Korean Crypto Exchanges Promote Horizontal Cultures to Attract Job Seekers

MHC Digital Group, an Australian digital assets management platform, has entered into a partnership with USDC stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Financial, with a view towards increasing the circulation of USDC within Australia and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. MHC was founded by well-known venture investor Mark Carnegie, with the company having offices in Sydney and Singapore. The firm will work with Circle to distribute USDC in Australia and within the APAC region. MHC has been marketing its services towards institutional investors and it’s that same client group that the two firms want to target in order to increase USDC circulation. The firm will provide “cost-effective and efficient USDC access” where institutional clients are concerned.Photo by Catarina Sousa on PexelsCrypto ‘a better mousetrap’ In a media release published on behalf of the two companies, Carnegie claimed that while many people still claim that there is no use case for crypto, hundreds of billions move globally at a fraction of the cost experienced via the traditional financial system. “Crypto is simply a better mouse trap for the vast majority of international payments,” he added. Commenting on the development in an interview with the Australian Financial Review, Carnegie stated:“I’m hoping we can show there are hundreds of millions of dollars of forex [foreign exchange] trading fees, where super funds are getting their faces ripped off by Macquarie Bank and the other incumbent banks.” Appealing to pension funds Carnegie wants to get large pension funds on board in using USDC. He pointed to the fact that global banks make $170 billion from corporations and individual investors through the movement of funds over the SWIFT network. He can see that major savings can be made if USDC is used relative to these fees. Despite all this, Carnegie acknowledges that it will be a hard sell to get them on board. As part of these plans, MHC Digital will be launching an over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk, which will be targeted towards hedge funds, crypto enterprises and high-net-worth individuals. APAC opportunity Kash Razzaghi, Circle’s chief business officer (CBO), identified APAC as presenting with an adoption opportunity beyond institutional clients. Razzaghi stated: “With its young, mobile-first and digital wallet-ready population, the Asia Pacific region is ahead of the curve when it comes to digital asset adoption." Carnegie appears to be similarly enthusiastic when it comes to the APAC region. In an interview with CNBC back in January, he suggested that the crypto bull run was “an Asian story this time round.” It’s understood that the two companies are also considering collaborating on the issuance and distribution of an Australian dollar (AUD) denominated stablecoin. This development is the latest in a string of initiatives taken by Circle to bring about USDC adoption in the APAC region. In 2023 the company partnered with SBI Holdings with the objective of enhancing the circulation of USDC within the Japanese market. The very same rationale resulted in it partnering with Tokyo-based crypto trading platform Coincheck in February 2024. The company has also tried to trigger adoption at a retail level, through collaborations with FamilyMart convenience stores in Taiwan and Southeast Asian super app Grab. 

Uniswap Competitor Maverick Protocol Raises $9M in FundingMaverick Protocol, a Singapore-centric DeFi project which aims to disrupt Uniswap’s dominance, has announced a fresh capital funding round.On Wednesday, Maverick announced that it successfully raised $9 million in a seed funding round led by Founders Fund. Prominent participants in the round include Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures, Pantera Capital, and Apollo Crypto.It’s not clear what Maverick’s current valuation stands at, and in discussion with Fortune, Alvin Xu, one of the co-founders of Maverick Protocol, refrained from disclosing that valuation.Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Pexels“Surgical approach to DeFi”Joey Krug, a partner at Founders Fund, expressed confidence in Maverick’s potential to contribute to the growth of the DeFi industry through its “surgical approach to decentralized finance.” Krug added that “Maverick has quickly established itself as a hub for liquid staking token trading whilst having greater capital efficiency for liquidity providers.”The injection of capital into Maverick comes at a time when crypto enthusiasts are seeking alternative platforms for purchasing and exchanging tokens. This shift in interest was sparked by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States filing lawsuits earlier this month against two prominent centralized crypto exchanges, Binance and Coinbase.Following the news of the lawsuits, both Binance and Coinbase experienced significant outflows of cryptocurrencies. Simultaneously, the trading volume on decentralized exchanges, which are characterized by their lack of central ownership, surged from $1.2 billion the day before the Binance lawsuit was filed to $3.1 billion on the day the suit was made public, according to data from DefiLlama. These events occurred during the early afternoon when the SEC unveiled its charges.Crypto industry OGAlvin Xu has been actively involved in the crypto industry since 2018 when he joined the Tron Foundation and subsequently BitTorrent. For a time, he worked at Ethereum-centric blockchain infrastructure firm, ConsenSys, contributing to the development of the MetaMask wallet.In 2021, Xu embarked on the creation of Maverick Protocol, an automated market maker. Typically, market makers like Citadel Securities play a crucial role in traditional finance, matching buy and sell orders for stocks. In the crypto realm, where trading operates 24/7, Uniswap has gained popularity as it automates market making for a wide range of tokens.Xu believes that his new protocol can challenge Uniswap’s dominant position, stating: “That’s definitely our goal.” However, he acknowledges the substantial advantage Uniswap holds as a first-mover in the crypto world.Since its launch in March, Maverick Protocol, currently employing nine individuals, has set its sights not only on competing with Uniswap and other automated market makers but also on surpassing centralized exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase. Xu acknowledges that achieving this goal will require time and further development, stating: “I think it’s still early.”Maverick Protocol’s recent funding round provides a strong boost to its ambitions, stoking further competition with market leader Uniswap, while playing a role in shaping the future of DeFi.

At the Foresight 2024 Hong Kong Summit on Aug. 11, Gary Tiu, director and head of regulatory affairs for OSL, a crypto market custodian, exchange and prime brokerage, outlined in a panel discussion that the crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) market in the Chinese autonomous territory is challenged insofar as it lacks market incentives.Photo by Cecelia Chang on UnsplashThe intermediary problemTiu’s company hosted the event, alongside Foresight News and crypto publication The Block, who reported on Tiu’s comments. The OSL executive said that when it comes to funds and structured products in Hong Kong, there’s a “very rich layer of intermediaries— brokers, banks, private banks, retail banks, etc.” involved. Tiu explained that they make a lot of money from the distribution of such products, resulting in unlisted products being marketed far more effectively by comparison with listed products. It’s against that backdrop of misaligned incentives that Tiu identifies challenges for crypto ETFs on the public markets in Hong Kong. He stated: “So I think the incentive system in Hong Kong is one of the reasons why ETFs do have a bit of a hard time growing as a financial instrument.” In the case of ETFs, the OSL executive explained that equity brokers take just a few basis points in commission, only about 1-2% of what they make on the sale of structured products. Bias against Bitcoin and EtherTiu is also of the belief that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether have a reputational problem among Hong Kong’s investment community, stating: “I think there is still a bit of a bias in the eyes of the regulators and also in the eyes of the financial institutions, that somehow bitcoin ETF is just this unique class of risk that you need to be extra cautious about.” Chen Zhao, who heads up the digital assets section of Hong Kong-based independent financial advisory firm Fosun Wealth, chimed in with his own concerns. According to Zhao, the crypto ETF products currently marketed in Hong Kong are lacking in terms of the depth of dealers and brokers offering the products. Zhao explained that there are three main types of market participant active on the Hong Kong markets, namely western institutions, Hong Kong-based institutions and their counterparts from mainland China.  Zhao stated: “Chinese brokers and dealers, they’re not allowed or they choose not to deal with the product, and for the western financial institutions, they don’t have the necessity of dealing the products because they acquire more fees and incentives, and have easier access to the U.S. ETFs.” While progress is far more modest by comparison with the U.S. market, the Hong Kong crypto ETF market continues to develop, with spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs setting a record trading volume last week. In the same week, Mox Bank, a subsidiary of British banking multinational Standard Chartered, launched trading services relative to spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF products in Hong Kong. Last month, OSL CEO Patrick Pan, anticipated that an Ethereum ETF product that incorporated staking would launch in Hong Kong within six months. Many commentators have suggested that institutional interest in Ethereum ETFs will begin in earnest once a yield-producing staking product hits the market.