Crypto.com co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek unveiled his company's 2020 expansion plan in a talk today at BlockShow Asia 2019 in Singapore. The plans include launching its own exchange, shipping VISA MCO cards to almost every region in the world, and launching a non-custodial wallet. With the motto that “it’s your basic human right to control your money, data, and identity,” Marszalek spoke about Crypto.com’s vision to create an ecosystem where people can manage every aspect of their crypto holdings in one place: pay, buy, sell, trade, exchange, fundraise, and so on. He revealed the entire roadmap to get there …

BlockShow Asia 2019 hosted some big names today for a panel on blockchain scalability. All the speakers agreed: people have to choose between scalability and decentralization. The panel included Max Kordek, CEO at Lisk; Matthew Tan, founder of Etherscan; Saranya Sriram, technical lead at Microsoft Azure; and Xinxi Wang, co-founder of Litecoin Foundation. It attracted a large audience for such a super-technical discussion. Speaking about the difficulties of scaling a blockchain to the next level, Kordek said that “blockchain scalability is a tradeoff. You can’t simply scale a blockchain for free. This is why I always laugh when I hear …

In a fireside chat with Cointelegraph Executive Editor Jay Cassano at BlockShow Asia 2019, Elixxir President Jim Dolbear announced the launch of xx coin, a digital currency that will support decentralized messaging, payments, and dApps on the associated xx network. “The way this all unfolded originally had to do with privacy associated with political expression. Who are you talking to, what are you reading?” said Dolbear. “We’re trying to allow people to control their own metadata.” In a press release shared with Cointelegraph on the same day, digital money pioneer and Elixxir CEO David Chaum said, “The xx coin and …

Speaking at BlockShow Asia 2019, Hyperledger Vice President APAC Julian Gordon described the personal impact that the Chinese president’s pro-blockchain remarks have had on him: “Xi Jinping made that announcement 10 days ago. The reason I know that is because my phone is sitting on my desk — my WeChat started buzzing and hasn’t stopped since.” Hosted by the Linux Foundation, Hyperledger is an open-source blockchain project aiming to be a hub for open blockchain development across industries. It has gathered companies from different backgrounds such as IBM, Airbus and JP Morgan Chase to further advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. Hyperledger …

Speaking on stage at BlockShow 2019 in Singapore today, Alchemy Global Payment Solutions co-founder Patrick Ngan discussed some details of how his company is making it easier to pay for everyday goods and services with cryptocurrency. Ngan emphasized the power of choice to make consumers and merchants happier. Calling his company “the first unified crypto-fiat payment solution in Asia,” he described a merchant product that lets the customer decide whether they want to pay in the local fiat currency or a popular cryptocurrency of their choice. “People in this audience probably have a lot of Bitcoin,” Ngan said. “Instead of …

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ, predicted that the digital Renminbi token (RMB) would be based on blockchain. Speaking today at BlockShow Asia 2019, CZ shared his thoughts on the digital currency in development by the People’s Bank of China. The details of this currency are not officially known. It will certainly not be as decentralized as Bitcoin (as it will be issued by the central bank), but CZ thinks it is going to be a blockchain-based version of RMB. He explained his reasoning: “The Chinese government wants to push RMB’s influence globally. They want RMB to be …

Luxembourg-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp has hired Andrew Leelarthaepin to lead its business development efforts in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. In a Nov. 13 press release, Bitstamp announced that Leelarthaepin was joining the company to further expand the exchange’s presence in Asia-Pacific “to meet the growing level of demand for the exchange’s services.” Bitstamp’s struggle to establish a local presence in Asia Miha Grčar, global head of business development at Bitstamp, said that the crypto exchange already has “an excellent reputation” in the West, but has so far been unable to establish a local presence in the APAC region. Grčar sees …

Global banking giant HSBC will explore the use of blockchain for the issuance of fixed income securities in a joint trial with Singapore Exchange (SGX) and investment firm Temasek. Focused on the Asia bond markets, the trial intends to streamline the bond issuance process and reduce associated costs by applying tokenized securities and smart contracts, HSBC Singapore announced Nov. 13. While Asia’s fixed income markets continue to grow, bond issuance and servicing processes remain inefficient, according to HSBC. This is purportedly due to the absence of a single platform for the exchange of information between multiple parties and tracking tools …

The current health care system — from its arduous processes to its lack of coherency — prevents doctors from providing patients with the best care and negatively impacts the care they already deliver. Medical professionals are burdened with attempting to coordinate health care in a system that simply isn’t designed for it. Around the world, physicians and their staff struggle to coordinate care through antiquated methods — frequently by face-to-face, fax, phone or courier — that may lead to dangerous miscommunication. The situation in the United States serves as an ideal case study of health care coordination challenges, which even …

A Singaporean banking branch of CIMB Group, one of the largest Asian investment banks, has completed its first blockchain-based trade financing transaction. The transaction was processed using a blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) platform developed by local trade financing firm iTrust Trading, Yahoo Singapore reports Oct. 17. By applying iTrust’s blockchain-based IoT, CIMB intends to minimize the risks associated with commodity trade financing and facilitate credit extension for its customers by gaining access to real-time monitoring of the cargo data in transit and in the warehouse. The technology reportedly provides all stakeholders with secured accessibility and data integrity of …

The Singapore Shipping Association (SSA), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and blockchain firm Perlin are jointly working on an e-registry for the ship registration and renewal process. Running on self-executing smart contracts The International E-Registry of Ships (IERS) system is based on Perlin’s Wavelet, an open ledger for writing decentralized WebAssembly applications, financial daily Business Times reported on Oct. 14. The blockchain e-register will run on self-executing smart contracts, purportedly reducing time, costs and occurrence of errors in the registration process. The initiative found favor with the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, which is testing the registration process …

Hong Kong-based digital financial services startup Diginex has become the first firm in Asia to join the Blockchain Alliance led by the law firm Steptoe & Johnson. Over 100 members in 19 countries Diginex — which previously announced a reverse merger that will make it the “first fully-diversified blockchain player on Nasdaq” — has officially joined the Blockchain Alliance, a public-private forum of firms and organizations promoting the secure development of blockchain, the firm announced Oct. 9. Co-founded in 2015 by the Chamber of Digital Commerce and Coin Center and led by international law firm Steptoe & Johnson, the alliance …