Asia Express – Cointelegraph Magazine

East Asia's weekly news roundup reviews the industry's most important developments.

SGX boss says Singapore ‘not ready' for Bitcoin ETFs

While several countries have approved the listing of cryptocurrency-based exchange-traded funds, Singapore, a key financial hub in Asia, is not ready.

Singapore Exchange (SGX) CEO Loh Bon Chai said at a Reuters conference on July 9 that SGX is currently not open to crypto listings.

“I feel that the ecosystem, at this point in time, is not ready for these types of products in Singapore,” Lo said.

Singapore is often rivaled by Hong Kong because both cities are international financial centers that strive to provide the most favorable business environment through well-being and tax incentives.

Hong Kong has already launched Asia's first Bitcoin and Ether ETF, a few months after Bitcoin ETFs debuted in the United States in the world's largest economy.

Like Hong Kong, Singapore has expressed its desire to become a hub for crypto businesses and has issued more licenses than its rival.

As of today, Singapore has greenlit 24 digital payment token licenses, which allow businesses to offer crypto services, including trading and security services.

The Philippines has charged the theft of two crypto exchanges, XRP, in the amount of $6 million.

The Department of Justice of the Philippines filed criminal charges against two former consultants of Coins.ph, who hacked the crypto exchange in October of last year and allowed them to steal $6 million from a hot wallet in XRP.

The pair, known as Vladimir Evgenevich Avdeev and Sergey Yaschuck, worked as Coins.ph consultants.

The exchange is licensed by the Central Bank of the Philippines to provide crypto trading and custody services to 16 million users.

Their tenure allowed them access to Coins.ph's network infrastructure, including secure access key protocols and server systems, according to the DOJ. At the end of their tenure, they were able to retain their access and used them without any rights, the prosecutor explained.

The alleged hack was discovered when Coins.ph found a hole with 12.2 million XRP in one of the hot wallets. The stolen assets were subsequently transferred to a separate foreign wallet which was eventually linked to Yaschuck's account.

The two former advisers have been charged with violating the country's Cybercrime Prevention Act. Avdev is facing 23 charges while Yashuk is charged with three.

Vladimir Evgenevich Avdev and Sergey Yashuk reportedly left the country before being charged.

An importer was caught trying to hide expensive machinery through Korean customs

South Korean airport customs have reportedly busted an importer for tax evasion after he tried to bring in a handful of cryptocurrency mining rigs masquerading as outdated and second-hand models.

The importer reports that the products are models priced at $290 (400,000 Korean won) per unit. They were one of the latest mining rigs on the market, priced at $14,000 each.

Incheon Airport Customs charged the unnamed 44-year-old importer with violating customs laws by importing nearly 700 high-quality crypto mining rigs on 45 occasions since November 2022.

They said that they had evaded customs duty of about 144,000 dollars that had been brought into the country.

During the customs inspection, the customs authorities found that there were differences between the declared and actual models. When unlocking the mining machines, they ensure that high-performance components such as GPUs (graphics processing units) are installed.

The accused was sent to the prosecutors for further legal proceedings but was not arrested or detained.

According to a customs official quoted by local media, the country expects to see an increase in low-cost declaration cases due to rising domestic demand for cryptocurrency mining.

Suspicious Seven — Hong Kong bailiff says stay away.

In a statement last week, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) listed seven businesses suspected of crypto fraud: XTCQT, CEG, BTEPRO, Bitones,org, Yomaex, Bstor and Taurusemex.

According to the SFC, customers of trading platforms have reported having withdrawal issues. In several cases, the platforms stated that the accounts were related to counterfeiting, which was the reason for the suspension.

This has led to them paying “exorbitant” fees to settle some of their accounts.

In response to the allegations, local law enforcement has begun blocking websites associated with the named businesses at the request of the city's financial regulator. However, most of these sites were offline at the time of action.

Taurusmex was accused of falsely advertising that its investors' accounts were regulated by the City's financial authority, a claim the SFC denounced as untrue.

This comes as Hong Kong expresses its desire to establish itself as a cryptocurrency hub, announcing a licensing scheme aimed at providing regulated crypto trading access to both retail and institutional investors.

Local businesses have been given a deadline of June 1, 2024 to obtain a permit or at least be “presumed to have a permit.”

In the year As of July 10, 2024, two entities, HashKey and OSL, are on the list of trading platforms licensed by the SFC. Meanwhile, twelve applications have been canceled or rejected.

Bitget expects Japanese crypto users to continue to grow.

Japan had the sixth-highest number of visitors to centralized exchanges in the world from November 2023 to April 2024, according to a new report released by Bitgate Research.

The research arm expects Japanese crypto adoption to continue to heat up.

Bitgate's research found a unique trend among Japanese users. It was an alternative to older dog-themed memecoins like Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB). In contrast, new memecoins such as Book of Meme (BOME) and Slerfsol (SLERF) did not appear in the trending searches of Japanese Internet users.

The country's investors are keen on early “blue-chip” tokens such as XRP and Cardano's ADA. These two currencies are not on the trending search list in most other countries, Bitgate said.

In the year By 2022, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's administration will establish its own Web3 project team, highlighting blockchain technology as a key component in achieving its vision of a sustainable and technologically advanced society.

Bitgate expects Japan's daily active cryptocurrency traders to increase from 350,000 in 2024 to 500,000 by the end of the year.

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John Yun

Yohan Yun is a multimedia journalist who has been reporting on blockchain since 2017. He has contributed as an editor to crypto media outlet Forkast and covered Asian technology stories as an assistant reporter for Bloomberg BNA and Forbes. He spends his free time cooking and experimenting with new recipes.