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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.”

With reports of American exchange platform Coinbase having been in talks with regulators to re-enter the Indian market emerging last month, the firm has made further progress with those efforts, registering with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). In a blog post published to the Coinbase website on March 11, the company confirmed that it had successfully registered with the FIU, a national agency which is responsible for gathering, processing, analyzing and circulating data related to suspicious financial transactions.Photo by Big G Media on UnsplashOffering retail services in 2025As a consequence of this registration, the company intends to commence trading activity in India once more, with plans to offer retail services to Indian investors later this year. Commenting on the development, John O'Loghlen, Regional Managing Director for the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region at Coinbase, stated that the company is committed to building its business in markets where potential exists for crypto and on-chain innovation. He added: “India represents one of the most exciting market opportunities in the world today, and we’re proud to deepen our investment here in full compliance with local regulations.” News of this development has been interpreted as a positive for the crypto sector. Taking to X, Suraj Chawla, founder and CEO of GPU.net, a decentralized network of GPUs, suggested that the registration was indicative of a softening in the regulatory approach taken to crypto in India. He believes that the Trump administration in the U.S., which is pro-crypto, is collaborating with India’s government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He added: “This is extremely positive news with countries like UAE, IND, RUS, USA adopting mainstream crypto and working on critical infra like exchanges, ETF and stablecoins.” Taking this development as a sign of a crypto awakening in India, Chawla suggested that we could see major Indian corporations like Reliance, Tata and Adani going into mainstream crypto infrastructure. ‘Informal pressure’Coinbase was forced to disable UPI payments on its platform in India back in 2022 due to what Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong described at the time as “informal pressure” from India’s central bank, the Royal Bank of India (RBI). Armstrong offered the following take on the status of crypto in India at that time:“India is a unique market in the sense that the Supreme Court has ruled that they can't ban crypto, but there are elements in the government there, including at the Reserve Bank of India, who don't seem to be as positive on it.” In 2023 the company disabled new user sign-ups on its platform.  India’s central bank has leaned against crypto over the last few years. In January of last year, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, said that there was no place in India for “crypto mania,” following the approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the U.S. He said at that time that "the way we look at crypto remains unchanged, irrespective of who does what."  While taking what has been at best an ambiguous approach to cryptocurrencies, the RBI has advocated for the adoption of blockchain technology by India’s banks.

dtcpay forges strategic partnership in launch of crypto payments systemSingapore-based dtcpay has announced a collaboration with Singaporean data-sharing platform PlatON and Chinese payments firm Allinpay International, marking the imminent launch of a digital currency payments system.Photo by Jonathan Borba on PexelsPOS terminal crypto paymentsThe trio is set to unveil a cutting-edge digital currency payment system, leveraging smart point of sale (POS) terminals supporting a range of currencies, including USDT, ETH and BTC. The primary goal of this partnership is to broaden the reach of digital payments, providing global users with faster, more cost-efficient and secure payment experiences.The overarching objective of the collaboration is to empower partners and merchants to seamlessly accept payments in both fiat and digital currencies. By doing so, dtcpay, PlatON and Allinpay International aim to enhance operational efficiency, broaden business outreach and capture the attention of a younger customer base.Officials emphasize that this venture aligns with dtcpay’s commitment to delivering secure and efficient digital payment solutions while diversifying its service offering. A spokesperson for Tonghua International, Allinpay International’s parent company, stated:“We are very pleased to cooperate with industry leaders, PlatON and dtcpay. This cooperation will not only promote the development of digital currency payments but also help merchants better adapt to the modern payment trend and meet the needs of young consumers.”A collaboration that relies on core competenciesThe collaborative effort capitalizes on the strengths of each entity. dtcpay facilitates swift and secure digital and fiat currency exchange. PlatON contributes advanced privacy computing technology for robust technical infrastructure, while Allinpay International provides smart terminals and online aggregate payment interfaces, eliminating entry barriers relative to Web3 payments.In addition to driving advancements in digital currency payments, Allinpay International seeks to support merchants in adapting to modern payment trends and meeting the preferences of younger customers. dtcpay’s comprehensive suite of services includes multi-currency swaps, online checkouts and in-store POS solutions, positioning the company as a one-stop solution for merchants embracing the future of payments.Founded in 2019 in Singapore, dtcpay operates as a regulated payment service provider licensed by the Major Payment Institution (MPI) under the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).The company struck up a similar partnership in September, bringing crypto payments to the POS system of Jeripay, which has a network of 8,000 terminals in Singapore. In an interview earlier this year, the firm’s CEO Kanny Lee outlined that dtcpay had targeted Hong Kong and Dubai as markets in which the company plans to expand.Sumsub partnershipThe collaboration’s momentum was further solidified at the end of September 2023 when dtcpay partnered with Sumsub, a global full-cycle verification platform. This partnership aimed to enhance the security and reliability of digital currency payments in target markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, the UK and Europe. Sumsub integrated its electronic Know Your Customer (e-KYC) service into dtcpay’s wallet platform, streamlining the onboarding process for customers engaging in transactions through the platform.PlatON is an open financial infrastructure that features verifiable and privacy-preserving computation. It will endeavor to bring financial-level system stability and compliant digital asset management to the collaboration. Allinpay is a global financial payment company focused on providing diverse payment solutions while enhancing digital financial technology services globally.