Bybit enables stock trading with USDT

Alibaba Cloud Partners With Avalanche to Deploy MetaversesChina’s Alibaba Cloud, a subsidiary of the e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group, and one of the world’s largest cloud computing companies, has entered into a partnership with layer one blockchain project Avalanche.The cloud division of the Chinese tech giant has built a launchpad which will allow businesses to deploy metaverses, hosted on the Avalanche blockchain.Photo by C Dustin on UnsplashEnter the CloudverseAlibaba has named the launchpad “Cloudverse”. In accessing the Cloudverse, businesses will be enabled in customizing, launching and maintaining their very own metaverses, running on top of the Avalanche blockchain. In a tweeted message on Thursday, the Avalanche project team stated that “Alibaba Cloud’s millions of clients can easily deploy custom metaverses and unlock new dimensions for consumers.” It’s clear that the blockchain specialist sees the value in linking up with an entity with the market reach that Alibaba Cloud can provide. Expanding on that, it stated: “Cloudverse gives businesses an easy, white-glove, and cost-effective way to expand their brands to the Web3 virtual world.”Singapore’s MUA DAOAlongside Alibaba Cloud and Avalanche, a Singapore-based project is participating in the collaboration. Metaverse Union of Architects Decentralized Autonomous Organization makes for quite a long-winded entity, meaning that the project is more commonly known as MUA DAO. The DAO sees its mission as helping entities to overcome the technological hurdles of the crypto world by offering the largest virtual reality guild of architects, thus making available a large number of capable builders for the metaverse.Taking to Twitter on Thursday, the project outlined that the partnership marked a significant milestone for the DAO. “As the metaverse middleware, #MUADAO will support Cloudverse from creation and customization to continual operation in #MUAverse,” it outlined.MUA DAO sees the likely outcome of the collaboration as leading to a cost effective mechanism through which Asia-Pacific businesses can expand into the Web3 world, empowering clients to create custom metaverses and unlocking new customer experiences.MUA DAO terms its offering as “MUAverse, describing it as “a one-stop Metaverse Middleware Infrastructure developed and operated by MUADAO, designed to empower enterprises and businesses in the creation, operation, and management of digital assets.”Avalanche’s unique structureThe three entities coordinated the announcement of the collaboration to coincide with the Avalanche Summit II conference, which commenced on Wednesday in Barcelona, Spain and runs until Friday.As a layer one blockchain, Avalanche has a unique structure which enables subnets, sets of nodes or validators which can be built on top of blockchains. Subnets offer the advantage of allowing developers to customize them on an application-specific basis. Such a blockchain infrastructure will be beneficial in facilitating customizable blockchain solutions relative to the proposed Cloudverse.Blockchain credentialsRecently, Alibaba announced its intention to open a Web3 incubator lab in Japan. The lab will be a collaboration between Alibaba, Tokyu Land Corporation and Skeleton Crew Studio. One of its principal objectives will be to enable game developers to learn about and harness blockchain technology relative to virtual reality gaming.Additionally, Alibaba Cloud intends to launch a blockchain node service in Japan at a later stage in 2023. In a further nod to its blockchain credentials, Alibaba Cloud was also a co-organiser of Hong Kong’s recently-held Web3 Festival, alongside Amazon Web Services and Hong Kong-based Cyberport.

Hong Kong’s Largest Bank in Lackluster Crypto EmbraceFor all of its pro-crypto initiatives Hong Kong has been struggling with banking crypto companies. A recent report from the Hong Kong Economic Journal cited Lin Yansheng, Director of Commercial Banking at Hang Seng Bank, Hong Kong’s largest local bank, in outlining that the bank will accommodate crypto but that support is conditional.Photo by Florian Wehde on UnsplashCrypto in a high rates environmentYansheng shared his insights on interest rates, stating that he believes that interest rates will rise but reassures that any increase will be temporary in nature.The Commercial Banking Director acknowledged that Hong Kong’s current high-interest rates, in contrast to those of mainland China and neighboring regions, have caused a slowdown in the overall demand for bank loans. He predicts that loan growth will face pressure this year. However, he also offers a glimmer of hope, stating that a reduction in interest rates may not be far off. He suggests that next year’s expected interest rate cuts could lead to an improvement in loan growth.Data published recently by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) shows that annualized loan growth has been negative since May. It currently stands at -1.1%. Yansheng explained that as borrowing rates decrease in mainland China, Hong Kong’s banking industry is experiencing a downturn in loan growth. The high Hong Kong dollar interbank offered rate (HIBOR) currently limits the volume of corporate borrowing.The rising concerns over interest rates have prompted Hang Seng Bank to acknowledge the importance of cryptocurrencies.Unconvincing crypto embraceThe bank recently outlined the regulatory framework for virtual asset businesses seeking to operate within its purview. To open standard banking accounts, these businesses must obtain an Approval-in-Principle (AIP) license from the Securities Regulatory Commission (SRC), as per the bank’s announcement.The first issue is that obtaining an AIP license has proven to be incredibly difficult. Currently, only OSL and HashKey, two virtual asset trading platforms, have managed to obtain the required clearance. Hang Seng Bank acknowledges that it hasn’t received many inquiries about crypto-banking, attributing it to that challenging process of obtaining AIP certification. Meeting the demanding requirements for such permission poses a significant hurdle for most businesses.Getting beyond this obstacle, Yansheng clarified that even then crypto companies will only be able to obtain a “simple” bank account. He didn’t clarify what services would be excluded but Hang Seng’s embrace of crypto-related business sounds very much like it’s lacking in conviction.Both the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority have conducted roundtable meetings to address the difficulties faced by virtual asset businesses. Yansheng reiterated Hang Seng’s commitment to complying with the regulators’ instructions and accommodating these companies. However, it’s clear that difficulties remain.Last month, it was reported that Hang Seng Investment Management Co., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hang Seng Bank and the largest exchange-traded fund (ETF) manager in Hong Kong, was looking to add digital assets to its product line.

HashKey Group, a Hong Kong-headquartered digital asset financial services firm, has partnered with Bosera Asset Management (International) Co., the Hong Kong subsidiary of Chinese asset management firm Bosera Asset Management, to launch the world’s first tokenized money market exchange-traded funds (ETFs). In a press release published by PR Newswire on behalf of HashKey Group on March 28, HashKey outlined that the two funds are titled “Bosera HKD Money Market ETF (Tokenised Class)” and ”Bosera USD Money Market ETF (Tokenised Class).”While the products were launched last Friday, they won’t officially go live until April. Both products have been approved by Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC). Photo by Vighnesh Dudani on UnsplashArising out of Project EnsembleThis latest product offering has its origins in Project Ensemble, an initiative launched by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) back in March 2024. The original aim of Project Ensemble was to support the development of the tokenization market in Hong Kong. The SFC got involved later that year, collaborating with the HKMA in the launch of a regulatory sandbox aimed at advancing the tokenization of assets in various financial sectors. In October 2024 it emerged that HashKey was participating within that sandbox, with these new products arising from those efforts. The company claims that these tokenized products improve upon what’s currently on offer via traditional finance, providing greater transparency and operational efficiency, thanks to the use of blockchain technology.  HashKey Tokenisation, the tokenization arm of the firm, takes care of full-process design and execution for tokenized issuance. Subsequently, these products will be deployed on HashKey Chain, a regulatory-compliant, institutional-grade layer-2 network geared towards bridging the gap between traditional finance and Web3. On that subject, HashKey Group Chairman and CEO Dr. Xiao Feng stated:"Bringing money market ETFs on-chain through blockchain technology is a crucial step for traditional finance to embrace Web3.” Looking towards the future, Feng added that the company expects “more traditional financial institutions to actively enter the crypto finance sector through innovative tokenisation products.”Anna Liu, CEO of HashKey Tokenisation, told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) that “the biggest advantages of this product are that the underlying assets are mature and high-quality, and it fully considers security and regulatory compliance while reducing investor costs and improving overall liquidity.” Liu added that the firm hopes that this product offering is the first of many, paving the way for subsequent tokenized real-world asset (RWA) offerings. Last month, Hong Kong-based digital asset platform OSL launched a tokenized mutual fund, the ChinaAMC HKD Digital Money Market Fund. The retail tokenized fund has been issued by China Asset Management (Hong Kong), with Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) acting as tokenization agent, digital platform operator and administrator. In the U.S., financial services company Fidelity Investments recently filed documents with the intention of rolling out a tokenized U.S. money market fund. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, launched its tokenized money market fund, BUIDL, last year. The fund is expected to surpass a market cap of $2 billion in the coming weeks.