Hong Kong court grants trademark injunction against Huobi

Rather than restrict or ban crypto, the Iranian government appears to have taken on a more positive approach, moving towards embracing the new asset class and regulating it.Photo by Lara Jameson on PexelsRegulatory frameworkOn Dec. 7, Iran’s Nour News Agency reported Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Abdolnaser Hemmati as saying that Iran is moving towards managing and eliminating the adverse effects of digital currency on the economy and instead harnessing its positive effects, with a regulatory framework being brought in to ensure that positive outcome. Hemmati went on to confirm that digital money falls under the oversight of Iran’s central bank. The minister stated that he hopes that cryptocurrencies would be developed with the objective of boosting youth employment levels and boosting economic assets held within the Islamic Republic of Iran, while helping to nullify sanctions and aligning Iran’s activities in this respect with the global economy. Circumventing sanctionsThe United States first imposed sanctions against Iran in 1979. The Islamic Republic had been the most sanctioned country in the world up until February 2022 when Russia surpassed Iran due to Western opposition to Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. Sanctions were lifted in 2016 as part of a deal on the limiting of Iran’s nuclear program. That deal was scrapped during U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s first term in office, with the latest sanctions imposed on entities involved in the transportation of Iranian oil last week. At a BRICS summit held in Kazan, Russia in October, Russia added cryptocurrency to the agenda with a view towards discussing with Iranian and other BRICS country representatives its potential use to bypass sanctions. In July the Bank of Russia set out a recommendation to Russian businesses to use crypto in order to reduce the impact of Western sanctions. Up to $50B in crypto held by IraniansA subsequent report from Nour News Agency on Dec. 8 had good news for Hemmati relative to his aspiration to boost economic assets held within Iran. The report cited Iranian economist Sadegh Alhosseini, who claims that crypto assets to the value of between $30 billion to $50 billion are controlled by Iranians.  The economist provided the estimate after Iranian finance ministry and Central Bank of Iran (CBI) officials outlined that they are looking to make the crypto market in Iran more transparent. If Alhosseini’s estimate is accurate, it would mean that Iranians hold crypto assets to the equivalent value of one-third of the entire gold market in Iran. Alhosseini outlined these findings within a report published by the CBI which provided a summary of proposed upcoming policies relative to cryptocurrencies. The main objective of these proposed policies is to aid crypto traders to remain compliant with anti-money laundering (AML) regulations and local taxation requirements. The CBI has also been working towards launching the digital rial, a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The CBDC project has been running since 2018 and relies upon Hyperledger Fabric, an enterprise blockchain framework that was originally developed by the Linux Foundation. Having been locked out of the SWIFT financial messaging network, Iran has launched ACUMER as an alternative which it hopes to use for trade purposes with Asian partners. Direct payments between Russian and Iranian banking systems have also been enabled. 

HashKey on-boards market makers to boost liquidityHashKey, a licensed crypto exchange in Hong Kong, has unveiled plans to onboard individual and enterprise market makers to enhance liquidity on its platform.Photo by engin akyurt on UnsplashMarket maker programIn an announcement on Tuesday, the exchange disclosed that interested parties, whether individuals or entities, can apply to become market makers on HashKey. To qualify, applicants need to engage in cryptocurrency trading worth a minimum of $5 million per month on the exchange.The exchange outlined that the program aimed to “recognize and incentivize users actively contributing to the liquidity” of the platform.Upon submitting their business plans for review, successful applicants will be invited to enter into a contractual agreement with the exchange’s due diligence team, commencing trading activities from Dec. 28 onwards when the program goes live.Commission free tradingThe exchange aims to encourage liquidity providers by offering a commission ranging between 0.005% and 0.015% of the transaction value, determined by monthly rankings or trading volumes, falling within a tiered structure set out within the program. Market makers demonstrating a trading volume of at least $100 million per month stand to enjoy the highest tier of commission revenue. Notably, all market makers will be exempt from commission fees on their trades.Market makers who participate via the program will be on trial for an initial two-month period. Those who are participating in market maker programs on other platforms currently will be able to avail of equivalent trial fee rates through the HashKey exchange.Service expansion trendThe move by HashKey follows a broader trend in Hong Kong, where regulated exchanges have been expanding their services and forming strategic partnerships since the issuance of the first licenses in August. In a recent development, OSL, another Hong Kong licensed exchange, collaborated with Interactive Brokers on November 28, enabling Hong Kong clients to buy Bitcoin through Interactive Brokers’ investment accounts.Additionally, on November 30, OSL welcomed Victory Securities for crypto trading services on its platform. That move came about following Victory’s acquisition of a retail crypto trading license some days beforehand. Notably, OSL received a $90 million investment from blockchain entity BGX in November.While HashKey has been extending its altcoin offerings, exclusively available to accredited investors meeting a $1 million portfolio requirement, the exchange has been proactive in enhancing user security. On Nov. 16, the platform introduced comprehensive insurance coverage for users’ and enterprise assets stored within its digital wallets in collaboration with fintech firm OneDegree.Earlier this week, it emerged that the platform had experienced an unprecedented surge in daily trading volumes. The surge had been attributed to a token rewards program that the exchange is currently running, that offers the distribution of HSK tokens or EcoPoints.As HashKey opens its doors to market makers, the move is poised to contribute to increased liquidity on the exchange, aligning with the broader trend of Hong Kong’s regulated crypto exchanges expanding their offerings and forming strategic partnerships.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has unveiled a new initiative aimed at enhancing the nation’s financial infrastructure through the use of stablecoins and tokenized commercial bank money. Announced on Oct. 16, the project, known as BLOOM, short for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency, brings together 16 financial sector participants, including Anchorage Digital, Ant International, Circle, Coinbase, and DBS Bank. According to MAS, BLOOM is open to additional participants through a registration form available on its official website.Photo by Jason Leung on UnsplashBuilding on Project OrchidBLOOM operates under Project Orchid, a digital Singapore dollar initiative launched in 2021 to explore potential applications of central bank digital currency (CBDC) in strengthening Singapore’s financial ecosystem. Through BLOOM, it will examine use cases involving G10 and Asian currencies, covering both domestic and cross-border payments, as well as wholesale financial transactions. The project’s focus includes coordinating interoperability between different networks to enable the distribution and clearing of settlement assets. It will also explore automated compliance checks and study methods to make wholesale settlements more efficient and cost-effective. Artificial intelligence (AI) agents are expected to play a supporting role, executing transactions automatically within predefined limits and regulatory parameters. Expanding stablecoin usage in SingaporeThe MAS initiative comes shortly after the listing of XSGD, a Singapore dollar–backed stablecoin, on the U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase on Oct. 1. XSGD is issued by StraitsX, a digital payments provider, and is fully backed by reserve assets held with DBS Bank and Standard Chartered. Stablecoin payments have gained traction in Singapore’s retail sector as well. StraitsX recently began supporting settlements in USDT and USDC through OKX Pay. Consumers can use SGQR codes at participating GrabPay merchants to make everyday purchases, such as coffee, with transactions settled directly in Singapore dollars into merchant accounts. Rising local interest in digital assetsSingapore’s growing engagement with digital assets reflects a broader trend of public interest. A report from ApeX Protocol, cited by Cointelegraph, ranked Singapore as the world’s most “crypto-obsessed” nation, awarding it a composite score of 100. The ranking considered ownership rates, adoption growth, search activity, and ATM availability. The study found that 24.4% of Singapore’s population holds cryptocurrency, ahead of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which scored 99.7 despite a 25.3% ownership rate. In a separate development, Channel News Asia reported that three Singaporeans have been implicated in a large-scale fraud scheme linked to Cambodia’s Prince Group. The U.S. Department of Justice recently confiscated 127,271 Bitcoin tied to the operation—the largest seizure in its history. Following the investigation, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on the three individuals as well as 17 Singapore-registered entities. The sanctions block access to any property in their possession and prohibit U.S. persons from engaging in transactions with them, citing risks to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests.