NEOPIN works with Japan’s Jasmy to develop RWA-based DeFi products

India Looks to Boost CBDC With 1 Million Users in 3 MonthsThe project team responsible for India’s retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) is aiming to increase its user base to one million users, while also prioritizing the challenge of creating an offline version.©Pexels/Sohel PatelAlthough the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India’s central bank, publicly stated in March that they were aiming for 500,000 users by July, they are privately looking to double that amount. According to sources familiar with the matter cited by CoinDesk, the architects behind the centralized digital currency are confident that India’s population, being the world’s largest, will enable them to reach one million users easily. Tentatively the project team is aiming to achieve this within three months.Retail and Wholesale CBDCsThe RBI is currently conducting both retail and wholesale CBDC pilot programs. The retail CBDC pilot is active in at least 15 cities, with more than 13 banks participating. The digital rupee pilot began on December 1, 2022, and has seen over 100,000 customers participate in the four months since.India’s digital rupee gained significant attention at a recent meeting of the Group of 20 (G-20), which was hosted by India in Bengaluru, according to RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das. The central bank received positive feedback, with praise received for the design of the CBDC.Multiple challengesThe RBI initiated a Hackathon in 2023 to find solutions to some of the challenges around retail CBDC, including improving scalability, increasing transactions per second, and enabling offline transactions. However, achieving all three technical objectives at once is nearly impossible at present. Experts believe that it is only possible to achieve two out of the three objectives, but the hope is that technological innovation will address this in the future.Offline transactionsFacilitating offline transactions is crucial to improve financial inclusion in emerging economies such as India. The RBI is testing various methods to enable offline transactions, including wearables, debit and credit cards, Bluetooth technology, and smartphones. The central bank is also looking to address the risk of double-spending.More than 50 proposals were submitted to the RBI to solve the problem of offline transactions. The RBI has also been interacting with private companies to consider solutions to improving scalability, even though no partnership has been initiated with any prominent blockchain-related entities.News of India’s ambitious CBDC project fast-tracking has led some to speculate as to what technology lies behind it. Some have suggested Ripple as a possible partner but the suggestion is entirely speculative at this point.The RBI has not announced a timeline for rolling out a full-scale retail CBDC but has indicated previously that it was aiming for the end of the year. The development of a digital rupee has the potential to transform India’s economy by providing greater financial inclusion to its population, which is why the RBI is taking the time to ensure that the CBDC is as robust as possible.

Hong Kong-based digital asset financial services firm HashKey Group has announced its intention to list its platform token, HSK, in Q3 2024. HSK tokenomicsThe company set out details of the HSK listing via a series of posts on the X social media platform. The HSK token is based on the Ethereum ERC-20 token standard. Total token supply will be capped at one billion, 65% of which will be allocated towards ecosystem growth. The team will be incentivized by the allocation of 30% of the supply while 5% will be held back in a reserve fund.  Regarding the token’s burning mechanism, HashKey revealed it retains the discretion to repurchase up to 20% of net profits from specified businesses and subsequently burn the acquired tokens from the total supply.Photo by Zoltan Tasi on UnsplashAirdrop imminentIn a statement shared with The Block, HashKey Group detailed that HSK will be integrated across its various products and applications. The community airdrop, launching in late June, aims to encourage user participation. The company stated:“HSK is scheduled to launch a community airdrop through HashKey's core businesses in late June, encouraging users to contribute to community building.” The company believes that HSK will incentivize ecosystem contributors when it comes to development of its layer-2 ecosystem chain, the HashKey Chain. That incentive structure, the company maintains, will result in contributors “providing robust support,” while acting as a “driving force for on-chain users and assets.”  Integration with external ecosystemsThe firm outlined that the HSK token is designed to integrate with external crypto ecosystems so as to best facilitate synergy between internal and external collaborations. HashKey Group boasts a comprehensive Web3 ecosystem, inclusive of infrastructure, middleware, AI, DeFi, GameFi and the Metaverse. HashKey Group’s core businesses include HashKey Capital, HashKey Tokenisation and HashKey NFT. It also operates HashKey Exchange, a licensed cryptocurrency exchange in Hong Kong, with the exchange business having reached a $500 million assets-under-management (AUM) milestone earlier this month.  HashKey Cloud, a Web3 infrastructure provider, formed a strategic partnership with the Aptos Foundation last month with a view towards progressing projects relative to decentralized identity (DID) and security token offerings (STOs). HashKey Global, a global exchange launched in April, has risen to ninth spot in terms of overall crypto exchange trading volume. In January, HashKey Group announced that it raised nearly $100 million in its Series A financing round, achieving a pre-money valuation above $1.2 billion. In September, the investment arm of the company, HashKey Capital, launched a $100 million fund focused on altcoins.

Australian venture capitalist and founder of MHC Digital Group, Mark Carnegie, is optimistic about bitcoin's potential for a bullish trend, while believing that Asia will be the real force driving the market beyond the exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval hype in the United States.Photo by Hans Eiskonen on Unsplash$50,000 bitcoin retestIn a recent interview with CNBC, Carnegie expressed his belief that bitcoin is "clearly primed for a bit of a run and a retest to $50,000." The bitcoin unit price stood at around $43,600 at the time of the interview. At the time of writing, it’s weighing in at $46,773. While there’s likely to be considerable resistance in the leading cryptocurrency getting past the psychologically important $50,000 level, the digital asset is certainly heading in the direction that Carnegie had predicted. Looking ahead, Carnegie shared his short-to-medium-term outlook, stating:"So my feeling is short term, long, medium term, which is, you know, 30 to 90 days, probably a retrace." This suggests that Carnegie anticipates a positive trajectory for bitcoin in the coming months, likely as an initial response to a spot bitcoin ETF approval in the U.S. Last week a report from Singapore-based digital asset financial services firm Matrixport speculated that spot bitcoin ETF applications would be rejected as they have been over the past few years. Market risk factorsHowever, he also voiced concerns about the current state of the U.S. equity markets and potential recession indicators. Reflecting on the recent miss on payrolls, Carnegie commented:"I feel like that miss on payrolls last week makes me feel like there's a big flip. And everyone's going to start panicking about a recession." Despite the uncertainty in traditional markets, Carnegie remains optimistic about bitcoin's performance. When asked about the specific impact on cryptocurrencies, he admitted, "How's that going to affect crypto? I don't really know." In a blog post published last Friday, Arthur Hayes, the CIO of Hong Kong-based family office Maelstrom, similarly points to market turbulence in the short to medium term while remaining bullish on bitcoin over the longer term. An Asia-powered bull runCarnegie highlighted the influence of spot bitcoin ETFs and suggested inflows, noting that there are more net flows from Asia than the U.S. He stated:“You could easily see $50 - $100 billion in net new flow out of Asia this year, and if that happens..!” He mentioned the anticipation of approximately $5 billion waiting to come into the U.S., characterizing it as substantial but perhaps not as impactful as expected in the short term. "It's an Asian story this time round,” Carnegie claimed. Carnegie also expressed a preference for bitcoin over Ethereum in the current financial landscape. He stated:"Bitcoin feels more solid to me at the moment. So on a relative basis, I can talk like I can talk to you. I feel like for the next little while, Bitcoin feels better to me than Ethereum." Mark Carnegie's positive outlook on bitcoin's potential rally to $50,000 aligns with his preference for bitcoin over Ethereum in the current market conditions, despite concerns about the broader economic landscape.