Aergo and Blocko, two blockchain firms backed by both Samsung and Sequoia Capital, announced the launch of a regional consortium intended to bolster the adoption of innovative technologies across the Middle East, African, and South East Asian (MEASEA) regions on April 27. The organization, Execution Intelligence Group (E24P) seeks to promote ‘smart’ governance, tourism, supply chain, and finance solutions that leverage blockchain coupled with artificial intelligence (AI). Currently, E24P comprises Aergo, Blocko, remittance startup Topos, Abu Dhabi’s Al Nahyan family — one of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) six ruling families, and “a leading UK and China-based research institute.” DLT …

Chinese officials from the city of Ya’an in Sichuan have come out in support of using locally produced hydropower for cryptocurrency mining operations. On April 20 the Municipal Economic and Information Bureau and the Municipal Development and Reform Commission of Ya’an announced an opinion statement on local crypto mining implementation. The document encourages the consumption of hydropower-generated electricity for mining operations. The document stated that the municipality will build a "hydropower consumption demonstration zone" and "big data industry gathering area." Officials believe the province will thus attract investment and development in blockchain companies. Cryptocurrency mining in China China is known …

Chainalysis announced the extension of its cooperation with South Korean crypto exchange Upbit today, aiming to provide blockchain analysis support across the Asia-Pacific region (APAC). According to the announcement, Upbit APAC will start using Chainalysis KYT (Know-Your-Transaction) to provide a safe trading environment and comply with the established procedures in the region’s different countries. As South Korea’s regulation oversees Upbit Korea’s operations, the crypto exchange hopes to become ever more compliant. Strengthening regulatory compliance Chainalysis KYT is a crypto anti-money laundering (AML) product with over 275 clients in 40 countries. It monitors transactions in real-time and detects suspicious activity that …

LG Corporation’s IT services subsidiary is now testing artificial intelligence-based facial recognition technology which allows users to conduct payments using digital currency. LG CNS used its employees to test the new facial recognition service, IT Times reported on April 23. The platform includes AI, blockchain, and cloud technologies. After identifying an employee, the system enables them to automatically pay for services and products at the corporate restaurant with a pre-registered blockchain-based community currency. Lee Joon-won, solution business development manager at LG CNS, said: "It is expected that blockchain-based community currency will be used by a lot more people as it …

Curv, a Tel-Aviv and New York-based digital asset security platform, has launched Curv Air Gap — an institutional transaction signing solution that uses multi-party computation, or MPC, protocols on offline devices. The launch comes roughly one week after Curv expanded its operations in Asia — opening an office in Hong Kong and partnering with Japanese blockchain firm, Crypto Garage, to provide secure transaction signing for their Liquid-based settlement solution. Curv launches multi-party keyless signing solution On April 23, Curv launched its Air Gap security product, allowing multiple actors to jointly sign transactions offline using keyless cryptography. Itay Malinger, co-founder and …

The COVID-19 pandemic is threatening to plunge the world into the deepest crisis since the Great Depression and could deprive global economies of $5.5 trillion over the next two years. China’s economy shrank for the first time in 44 years, and their gross domestic product fell by 6.8% in the first quarter compared with last year. The pandemic was, naturally, to blame. More worryingly, year-on-year retail sales fell drastically in March. Shops, offices and factories are now starting to reopen, but people remain anxious and movement is restricted. However, businesses in Asia are currently recovering from the horrible financial hangover …

The firm behind major South Korean social gaming app GameTalkTalk has rolled out a blockchain project for gamers. The new platform includes a reward-based social media DApp, a matchmaking peer-to-peer gaming platform and a digital item exchange. Vinetree Corporation, the company behind GameTalkTalk, announced the Ludena Protocol on April 20, saying that, in the second quarter of 2020, users worldwide will be able to receive the app’s internal digital assets — know as "stars" — for completing in-game missions and downloading new games. A native token and user data collection are on the roadmap Stars can be used to purchase …

Vietnamese online ticketing agency Future.Travel now accepts Bitcoin (BTC) payments via the Lightning Network (LN), with funds being converted into local currency at the time of sale. To enable LN-based Bitcoin payments, Future.Travel collaborated with Canada-based tech firm Neutronpay, which will provide Future.Travel its multi-currency merchant platform, according to an April 20 announcement. With the newly integrated option, the BTC transaction processing time will ostensibly be cut down to three to four seconds in most cases. Eliminating fraud, reducing transaction processing time Overall, Future.Travel has been supporting BTC payments for over six years and recently added other cryptocurrencies like Litecoin …

Most of the fundraising in the cryptocurrency space shifted from the Americas to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), and the Asia Pacific regions (APAC), according to a recent report by Big Four auditing firm PwC. According to PwC's 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report, during 2019, fundraising efforts in the crypto space obtained 18% less funding, while funds in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the space decreased by 40%. As funding decreased overall, APAC and EMEA's share of the pie got larger. While APAC and EMEA saw 44% of combined fundraising and M&A deal value in 2018, …

Following a nine-month-long probationary period, Malaysia-based cryptocurrency trading firm, Tokenize Malaysia, has received full approval from local securities watchdog. With the approval to operate a Digital Assets Exchange, the company’s cryptocurrency trading platform, Tokenize Xchange, became legally approved and regulated by the Securities Commission (SC) of Malaysia, local news outlet, SoyaCincau, reported on April 3. The exchange offers fiat-to-digital asset pairings. Malaysian laws require that local cryptocurrency exchanges register with the SC, after which they have up to nine month to achieve compliance with the SC’s regulation standards. Commenting on the development, Hong Qi Yu, CEO and CTO at Tokenize …

As major central bank digital currency (CBDC) projects develop apace, it is becoming clear that not all digital coins will look, or even function the same way. A recent analysis by Chinese financial media group InterChain Pulse reveals that two of the most visible such projects — those of the Bank of England (BoE) and the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) — may be more different than they are alike. InterChain Pulse cited BoE’s discussion paper released earlier this month, where the financial institution seriously weighed the pros and cons of issuing a CBDC denominated in pounds sterling. InterChain compared …

Gone are the days of dusty ledgers and checkbooks. Over the last decade or so, the word “money” has taken on a completely new meaning for a lot of people all over the world. This is partly due to the masses being utterly frustrated with the way many big banks handle their business transactions. In fact, with the use of physical money on the decline, the market for digital payments has started to replace a whole host of traditionally popular banking avenues. To put things into perspective, in Asia alone, more than 1.4 billion individuals make use of China’s two …