Bybit Extends UAE Tendrils via Blockchain Scholarship

DV8, a Thai company that recently pivoted to become Southeast Asia’s first Bitcoin treasury firm, has carried out an initial capital raise to fund its new strategy. Up until recently, DV8’s business activites were confined to media, innovation and technology. It emerged earlier this month that the company was being acquired by a group of Bitcoin-focused investors.  The consortium includes privately-held Bangkok-headquartered investment firm Kliff Capital, hedge fund manager UTXO Management and Taipei-headquartered crypto-backed venture capital firm Sora Ventures. It also includes Simon Gerovich, the CEO of Metaplanet, Asia’s largest Bitcoin treasury company.Photo by Thought Catalog on UnsplashThai market potentialAt the time, Sora Ventures founder Jason Fang told Decrypt that there is great potential in the Thai market, giving DV8 the potential “to be the next Metaplanet on SET [Stock Exchange of Thailand]." The company recently appointed Chatchaval Jiaravanon as its new chairman. Jiaravanon currently serves as the founder and chairman of Water Asia and Charoen Energy, while independently owning Fortune magazine.  Alongside Jiaravanon, new appointments have also been made to the company’s board as it looks to revamp its leadership team to deal with the challenge of pivoting and pursuing a Bitcoin treasury strategy. Share issuanceA filing with SET on July 16 has revealed that the company has proceeded to raise 241 million baht, equivalent to $7.44 million. In raising this capital, the company issued 301,491,057 new shares. The shares were issued under DV8-W2 warrants with a strike price of 0.80 baht per share. Over the course of the past 12 months, a plethora of corporations around the world have adopted Bitcoin either as a strategic asset to hold on their balance sheets or they’ve taken matters further and followed companies like Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) and Japan’s Metaplanet, with the Bitcoin treasury becoming the central focus of the business. Bitcoin treasury debateThe practice has proven to be controversial with some believing that Michael Saylor’s Strategy has found a workable approach using leveraged debt financing within TradFi to accumulate Bitcoin. Others like short seller Jim Chanos has called the Strategy approach “financial gibberish.” Chanos recently debated Bitcoin investor Pierre Rochard on the subject on The Investor's Podcast. The podcast provoked a discussion on X, with Grok, the AI bot integrated within X, coming down in favor of Rochard’s pro-Strategy argument, prompting Chanos to tell Grok that it was drunk and to stop posting.Aside from those companies that have pivoted entirely to Bitcoin treasury firms, many others who have started to accumulate some Bitcoin have been struggling companies.  Vincent Liu, chief investment officer at Taipei-headquartered Kronos Research said recently that “when struggling firms make sudden moves, it often feels like a short-term stunt or hype play." On the other hand, he added: “When a company builds a BTC treasury with strategy, conviction, and clear communication, it signals strength.” Taking to social media on July 14, Belgian economist and Bitcoin investor Tuur Demeester set out his thoughts on the opportunity that Bitcoin treasury companies are exploiting: “Who else in this world can borrow at below 0.5% interest rates, when real inflation is above 10%? Bitcoin Treasury companies seem to have found, or are creating, a growing hole in a giant dam.”

Wealthy investors in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are warming to cryptocurrencies while largely bypassing traditional private banks, a new survey shows. The poll, conducted by Swiss wealth manager Avaloq and reported by CoinDesk, found that roughly four in 10 high-net-worth individuals in the country hold digital assets, though only about 20% used conventional wealth managers to make such allocations. The survey gathered responses from 3,851 investors and 456 wealth professionals.Photo by Atikah Akhtar on UnsplashA rising tide in crypto wealthThe findings land amid a broader run-up in crypto fortunes. Henley & Partners’ 2025 Crypto Wealth Report, published in September, estimates 241,700 crypto millionaires worldwide this year—about 40% more than in 2024. Even so, UAE respondents in Avaloq’s poll voiced caution, citing the market’s sharp swings as a primary deterrent. Operational hurdles compound that wariness. Managing wallets, safeguarding private keys, and arranging custody remain friction points for would-be buyers. Among those who remain on the sidelines, Avaloq found that volatility topped the list of deterrents (38%), followed by limited understanding (36%) and distrust of trading platforms (32%). Younger cohorts drive crypto uptake, advisor shiftsFamily dynamics are increasingly driving crypto adoption. Younger members of ultra-wealthy households are introducing parents and grandparents to digital assets, Avaloq’s UAE survey found. Meanwhile, 63% of investors have either changed wealth managers or are considering doing so, often because they feel their questions about crypto are not being adequately addressed. Akash Anand, head of Middle East and Africa at Avaloq, described the moment as one of growing client curiosity met by a slow institutional response, prompting private banks to accelerate work on digital asset services. Dubai’s growing role as a crypto hub will again be on display in December, when it hosts Binance Blockchain Week 2025. The two-day conference, slated for Dec. 3–4, features appearances by Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, Strategy Chairman Michael Saylor, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and Solana Foundation President Lily Liu. A debate between Zhao and long-time crypto skeptic Peter Schiff on Bitcoin’s merits versus tokenized gold is also expected, after Zhao invited Schiff to participate via X. Combined, the survey data and recent developments depict a UAE wealth market in the early stages of engagement with digital assets. While enthusiasm is building among younger investors and high-profile initiatives continue to draw attention, concerns about volatility and management complexity remain barriers to entry. The extent to which established wealth firms and new entrants can address those concerns will shape the next phase of the market’s growth. 

Suspected Malicious Activity Drains AnySwap Tokens via Multichain ExecutorAccording to an on-chain sleuth known as Spreek, a person is using the Multichain Executor to drain tokens associated with the AnySwap bridging protocol.Multichain is a cross-chain routing network, established and maintained by a Chinese developer team. It supports in excess of 25 blockchains and more than 1,100 tokens.Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash$100 million outflowThis revelation comes after abnormal outflows of over $100 million from Multichain bridges on July 7, which were flagged by the Multichain team. Spreek’s report via Twitter on July 10 states that the Multichain Executor address has been draining anyToken addresses across multiple chains and transferring them to a new externally owned account (EOA).Evidence provided in the report includes an Ethereum transaction, 0x53ede4462d90978b992b0a88727de19afe4e96f0374aa1a221b8ff65fda5a6fe, which called the “anySwapFeeTo” method on the Multichain Router: V4 contract. This transaction resulted in approximately $15,275.90 worth of anyDAI being minted on Ethereum, sent to the Multichain Executor, burned, and exchanged for the underlying DAI backing the asset.The funds from these transactions were sent to the following address:0x1eed63efba5f81d95bfe37d82c8e736b974f477b. Similarly, on the BNB Smart Chain (BSC), the Multichain Executor used the anySwapFeeTo function to convert $208,997 worth of anyUSDC into Binance-pegged USDC and sent them to the same address. Additionally, 50.80 anyBTC, equivalent to $39,251.43 at the time, was converted into Binance-pegged Bitcoin and sent to the address.In total, approximately $263,524.33 worth of tokens were sent to this address through the anySwapFeeTo method. Spreek suggests that this behavior could be part of the protocol’s normal functioning. However, a different account engaged in similar activity the day before and ultimately sold the drained tokens, indicating malicious intent.Potential exploitSpreek theorizes that the attacker may be exploiting the anySwapFeeTo function by setting fees to an arbitrarily large amount, allowing them to drain users’ funds. The function apparently permits setting any value, enabling the address to choose the total value of the token held in that anyToken.The Multichain incident has puzzled blockchain analysts, as it remains unclear whether it resulted from an exploit or if it was simply large token-holders moving their funds between networks. The mystery began on July 7 when over $100 million worth of tokens were withdrawn from the Ethereum side of Multichain’s bridges and transferred to wallet addresses with no prior transactions. This represented the majority of funds held on each bridge.Hack or rug pullThe Multichain team labeled these withdrawals as “abnormal” and advised users to stop using the protocol. However, they have not disclosed the source or nature of the anomaly. In response to the incident, stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether froze some of the addresses involved in the suspicious transactions. Chainanalysis, a blockchain analytics firm, has commented that the incident appears more like a hack or rug pull rather than a migration.Adding to the complexity, the Multichain team has reported that their CEO is missing, and they have shut down certain bridges due to losing access to some of the network’s multi-party computation network servers. There have been various concerns relative to Multichain since May. The situation continues to evolve, with ongoing investigations and efforts to mitigate any potential damage caused by the suspected malicious activity.