Latest Crypto News in Asia

What’s the latest crypto news in Asia? Let’s take a look.

The Asia-Pacific region continues to see major developments in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, with leading firms making strategic moves to tap into growth opportunities across countries like China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan.

In Japan, Binance has re-entered the market by partnering with Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation to study issuing a yen-pegged stablecoin by end-2024 after obtaining regulatory approval. This comes as Japan introduced a framework for stablecoins in 2022 and Binance acquired local exchange Sakura Exchange BitCoin last year to restart operations after previously facing regulatory warnings. The tie-up with a major Japanese financial group highlights Binance’s efforts to expand in the country’s increasingly crypto-friendly environment.

Meanwhile, Binance Japan aims to significantly boost its token offerings from 34 to at least 100 in the short term and collaborate with industry players to improve liquidity after fully launching last month. The plans demonstrate ambitions to become a top Japanese exchange.

In other news, Nomura's crypto unit Laser Digital opened a new Tokyo office to optimize Asia-region support for its trading business. Laser Digital has already invested in multiple crypto startups and launched an asset management arm.

The decentralized Ethereum scaling solution Arbitrum also entered a partnership with Japan's Fracton Ventures to promote Arbitrum adoption through business development, ecosystem growth and education programs.

In China, Hong Kong has emerged as a major Asia-Pacific hub for over-the-counter crypto trading, with over $64 billion worth of crypto received from July 2022 to June 2023, according to Chainalysis. Although China banned crypto transactions in 2021, some speculate it may be slowly warming up to digital assets by using Hong Kong for testing.

Shanghai also unveiled detailed plans to significantly advance blockchain development in areas like cryptographic security, smart contracts, interoperability and compliance to support adoption in government, trade, supply chains and the metaverse.

In Hong Kong, regulators will soon release comprehensive guidance on tokenizing stocks and funds. While the initial focus is on issuing and trading tokenized financial products on licensed platforms, secondary market trading may be considered later given associated risks.

Taiwan imposed restrictions on unregistered offshore crypto exchanges while issuing strict compliance guidelines for domestic platforms on practices like asset segregation and transparency. Leading Taiwanese exchanges formed an association to align with the new rules.

In Singapore, crypto market maker GSR and exchange Coinbase received key regulatory approvals to expand digital asset services. However, Three Arrows Capital co-founder Su Zhu was arrested for defying court orders to cooperate with investigations into the failed crypto hedge fund.