finally shaking off the January slump and returning to the levels of January 7.

The money circle community believes that with all the negative news over the past month, those who want to get rid of the stock have almost sold out.

The big brother is taking the lead and the second brother is not resting either. Ether has doubled by 10% to $3,000, while maintaining a daily burn rate of about $30 million, moving towards Ether 2.0.

Russian finance minister contradicts central bank: ‘Suggest banks sell cryptocurrency’

“Cryptocurrencies should be treated like gold and other assets.” In an open letter, the Russian Finance Minister suggested that the Russian government adopt a positive attitude towards cryptocurrencies, but just a short time ago, the Central Bank of Russia said that it would ban cryptocurrencies altogether, so how can the two-headed carriage run this new crypto track?

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has repositioned the Russian government’s attitude toward cryptocurrencies from a total ban to one of regulation, and has even proposed legislation to allow banks to trade in cryptocurrencies.

Contrary to the Central Bank of Russia, the Finance Minister believes that banks should become cryptocurrency exchanges and assume regulatory responsibility, thereby establishing an authentication mechanism to combat unauthorized and illegal trading platforms.

Both the finance minister and the central bank believe that illegal cryptocurrency trading should not be allowed to exist, but the means to deal with it are very different. Syrouanov pointed out that Russia has about 2 trillion rubles (about NT$740 billion) worth of cryptocurrency assets, which are already a small and negligible part of the total amount of Russian citizens’ deposits, and that legislation could turn these funds into new momentum.

In addition to cryptocurrencies, he believes that cryptocurrency mines and overseas trading platforms also need regulatory intervention, and roughly estimates that a reasonable regulatory and taxation system could help Russia increase its tax revenues by about 180 billion rubles, or about 60 billion NT, which is definitely better than the current unregulated state.

Several ministries in the Russian government have agreed that they must come up with a concrete response to cryptocurrency-related issues by the end of this year, with the Central Bank of Russia issuing an investigative report that suggests a total ban on cryptocurrency trading and mining. Russian President Vladmir Putin asked government departments to find a consensus with the Central Bank of Russia, while he also mentioned that Russia is currently in a unique position to take advantage of the global mining market.

It seems that Russia’s attitude towards cryptocurrencies could be reversed, not forgetting that after China’s crackdown on mining, Russia is now the third largest bitcoin producer in the world, with the latest data showing that 11.2% of the world’s computing power comes from within Russia, just behind the US and Kazakhstan, which has great potential for growth.

7 Blockchain Experts’ Predictions for Web 3.0, GameFi and the Meta-Universe

Cryptovo recently hosted a star-studded roundtable with Hans Koning, co-founder of DigiByte, O.J. Jordan, host of Crypto Corner, Sergei Simanovskiy of Citizen Cosmos, Alexandra Demidova, creative director of media at Bit, and Zel Alexandra Demidova, CEO of Zelwyn Ecosystems Nikolai Shkilev, Executive Director of Holochain Mary Camacho, and CBDO Paul Moukhine of BDC Consulting.

The roundtable discussed a variety of blockchain-related technologies, including GameFi, Metaverse, and Web 3.0. The conversation centered around predictions, and while the experts did not always share the same views, there were several insightful points of agreement in their conversations.

Meta-universe: 2022 is just the beginning?
Jordan noted that virtual reality will eventually get the boost it needs to thrive, given the interactive nature of the metaverse combined with blockchain technology.

With this in mind, the market value of the metaverse could rise tenfold from the current $70 billion to $800 billion within two years.

Mary Camacho disagrees, noting that the metaverse still needs time. There are many other technologies in the metaverse besides blockchain. Given these complexities, it would be unwise to assume that the industry will achieve rapid growth.

In 2022, new individuals, institutions and brands will continue to gain value in the industry, but only in a progressive direction.

Hans Koning concluded the metaverse discussion by saying that most people prefer to own virtual assets rather than participate in an active metaverse. For him, projects like OpenSea and Decentry have a lot of potential, in addition to Metabrands.

GameFi: Should we expect players to be decentralized?
The game space is closely connected to the metaverse. According to Alexandra Demidova, there is no clear distinction between the two, although Crypto game projects will increase in 2021.

The market already has some good performers, and realistically, there is no indication that we will see a new game of Axie Infinity-like scale in 2022.

Mary Camacho believes that GameFi’s players will be divided into two distinct groups in the future. One is the gamers, who see their actions as an opportunity to make money. The second is the gamer who has a great performance in the game, but is influenced by the financial aspects of the game.

The evolution of Web 3.0 from edge theory to mainstream technology will pave the way for our large decentralized games and set the stage for the separation of these two groups.

Paul Moukhine joined the discussion on this topic, arguing that large game development studios are failing to see GameFi as a game changer. If you look at the industry from this perspective, you are missing an opportunity, and the studios that enter the field will reap huge benefits.

Music NFT: The Next Big Thing?
As the panel of experts continued to express their views on these issues, Sergei Simanovsky pointed out an unexpected boom in the adoption of blocks: NFT.

It’s not something the experts could have predicted.

Digital artist Beeple has created a historic success in his work. His work as NFT sold for $69 million.

Jordan predicted that the next NFT frontier would be music. The appeal of direct ownership and receiving royalties solves the revenue control problem that artists have been struggling with for decades.

While NFT has had a transformative impact on the adoption of blockchain technology, the consensus among most experts is that based on the historical experience of ICOs in 2017-2018, when the speculative bubble burst, the hype died down and many suffered losses when they sold off.

Web 3.0 and the Revolution
It is widely believed that we will see the disappearance of the centralized Internet as a new, privacy-based, decentralized network takes root sometime soon, and Mary Camacho highlights a key issue: ease of use.

For now, those interested in the decentralized Web, known as “Web 3.0,” are those who know how to take advantage of it and profit from it. Its development will require a user experience that is as seamless and easy to understand as the current centralized Web.

In 2022, the desire to control one’s identity online will be a critical issue. Nevertheless, people’s desire to feel comfortable with the familiar will hinder the transition to Web 3.0.

Experts predict that nothing radical will happen in 2022 in terms of blockchain management. Ambiguity on the blockchain will continue on issues such as the definition of utility passwords.

The U.S. is bound to miss out on opportunities because of the indecision of regulators, Hans Kning said. Countries with secrecy and those that leave the market for self-regulation will overtake the U.S.

The excessive volatility associated with Crypto makes it an enemy of regulators, which could lead to stricter restrictions. more than 80 countries are implementing central bank digital currencies. After the CBDC launch, the next step is a restriction or complete ban on Crypto.

At the end of the roundtable discussion, experts presented their predictions for 2022 BTC.

Jordan expects to peak at $120,000 this year, while Nikolai Shkilev expects to reach $100,000. Hans Koning noted that speculators exist at both ends of the price fluctuation range between $20,000 and $1 million, but where the actual value will be, we don’t know.

Ultimately, as we watch, many interesting trends are evolving that are much more interesting than the price volatility of BTC.