SK Telecom and Polygon Labs Team Up for Web3 Ecosystem Development

A spot Solana (SOL) exchange-traded fund (ETF) is set to debut in Hong Kong next week, according to the South China Morning Post. Managed by ChinaAMC (HK), the Hong Kong subsidiary of Chinese financial services company China Asset Management, the product will begin trading on Oct. 27 and will be available against both Hong Kong and U.S. dollars. The Hong Kong listing comes amid growing global interest in Solana-based investment products. While this marks a first for the city, the first country to trade a spot Solana ETF was Canada, where four products from 3iQ, Purpose, Evolve, and CI Financial went live on the Toronto Stock Exchange in April 2025.Photo by GuerrillaBuzz on UnsplashU.S. institutions await regulatory approvalIn the U.S., institutional interest is also high, though a product has yet to be approved. According to Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, 23 separate ETP filings for Solana have been submitted in the U.S. This matches Bitcoin, with both assets having the highest number of filings among 35 cryptocurrencies tracked, out of a total of 155 crypto ETP filings overall. The push for exchange-traded products mirrors rising institutional investment in the Solana ecosystem itself. Several firms have recently established corporate SOL treasuries. Forward Industries spent $1.6 billion on its treasury and filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to raise up to $4 billion from share sales to acquire more SOL. Similarly, Sharps Technology announced a collaboration with Coinbase Global to expand its reserve strategy, and an SEC filing showed that Citadel and its affiliates hold a portion of the outstanding shares in DeFi Development Corp. (DFDV), another SOL treasury firm. Uniswap expands to Solana networkSolana's platform has also seen wider technical integration. On Oct. 16, the decentralized exchange Uniswap began supporting the network, allowing its users to connect Solana wallets and swap SOL tokens. Uniswap stated the move helps address fragmentation issues by supporting both Solana and Ethereum, the two largest DeFi ecosystems. According to DefiLlama data, SOL currently boasts $10.88 billion in total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance, while ETH TVL amounts to $83 billion. Separately, the Solana team recently promoted the network's technical resilience. Following a recent Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage, the team shared an analysis on X indicating a 97.6 resilience index, noting that only 77 of its 1,295 nodes were affected, suggesting a 6% dependency on AWS. Market performance lags despite growthDespite these developments, the price of SOL, the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has not reflected the positive sentiment in the short term. Trading at roughly $186, SOL is down 13.74% over the past month, according to Kraken data. The asset remains 36.49% below its all-time high of $293.31, which was reached on Jan. 19, 2025.

Crypto licensing developments in Singapore over the course of 2024, allied with feedback from industry insiders, suggest that the city-state has furthered its development as a crypto industry hub in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.Photo by Mike Enerio on UnsplashDoubling up on licensing issuanceAccording to a report published by Lianhe Zaobao, a Chinese language newspaper in Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), had issued twice the number of Major Payment Institution (MPI) licenses in 2024 by comparison with the previous year. Four licenses were issued in 2023 to Crypto.com, Coinbase, Ripple and Blockchain.com. That compares with 13 licenses issued in 2024 to companies such as GSR, BitGo, Anchorage, Upbit and OKX. This uptick in licensing signals a regulatory regime that is innovation-friendly, resulting in Singapore becoming a key destination for startup companies in the crypto and Web3 space. Risk-adjusted regulatory approachAccording to William Croisettier, chief growth officer at ZKCandy, Singapore is primed to continue its development as a leading crypto hub for Web3 businesses within the APAC region. ZKCandy is a gaming-focused hyperchain within the zkSync ecosystem that has developed due to a collaboration between the Ethereum layer-2 zkSync network and Southeast Asia’s largest gaming developer, iCandy. Croisettier spoke to Cointelegraph on the matter recently, stating: “The country adopts a risk-adjusted approach to crypto regulation, focusing on the biggest digital currencies to protect investors. Singapore also makes it easy for new crypto firms to interact with local banking partners, a provision considered a luxury in other parts of the world.” Mouloukou Sanoh, co-founder and CEO of Dubai-based Mansa Finance, a DeFi platform that provides liquidity to cross-border payment companies, has also spoken positively about Singapore’s status within the crypto sector. Sanoh stated: “With its clear regulations and support for innovation, Singapore attracts top companies and talent, fostering a thriving ecosystem. This proactive approach signals a strong commitment to digital finance, contrasting with Hong Kong's more cautious stance.” Positive study findingsThese views correlate with a recent study carried out by ApeX Protocol, a multi-chain liquidity platform. The study applied a ranking to ten jurisdictions based on factors such as jobs created in the blockchain field, the number of crypto exchanges located within a jurisdiction and the number of blockchain-related patents filed. On that basis, it found that Singapore topped the rankings, ahead of Hong Kong in second place. Singapore was found to have 81 crypto exchanges located within the city-state, over 1,600 blockchain-related patents filed and 2,433 crypto-sector jobs created. A recent survey conducted by CoinDesk found that from a crypto adoption perspective, Thailand, followed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and India, lead the APAC region. Of the 10 countries surveyed, Singapore weighed in in seventh place with a 23% adoption rate, just one percentage point behind Hong Kong with 24%. As Hong Kong and Singapore compete to attract crypto-related business, both still have room for improvement when it comes to the crypto adoption metric in comparison with other Asian countries. 

Crypto Exchange Bithumb Holds Free Trading Event To Boost User Base and LiquidityBithumb, South Korea’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, has announced a major “no trading fee” event in an attempt to narrow the gap with its competitor Upbit, the leading exchange in the market.The event started on August 1, with select listed virtual assets available for trading without having to pay a fee on the exchange’s Korean won market.Photo by Pierre Borthiry — Peiobty on UnsplashAssets with no trading feesAptos (APT), Stacks (STX), Flow (FLOW), Sui (SUI), Bitcoin Gold (BTG), FirmaChain (FCT2), Blur (BLUR), Waves (WAVES), Metal (MTL), and Loom Network (LOOM) will be the first assets to have no fees during the event.The cryptocurrencies eligible for free trading can easily be distinguished by the blue “Free” badge displayed next to their names. Users can also check the full list through the “Fee-Free” category displayed at the top of the exchange chart.The event is scheduled to continue until further notice and an additional ten assets eligible for free trading will be added every week as well.Boosting liquidityAccording to a Bithumb official, the virtual assets to be unveiled later on will be “subject to active domestic and international investment,” and the exchange will strategically select those that have the highest potential to expand liquidity.Through this event, Bithumb aims to support the diversification of cryptocurrency investors’ portfolios and increase its user base, thereby enhancing trading liquidity.