Weekly

Coin of the Week

Our “Coin of the Week” award goes to Tezos. Coinbase Custody recently announced the staking service to institutional investors, which they chose Tezos as the first staking asset because of its DPOS architecture and high demand from institutional investors. Tezos is priced at US$ 1.06, a 57.58% weekly price increase. 

Top News to Watch

Blockchain partnership between BMW, Intel, Nielsen and Tribe Accelerator 

The three multinational corporations BMW Group Asia, Intel and Nielsen are now partners with Tribe – Singaporean government-backed blockchain accelerator. While BMW provides mentorship on market adoption, Intel offers technical support to startups on privacy, security and scalability. Nielsen provides a sandbox for startups to test and accelerate the adoption of blockchain technology. We think more traditional corporations will tap into the blockchain industry by collaborating with blockchain accelerators. 

Louis Vuitton is now launching a blockchain to track luxury items 

The luxury brand conglomerate LVMH announced its blockchain called AURA, which is built on the Quorum platform to provide the traceability and authenticity of luxury goods. LVMH also creates equal footing for other competitors to participate in the blockchain platform by donating all intellectual property (IP) to a separate entity which can be owned by another brands. LVMH has established a blockchain team and works closely with Consensys and Microsoft Azure. 

Vitalik Buterin: Crypto community should shift the focus from privacy and autonomy  

Vitalik Buterin spoke at the RadicalxChange Conference in Detroit. The event was the first gathering inspired by Glen Weyl’s book “Radical Markets”. Vitalik spoke about the potential and challenges of blockchain to be part of the identity systems and these challenges include the identification between people and sock puppets. He emphasized the need to formalize membership in communities and crypto community should shift the focus from privacy and autonomy.  

Research on CBDCs are included in the Annual Report for Central Bank of Korea 

The 2018 annual payment settlement report issued by the Central Bank of Korea included research on central bank digital currencies (CBDC). The Korean Central Bank had been considering to launch CBDC earlier in 2018. The bank is said to continue more research on CBDCs and will perform a securities settlement testing based on blockchain technology later this year. 

Japanese cryptocurrency Exchange Taotao will launch in May 

Taotao is a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange that is 40 percent owned by a subsidiary of Yahoo! Japan. The platform will start trading a number of cryptocurrencies included Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), as well as providing margin positions in Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Ripple (XRP) in May. 

CoinMarketCap changed its metric for listing after research found evidence of fake volume   

CoinMarketCap had confirmed the change of metrics for exchange listing on March 25, after research conducted by the index fund provider Bitwise had found evidence of fake volume.  

Bitmain: the HKEx listing process is necessary for us to become more transparent and standardized 

Bitmain, the Chinese crypto mining company had submitted an IPO filing on 26, September 2018, and it officially lapsed on March 26. Bitmain confirmed the expiration and stated they will “restart the listing application work at an appropriate time in the future”. 

Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees claims blockchain can improve the asylum’s procedure 

Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAFM) released a whitepaper sharing how blockchain can improve the asylum procedures on March 26 after the successful implementation of proof-of-concept (PoC). The whitepaper describes how blockchain can use digital identities based on biometric data for refugees without any ID. The whitepaper later states that blockchain can potentially change the European asylum procedure and support Europe’s unity at a fundamental level. 

Week Ahead: 

ASIFMA Conference 2019: The Future State: Cost Efficiencies, New Technologies, and Operational Challenges 

Date: 2-3 April 2019 

Venue: Hong Kong