Huobi Rebrands as HTX to Mark Tenth Anniversary

South Korea’s securities and investment banking house, Shinhan Securities, has maintained the investment rating for Korean game company Wemade as “hold,” according to local financial media outlet Etoday. Shinhan Securities cited uncertainties in the crypto market outlook and the firm’s need to improve business performance as the ground for its latest investment rating. The performance of the firm’s blockchain games is a significant factor in Wemade’s future success as the overall excitement surrounding mobile massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) cools down.  Shinhan Securities’ head analyst Kang Seok-oh wrote in his analysis report that for Q4 2023, the firm recorded an operation loss of approximately $53 million (KRW 70.8 billion) and a consensus deficit close to $39.4 million (KRW 52.6 billion). Sales for the game company declined during the same period because the revenue from license sales, which was included in the Q3 2023 revenue, was not counted in the Q4 2023 figures, according to the report. Photo by Lorenzo Herrera on UnsplashNew games to enter the Chinese market Wemade is set to roll out more new games relative to last year, with plans to enter the Chinese market with “Mir4” and “MirM,” both of which are based on blockchain technology. Its MMORPG “Night Crows,” which ranked 3rd in mobile game sales last year, is also scheduled for a global launch on March 12. “The Legend of Mir”, the firm’s another new game in the pipeline, will be released in the second half of this year.  Kang said the key question is how much influence the crypto market boom will have on the future performance of the firm’s blockchain games. Furthermore, with the firm’s local sales slowing down following the cease of its referral marketing strategy, keeping its existing services profitable would be another important point, he said.  “Although Wemade keeps making its efforts to enter the Chinese market by signing contracts and obtaining the license permit Version Number from the Chinese government, it seems unlikely that Korean games will enjoy the high popularity they once had before China’s ban on Korean culture. Everything would have to turn out in the game company’s favor to improve its business performance,” Kang said. 

OKX, a global crypto exchange, is understood to be considering carrying out an initial public offering (IPO) in the United States. That’s according to a report published by The Information on June 22. The development indicates changing fortunes for the firm in North America. In February, the company agreed to pay a fine of $84 million and surrender revenues earned through U.S. customers of around $420 million to the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ). Photo by appshunter.io on Unsplash‘New era for OKX’The DoJ had taken action against the crypto exchange on the basis of allegations of unlicensed money transfers. Having put this matter behind it and in taking advantage of a more positive regulatory approach to the crypto sector in the U.S. by the Trump administration, in April OKX relaunched its service offering in the U.S. The company described the newly launched service as a “new era for OKX in the U.S.” Another consequence of that positive regulatory approach in the U.S. has been a renewed interest from crypto companies in pursuing IPOs. Yueqi Yang, a reporter with The Information, stated on X: “From IPOs to crypto treasury stocks, crypto is booming right now, but the rally is playing out in the stock market, at valuations that even surprised industry insiders.” USDC stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL) executed its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on June 5. Circle’s experience is likely to be encouraging for other crypto firms considering going public. Since going public, the company’s stock has surged by more than 675%. Circle raised in excess of $1 billion with an IPO share price of $31. During Monday’s trading, the company’s market cap exceeded that of Coinbase (COIN). The current market environment has encouraged other crypto firms to follow suit. In March, American crypto exchange platform Gemini filed confidentially for an IPO. Bullish has also taken this option, according to reports earlier this month. Kraken, another global crypto exchange platform, has indicated that it intends to pursue an IPO in Q1 2026. OKB token holder fearsNews of OKX’s intentions to go public has led to crypto community discussions surrounding the use of an exchange token as a means of fundraising versus a traditional stock market listing. OKX launched OKB, its native token, in March 2018.  Commentators have pointed out that those who invest in traditional shares will have access to more liquid markets whereas platform token liquidity is oftentimes concentrated on that specific exchange. Some OKB token holders fear that following the IPO, their token will be sidelined or abandoned. OKX has been working towards expanding across various regional markets recently. Last year it launched OKX TR to cater towards the crypto community in Turkey. It also acquired trading licenses in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).  It emerged last week that the company had launched its services in Germany and Poland having acquired regulatory approval in both countries.  OKX was first founded in Beijing in 2013, later moving its headquarters to the Seychelles due to regulatory changes in China.

Symbiotic, a shared security protocol project that seeks to create a marketplace for blockchain network economic security, has raised $29 million in a Series A funding round.The funding round related to the Dubai-headquartered project was led by American venture capital and hedge fund firm Pantera Capital. Other funding round participants included Coinbase Ventures and a long list of angel investors, including Aave CEO Stani Kulechov, 1inch co-founder Anton Bukov, Conduit founder Andrew Huang and Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal.Photo by Markus Winkler on UnsplashBuilding out ‘universal staking’Announcing the Series A funding on social media, the project stated that it is building “universal staking” and with that, transforming “how blockchains implement security and economic alignment.”Symbiotic started out as an Ethereum-centric restaking project. It announced last August that its staking infrastructure had been deployed across 14 blockchain networks. Symbiotic co-founder Misha Putiatin told Blockworks that in now working towards building out a universal staking framework, it's going to double the number of supported blockchain networks. He stated: “This isn’t a pivot, it’s an expansion — a natural progression of the vision we started with.” In a press release publicizing the funding round, Pantera Capital Managing Partner Paul Veradittakit described universal staking as “the next step in blockchain infrastructure.” Describing Symbiotic’s business proposition, he said that the firm “unlocks economic coordination between assets and networks that were previously impossible,” allowing these assets “to easily serve as economic security while enabling entirely new use cases across DeFi.” Team & product expansionThe funding will also be used to expand the project’s current team. It will also expand its product offering beyond restaking, putting support in place for other staking activities. Symbiotic stated that beyond blockchain network security, the protocol supports other use cases, including insurance and other financial products.Putiatin told CoinDesk that the company is building infrastructure, and that its task going forward “is to improve on that by a huge margin.” The Symbiotic co-founder added that the company is catering to the needs of market participants who don’t want to share their security. He added: “They want to build their own security vertical and their own alignment, just using us.” Symbiotic emerged in June 2024 with backing from Konstantin Lomashuk and Vasiliy Shapovalov, co-founders of the Lido liquid staking protocol. At that time, the project attracted $5.8 million in seed funding, with the funding round having been led by crypto investment firm Paradigm and tech-oriented investment company cyber•Fund. It initially introduced a devnet on the Ethereum Holesky testnet. Following a considerable period of development, the project eventually launched on the Ethereum mainnet in January. The same month, the firm added customizable slashing capabilities to its restaking system. Slashing refers to a penalty system imposed on validators of proof-of-stake (PoS)-based networks.Symbiotic was introduced to the market as an alternative to EigenLayer, the restaking protocol with the largest share of total value locked (TVL). It differs from the market leader insofar as Symbiotic’s users can deposit any ERC-20 token into the protocol, whereas EigenLayer only facilitates ETH.