Asia Express – Cointelegraph Magazine

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

OKX token 48% flash crash

Cryptocurrency exchange OKX briefly experienced a 48% spike in native token OKB on January 23rd.

In less than an hour, nearly $6.5 billion in weakened market capitalization was lost before the token recovered its losses. OKX reported that the general market sell-off on the day of the crash led to “a deleveraging of several large utility positions,” exacerbated by liquidity in “promissory notes, margin trading and cross-currency transactions.”

The price of OKB tokens fell from $48.36 to $25.10 within minutes. At the time of publication, OKB tokens are trading at $48.77.

In a post-mortem update, the firm noted that liquidity was triggered by “50.69 to 48.36 USDT” per OKB, or less than a 5% price move. The exchange has since promised to reimburse users for all OKB-related losses incurred as a result of the flash crash.

OKX said, “We will improve our position efficiency standards, committed credit risk control rules, liquidity strategies and so on to prevent similar problems from happening again.” “We understand that this situation is unusual and we apologize to the affected users.”

A Hong Kong technology company is set to invest 100 million USD into Web3.

Network security firm Integritytech HK Limited announced on January 24 that it will invest 100 million Hong Kong dollars (US$12.79 million) to build a “digital wind tunnel evaluation center” to explore the security applications of new technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. , and Web3 in the region. The company said:

“Through this cooperation and the construction and operation of the Hong Kong Digital Wind Tunnel Evaluation Center, the company will help the company replicate and promote the digital security testing and evaluation experience accumulated in Hong Kong on the mainland, which will further expand the company's business position.”

In a similar move last month, Chinese venture capital firm GBA Capital pledged a $10 billion Web3 fund to accelerate digital initiatives in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area region. GBA Capital is backed by China's state-owned National Engineering Laboratory and financial institutions, including Asia Pacific Investment Bank and China Europe International Financial Group. The organization provides educational training, industry capital and investment incubators to Web3 and AI startups.

The Ondo Finance token expands US Treasury offerings into APAC.

Real-world asset token provider Ondo Finance has opened an office in Hong Kong and plans to expand its offering of US Treasury tokens to investors in the Asia Pacific region.

“There is appreciation for the active and rapidly growing crypto community and the exposure to high-quality US assets that our tokens provide,” Nathan Allman, CEO of Ondo Finance, said of the move.

Ondo has three products: OUSG, which provides exposure to US Treasuries; OMMF, which provides exposure to US money market funds; and USDY, providing a yielding alternative to conventional stablecoins consisting of short-term Treasuries and bank deposits.

The products provide annual yields of approximately 5%, which are comparable to US Treasury yields and are available only to non-US individuals designated as professional investors. Tokenized assets are placed on Ethereum, Solana and Polygon. According to DeFillama, approximately $186 million worth of digital tokens are locked in the company's token pools.

South Korean crypto lender executive in progress

An individual called “Mr. Bang” is currently the subject of an arrest warrant by South Korean authorities for his involvement in the collapse of the country's crypto-lending firms Delio and Haru Invest last year.

According to local news reports on January 24, Mr. Bang is a 70% majority shareholder of B&S Holdings, one of Haru Invest's shipping operators. Earlier last week, police requested an arrest warrant for Mr. Bang following the issuance of an arrest warrant by Seoul's Southern District Court for defrauding the Special Economic Crimes Act, which carries severe penalties. Mr. Song, the company's other majority shareholder, fled to Japan.

Last June, Haru Invest stopped making deposits and withdrawals after irregularities were discovered in the accounting of B&S Holdings. The move led to the dissolution of sister company Delio. Both entities held more than $1 billion worth of customer digital assets at the time of the incident.

Since then, B&S Holdings has been revealed to have experienced “complete capital erosion” with zero Korean won on its books. Another related entity, Traum Infotech, a developer of a virtual asset trading platform, also reportedly suffered losses after reinvesting large amounts of Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP entrusted by Delio to B&S Holdings. The investigation into the matter is ongoing.

After receiving their retail license last August, Hong Kong crypto exchanges OSL and HashKey are looking to expand internationally.

Earlier this month, OSL said it would include geographic expansion outside Hong Kong and Singapore as a key tenet of its 2024 corporate strategy after receiving a $90 million investment last November.

In an interview with Cointelegraph on January 22, CEO Patrick Pan explained that the firm is also exploring the Fund Token initiative for the tokenization of retail fund products. “If approved by the SFC [Securities & Futures Commission]These fund tokens, representing shares in a novel mutual investment scheme under the Harvest-OSL brand, will be offered retail to investors in Hong Kong, the CEO said.

In a similar move, HashKey Exchange's Livio Wong told local media on January 24 that the company's parent would seek regulatory approval outside Hong Kong after securing $100 million in Series A funding earlier this month. Wong also noted that in December, the exchange recorded an average daily transaction volume of $638 million.

The decrease is due in part to HashKey Exchange's new trading fees that went into effect in early January. Since opening for retail trading, the exchange has listed a total of 19 major cryptocurrencies and altcoins, although most are only open to investors who meet a high net worth limit.

Beyond exchanges, there are currently about 10 companies looking to launch Bitcoin Spot ETFs in Hong Kong following the US Securities and Futures Commission's approval of such products in January. One company, Samsung Asset Management, already has a Bitcoin Futures ETF listed on the regional stock exchange.

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Zhiyuan Sun

Zhyuan Sun is a reporter at Cointelegraph, focusing on technology-related news. He has several years of experience writing for major financial media outlets such as The Motley Fool, Nasdaq.com and Seeking Alpha.