Singapore Financial News

In this week’s newsletter, read about how Warner Music Group partnered with OpenSea to give artists a way to engage with their audiences. Find out how Tennis legend Maria Sharapova is exploring her growing interest in nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and check out how blockchain game Illuvium is trying to create an interoperable game. In other news, Meta enabled cross-posting for NFTs on Instagram and Facebook. And, don’t forget this week’s Nifty News featuring the Build-A-Bear Workshop entering Web3 and a CryptoPunk selling for 3,300 Ether (ETH) amid the bear market. 

Anchorage Digital co-founder and president Diogo Mónica believe there is immense opportunity in Asia’s institutional investors, with the digital asset infrastructure provider on Oct. 5 announcing a “major expansion” of its platform into the region. 

Starry Night Capital, a nonfungible-token (NFT)-focused fund launched by the co-founders of the now-bankrupt hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), has moved over 300 NFTs out of its address, according to reports. 

"There is an opportunity for the UK to benefit from this economic and social value, both domestically and globally," says the paper, adding that the country's position in global finance will be partly determined by its approach to the nascent sector.This year, Singapore has overtaken the UK as the number two destination for investment in DLT and crypto-asset based businesses.To fight back and ensure its place at the top table, the country must have a joined-up strategy across government, regulators and the legal system that is alive to the potential benefits as well as the risks of crypto-technologies, and provides clarity for businesses and consumers interacting with them, says the paper.There must also be a continued review of UK law and regulation to ensure it provides the basis for recognising digital assets and digital transactions, as well as an improvement in the responsiveness and service levels of the UK’s regulators in their processing of applications for new businesses in the sector.Separately, Ousmène Jacques Mandeng, a visiting fellow at the LSE and blockchain advisor at Accenture, has called for the launch of a CBDC and the issuance of blockchain-based gilts to support the competitiveness of the City of London.He writes: "The bank introducing a wholesale CBDC and the Treasury announcing that a significant share of gilts will be issued on blockchain could be catalysts for the adoption of blockchain-based financial applications.

Public blockchains can be accessed and read by anyone, but creating meaningful insights from this data is no easy feat. Millions of transactions are recorded across a variety of chains and layer-2 protocols, creating petabytes of data daily.

Terra co-founder Do Kwon, wanted by South Korean authorities, seems to live in a digital-era James Bond movie. The businessman, whose whereabouts are currently unknown, reacted via Twitter to Interpol issuing a Red Notice on him. Kwon told his followers that he calmly writes code in his living room, “making zero effort to hide.” Active on social media while facing potential arrest and prosecution in South Korea, Kwon showed his location as Singapore on his Twitter account at the time of publication.

Minor inflows for digital asset investment products over the last few weeks suggest a “continued hesitancy” towards crypto amongst institutional investors amid a slowdown of the U.S. economy. 

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced it completed the first burn of Terra Classic tokens’ trading fees in response to a community proposal from September.

Beleaguered digital currency lender Celsius Network has revealed that it was not planning to ask its debtors to pay their outstanding loans during its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

Uniswap Labs – the firm behind one of the world's largest decentralized exchanges, Uniswap – is looking to raise a massive $100M fund in its latest funding round. This round follows Uniswap's previous Series A funding in 2020.

Major decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap is in the early stages of raising significant funds to further expand its decentralized finance (DeFi) offerings, according to a new report.

U.S. hedge fund Pantera Capital has unveiled plans to raise as much as $1.25 billion for the company’s second blockchain fund, indicating that institutional investors have a growing appetite for cryptocurrencies in spite of the latest market downturn.

SINGAPORE—Confronted by the relentless rise of the U.S. dollar, China’s central bank is seeking to slow, rather than halt its currency’s decline, highlighting the difficulties of rowing against the powerful currents in the global economy that are propelling the dollar higher.

Terraform Labs believes South Korean prosecutors have «highly politicized» the case against founder Do Kown after he was issued an arrest warrant, the firm told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

In a recent interview, BitMEX chief executive Alexander Höptner shared his thoughts about institutional investors who, in his view, still have an appetite for crypto and Ethereum.

McLaren's Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo sat down with Cointelegraph during the Token2049 conference in Singapore, discussing his recent involvement in crypto ahead of the 2022 Singapore Grand Prix.

Kieran Warwick, co-founder of the blockchain role-playing game Illuvium has lifted the curtain on a gaming concept he says has never been done before — the interoperable blockchain game (IBG). 

On Wednesday, Matthew Ballensweig, managing director of cryptocurrency broker Genesis, announced via Linkedin that he was formally leaving his post after over five years of tenure. Ballensweig is also the co-head of sales and trading. As told by Ballensweig, he has been transitioning his core responsibilities to a handful of trusted colleagues who will be taking the front-line role. 

Singapore-based digital asset platform Crypto.com scored a major regulatory approval in France. The digital asset platform was approved to register as a Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) by the stock market regulator Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF). The approval was granted after the platform received  clearance from the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR), the financial regulator in the country.

The South Korean regulators have instructed KuCoin and OKX to freeze the total of 3,313 Bitcoin (BTC) worth approximately $67 million linked to Do Kwon.

Pantera CEO Dan Morehead highlighted the potential growth and value of Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Web3 functionality, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and Metaverse applications in his opening keynote speech at Token2049 in Singapore.