Chinese billionaire and Alibaba founder Jack Ma will no longer control the fintech giant Ant Group as part of recent changes to the company’s corporate structure. Ant Group officially announced that Ma has agreed to give up control of Ant Group as part of the company’s further corporate governance optimization and restructuring. Prior to the change, Ma was the control person in Ant, exercising control over the company through related entities in addition to his 10% stake in Ant. Once the restructuring process is complete, no single shareholder will have control over Ant, the company said in a statement. Major …

Users of the crypto exchange Gate.io are facing slow deposits and withdrawals on transactions due to a node maintenance from a third-party cloud provider, according to an announcement on Dec. 18. Gate.io said the transactions are still being processed, and claimed the funds of users are safe. The company stated: "At this moment, we are monitoring the network connection status of our cloud service providers and will expedite the deposits and withdrawals as soon as the network connection is restored." It is unclear if the delay in transactions is related to OKX's outage, which was caused by a hardware failure …

Crypto exchange OKX witnessed service disruptions after primary infrastructure provider Alibaba Cloud announced a hardware failure in Alibaba Cloud’s Hong Kong data center. Alibaba Cloud Hong Kong IDC Zone C server went offline on Saturday at roughly 10 PM ET and failed to recover for over 7 hours at the time of reporting. On-chain data further confirms that OKX processed no transactions during this timeline. Alibaba Cloud’s website shows that the Hong Kong (China) server hosts three availability zones, which have been operational since 2014. The cloud provider confirmed the outage through an official announcement, as shown below. While announcing …

Malaysia continues accelerating its pace of cryptocurrency adoption as one of the major local banks is moving into cryptocurrency trading as part of its default banking offerings. Kenanga Investment Bank Berhad, one of the largest private investment banks with more than 500,000 customers, has partnered with China’s tech giant Ant Group to launch a crypto-friendly wallet and trading app. According to an announcement on Wednesday, Kenanga has signed a memorandum of understanding with Ant to jointly develop Malaysia’s wealth application called categorized as a super app. Under the terms of the agreement, Ant’s digital technology unit will provide Kenanga with …

The popularity of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) is on the rise as recent data shows that the number of digital collectible platforms in China has grown to over 500, a 5X increase from February 2022, when the total number of NFT platforms was just over 100. According to a report published by a local Chinese daily, the sharp rise in the number of NFT platforms comes amid the growing hype and popularity of the digital collectibles in the country. Major tech giants including Tencent and Alibaba have shown interest in the nascent space and have filed multiple trademark patents. The rise …

The cloud business unit of Chinese marketplace giant Alibaba Group Holdings launched a new nonfungible token (NFT) solution and then promptly deleted all mention of it online. According to a now-deleted Twitter post announcing the launch on Wednesday, the firm’s NFT marketplace solution included “web hosting, digital marketing & content delivery” infrastructure but is no longer listed on its website. There are also no press releases or announcements related to the NFT solution on Alibaba’s website anymore. Meanwhile, the solution’s webpage link still shows up in Google search results and now redirects to Alibaba Cloud’s solution index page. The reason …

China's leading social media platforms and internet giants have updated their policy to restrict or remove nonfungible token (NFT) platforms, citing a lack of regulatory clarity and fearing government crackdown. Chinese social media giant WeChat reportedly removed several digital collectible platform accounts for violations of the rules. Digital collection platform Xihu No.1, one of the hyped NFT projects in the market, was among the removed platforms. Another platform called Dongyiyuandian revealed that its official app has been banned, reported a local daily. WhaleTalk, a digital collectible platform launched by tech giant Ant group, also updated its policy to increase the …

Chinese online retail giant JD.com is diving into the nonfungible token, or NFT, industry by introducing a special NFT series for its annual JD Discovery conference. Using its proprietary blockchain platform, JD.com will be distributing commemorative NFT certificates to attendees of the JDD 2021 event in Beijing, the Chinese news agency Sina Finance reported on Wednesday. Specifically, JD.com will issue one NFT for free to anyone who signs up for the JDD 2021 conference between Monday and Nov. 22 through the WeChat mini program on the event’s official website. According to the report, the NFT series features a set of …

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is the next company to wrap up its cryptocurrency-related services in response to the ongoing crypto crackdown in China. Alibaba officially announced Monday that its platform will prohibit sales of cryptocurrency miners and suspend categories for blockchain miners and accessories from its website on Oct. 8. In addition to stopping sales of crypto mining devices, Alibaba will impose a ban on using its platforms to sell major cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), as well as smaller coins like Quark (QRK). The new restrictions involve but are not limited to crypto mining-related hardware …

According to local sources, the Chinese government has released a series of statements denouncing the value of the nonfungible token, or NFT, market, even though two of the nation’s major tech firms are pursuing the technology. The story was first released locally by the Securities Times — a news publication service acting as a spokesperson for the official Chinese Communist Party outlet People’s Daily — and reported by the South Morning China Post. The remarks claimed that “it is common sense that there is a huge bubble in NFT transactions,” and that most NFT buyers who acquire with a financial …

Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) has launched a new blockchain-based platform that could potentially track one-third of shipping containers across the globe. The GSBN was incorporated in March 2021 by eight global national freight maritime cargo companies to build a blockchain platform that digitizes shipping processes, such as document issuance, clearance and logistics data. Members of the Hong-Kong-based nonprofit consortium GSBN are said to “account for one in every three containers handled in the world,” and this may soon be verifiable on the blockchain once the platform is fully utilized. The GSBN announced the launch of the new blockchain platform …

Chinese multinational e-commerce firm Alibaba Group Holding has launched a new nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace allowing trademark holders to sell tokenized licenses to their intellectual property. The new NFT marketplace, dubbed “Blockchain Digital Copyright and Asset-Trade,” can be accessed via Alibaba’s Auction platform. NFTs launched via the platform will be issued on the “New Copyright Blockchain” — a distributed ledger technology platform centrally operated by the Sichuan Blockchain Association Copyright Committee. According to a Tuesday report from Alibaba-owned news publication South China Morning Post (SCMP), the marketplace hopes to target writers, musicians, artists and game developers. The marketplace is already …