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Stella Chan, the chief operating officer of Phemex, a crypto derivatives exchange with a presence in Turkey and Singapore, recently provided details of the company’s unveiling of its Lending Protocol and SocialFi initiative Pulse Season 3. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Chan outlined that since the founding of the firm in 2019, the company has been evolving and working towards carving out a niche for itself in the industry. The executive confirmed that the exchange business has reached a point where daily trading volume now exceeds $2 billion across more than 300 trading pairs. Pulse Season 3Chan is also the co-founder of Phemex’s Pulse, a social trading platform that rewards users while attempting to foster a community spirit within the crypto sphere. As part of Phemex events held at Token 2024 in Dubai last week, the company announced Pulse Season 3, a SocialFi mechanism to incentivize community engagement. The initiative introduces casting and tipping features. Casting is a means through which community members can post up content. Meanwhile, tipping serves as a method through which other community members can acknowledge and reward high-quality community member contributions. Through this initiative Phemex is hoping to deliver an enhanced experience where trading seamlessly intersects with trending topics and insightful content.Photo by Shubham Dhage on UnsplashPhemex Lending ProtocolAlongside Pulse Season 3, the company has also launched the Phemex Lending Protocol, a feature allowing users to borrow crypto at competitive rates while earning interest. As part of that offering, all loans are safeguarded through the collateralization of the user’s digital assets. With an initial liquidity allocation of $22 million, this protocol has been established with an eye towards empowering traders to amplify their capital without selling their assets, while aligning in a more general sense with the user’s overall trading needs. Phemex is attempting to spearhead the transition towards greater user autonomy without compromising security. The Phemex Lending Protocol is central to that effort, offering users competitive borrowing rates and opportunities for passive income generation.  Standing testament to that, the platform offers interest rates on USDT starting at 3.57%. For those that hold vePT, the wrapped version of the platform's native Phemex token (PT), an additional 30% discount on borrowing rates is being offered. vePT is destined to act as a token which confers voting authority in the not too distant future, relative to Phemex’s governing decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The platform is further enabling capital efficiency from the service user’s perspective by applying very little restriction so that funds can be withdrawn and redeployed at will, with minimum delay. Coming off the back of these announcements during Token 2024, the company appears to be following through on that momentum. Taking to the X social media platform on April 25, Chan outlined details of a plethora of user experience (UX) upgrades relative to its Pulse offering. Future plansLooking ahead, Phemex envisages the offering of a broader range of products tailored to user needs. Plans for an automated market maker (AMM) protocol aim to provide users with passive earning opportunities by contributing to liquidity. Additionally, Phemex is exploring the development of an on-chain credit scoring mechanism, leveraging its soulbound digital identity token to enhance access to decentralized finance (DeFi).

OKX NFT Marketplace hits the front on trading volumeIn the non-fungible token (NFT) space, OKX’s NFT marketplace has emerged as the leader in daily trading volume, surpassing long-standing frontrunners such as OpenSea, Blur and Magic Eden.According to data from decentralized applications (DApp) tracker DappRadar, on Dec. 18, the OKX NFT Marketplace had recorded a 24-hour trading volume of $50 million. In more recent trading, that has reduced to around $35 million. Nevertheless, it maintains its lead over its main competitors, whose combined 24-hour trading volume stands at approximately $24 million.Photo by Kanchanara on UnsplashOrdinals driving volume uptickThe surge in trading volume can be attributed to OKX’s support for Bitcoin Ordinals NFTs and BRC-20 tokens. Notably, the NFT transaction volume on Bitcoin experienced a substantial increase, reaching $121.8 million between Dec. 10 and Dec. 17.Unlike traditional NFTs, Ordinals do not rely on smart contracts pointing to a digital asset. Described as digital artifacts by developer Casey Rodarmor, they lack smart contract features, making their trading reliant on decentralized exchanges and wallets.The Ordinals protocol has been made possible by the Bitcoin Taproot upgrade, which was implemented in November 2021. The upgrade allows digital files to be inscribed on satoshis, the smallest monetary denomination on the Bitcoin network, each with a unique number or ordinal.Strategic focus on BRC-20The OKX NFT Marketplace’s strategic focus on the BRC-20 token standard has also played a role in its success. Collaborating with UniSat, a developer of Ordinals wallets, OKX created an indexing mechanism for BRC-20 transactions built on ordinal inscriptions, further solidifying its position in the market.The Ordinals protocol has not been without controversy, with some, including Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, criticizing it as a misuse of Bitcoin transaction blockspace. Despite the controversy, Ordinals have gained momentum, contributing to $367 million in sales volume on the Bitcoin network, surpassing Ethereum and Solana.Ordinals and the BRC-20 standard have generally been a boon for Bitcoin miners, boosting their revenues through increased fees. This incentivizes miners to secure the network. Over 49 million transactions have resulted in over 2,250 BTC in transaction fees. Around 6 p.m. UTC on Monday, bitcoin fees are averaging out at $38.43 per transaction.Beyond Bitcoin Ordinals, the broader NFT space has seen a resurgence, with the collective volume nearing $1 billion in November. During that month, the average value of NFT transactions experienced a notable 114% increase, rising from $126 to $270. This suggests a willingness among users to engage in higher-value trades compared to previous months.Speaking with The Block, Nick Ruck, COO of ContentFi Labs, a community-owned Web3 tool suite, had this to say on the development:“OKX has become the number one NFT marketplace after enabling trading of BTC Ordinals NFTs. Blur and OpenSea have not yet allowed trading of these Bitcoin-based NFTs, so they’ve started to fall behind in terms of volume due to the huge demand of Ordinals.”

Shanghai Court Recognizes Unique Traits of BitcoinThe Shanghai Second Intermediate People’s Court has added a layer of legitimacy to Bitcoin despite China’s prevailing anti-crypto stance.In a recently published report, the court recognized digital currencies such as Bitcoin as being unique and non-replicable. It went further still in singling out Bitcoin as being distinct from the thousands of other cryptocurrencies that are currently in existence.Photo by Zhou Xian on UnsplashSun chimes inThe significance of this development has caught the attention of Justin Sun, the Founder of the TRON blockchain network, who took to the X social media platform (formerly Twitter) to share insights from the report. Sun wrote:”The Second Intermediate People’s Court of Shanghai believes that with the development of internet technology, digital currencies represented by Bitcoin possess uniqueness and non-replicability.”Legal attributesDelving deeper into the report’s content, it becomes evident that the court was engaging in a discussion about the legal attributes of Bitcoin and how judicial decisions should be approached in cases involving cryptocurrencies.One striking aspect of the report is how it acknowledges the usage of cryptocurrencies in illegal financial activities, such as illicit fundraising. In this instance, the court has indirectly acknowledged the financial nature of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, despite the fact that a ban has been in place on trading Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies since 2021.That said, the report also notes that due to the regulatory stance on cryptocurrencies, the legal attributes of digital currencies remain ambiguous, creating challenges in their judicial handling. Despite some courts attempting to disregard the “monetary” and “property” attributes of digital currencies, these efforts have proved unsuccessful.Inherent characteristicsRegarding the monetary attribute, the courts still identify the sale price of digital currencies in their judgments. When it comes to property attributes, these courts struggle to ignore the inherent property value presented by digital currencies during legal proceedings.While acknowledging Bitcoin’s decentralized nature and lack of centralized control, the article still underscores its “major functions of currency,” such as scalability, circulation, storage, and means of payment, making it a global currency.Future implicationsThe legal opinion expressed by the Shanghai court provides a notable boost to the legitimacy of Bitcoin and other digital currencies. It asserts that these tokens undeniably possess value, even if the People’s Bank of China chooses not to formally recognize them.Moreover, the court’s inclination toward classifying cryptocurrencies as personal property aligns with another report from the Chinese courts as well as rulings in other jurisdictions, such as Singapore. Similarly the Shanghai court acknowledges that Bitcoin can be acquired through various means, including mining, inheritance, and buying and selling.The court’s recognition of the enduring value of cryptocurrencies echoes the sentiment that value is a collective human judgment. In this respect, the Shanghai court’s perspective aligns with the reality that many Chinese citizens continue to use digital currencies as a medium of exchange despite the existing ban.The Shanghai court’s unintentional validation of Bitcoin’s unique attributes and value may have broader implications for the legal status and recognition of cryptocurrencies in China and beyond. This latest development could contribute to a more nuanced approach to cryptocurrency regulation and legal interpretation in the future.