DLD partners with regulator in Dubai to integrate tokenized property

Hong Kong Says No to Light Touch RegulationThe CEO of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has said that while the autonomous territory will allow innovation to develop in the crypto space, that will not mean light touch regulation.Photo by Ruslan Bardash on UnsplashLowering guard railsAfter a three year hiatus, the Bloomberg Wealth Asia Summit returned to Hong Kong on Tuesday. Speaking at the conference, Eddie Yue, the CEO of the HKMA, Hong Kong’s regulatory body, outlined that the territory intends to enable innovation relative to crypto businesses that establish themselves in Hong Kong.“We will let the industry develop and innovate, we will let them create an ecosystem here,” he said. However, he added the following caveat: “But that doesn’t mean light touch regulation. If any participant thinks that the regulation is too tight, they’re welcome to go elsewhere.”Yue outlined that over the course of the past three years, guardrails relative to the operation of crypto-related activities were excessively high. Yue alluded to a new approach that sees those guard rails dropped to a level whereby innovation will be enabled in the digital assets space. However, he followed up by underlining the fact that the Authority has no intention of following a light touch regulatory approach.No safeguards not an optionAlthough acknowledging that Hong Kong may have been excessively crypto unfriendly relative to digital asset regulation in the recent past, he believes that Hong Kong has now got it right. “Our guardrails are lower, to a reasonable and sustainable level,” Yue said.The HKMA regulator flagged jurisdictions that provide little or no guardrails at all as the ones that will run into difficulties. “If you look elsewhere, there are no guardrails in some places, the guardrails are very low and there you see problems”, Yue clarified.He cited FTX as a stand out example of a basic lack of internal controls. FTX International was based in the Bahamas. While customers of FTX International find themselves in a difficult position, those of subsidiary companies FTX Japan and FTX Europe are having their funds returned as a direct consequence of much better regulatory safeguards in those regions.“All those wrongdoings by the platforms that we saw in the last one or two years will not happen in Hong Kong,” Yue claimed.A continuing trendWhile many commentators and critics from the conventional world have described bitcoin and crypto as a ponzi or a passing fad, Yue pointed out that digital assets are not going anywhere and that the trend towards digital assets will continue. Expanding further, he articulated that the overarching digital assets sector encompasses much more than just crypto: “Virtual assets or crypto is actually a very broad term. It’s not really about crypto, you’re talking about stablecoins or tokenized assets in the future.”A mere $0.3 trillion of illiquid real world assets have been tokenized thus far. It’s anticipated that this level of tokenization will climb to $16 trillion by 2030.

KLEVA, a decentralized finance (DeFi) service that until now has been based on the Klaytn blockchain, is set to move to Wemade’s WEMIX3.0 mainnet as a native service and undergo a new upgrade to “KLEVA omni”, according to an official Medium announcement by WEMIX on Tuesday (KST). As a result, KLEVA tokens will be issued on the WEMIX3.0 network instead of Klaytn. Existing tokens will be migrated to WEMIX3.0 as well.Photo by GuerrillaBuzz on UnsplashThe team at KLEVA revealed that it decided to move the service to WEMIX3.0 to gain access to broader inter-network connectivity. The decision also came as a result of security strengthening efforts related to custodial bridge services using the Lock and Mint method. Unveiling KLEVA omniKLEVA omni is an amalgamation of service advancements within the Trans-Chain DeFi protocol, rooted in the WEMIX Foundation's unagi initiative – a new innovative omnichain network and interoperable Web3 gaming platform. This innovative protocol integrates optimized tokenomics tailored for the omnichain ecosystem. By going beyond the limitations of single-chain DeFi and placing an emphasis on token rewards, the value of the Trans-Chain DeFi protocol is centered around the KLEVA token.  At its core, KLEVA omni is differentiated in its ability to process trans-chain transactions. It serves not only as a comprehensive solution for inter-chain yield farming but also as a bridge between service providers and users across boundaries.  Solution to variable yields and interchain risksIn addition, in the current market landscape, variations in deposit yields and loan interest rates exist for the same asset across different chains and services. KLEVA omni addresses this by sharing such information with users, streamlining their research and decision-making processes. This makes it easier for users to optimize their investment portfolios. The protocol will use una Bridge – a non-custodial omnichain bridge under the unagi initiative that mitigates the risks presented by wrapped tokens – to enable secure and efficient trading. It will also support various blockchains like Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, Polygon, Ethereum, BNB and Solana.

Phoenix rises 50% on ADX debutDubai-headquartered crypto mining firm Phoenix has debuted on its Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX). The mining equipment hardware retailer witnessed a 50% surge in its share price following a successful initial public offering (IPO) that raked in $371 million.Photo by Marios Gkortsilas on UnsplashFortuitous IPO schedulingIt emerged last week that the company had adjusted its ADX IPO launch date from Monday to Tuesday to account for the holiday schedule in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to “ensure comprehensive participation in the IPO.”That adjustment may have been significant in garnering the level of participation that transpired. Bitcoin and to a lesser extent, the broader crypto market, surged to levels not seen since early 2022. From a low of $876 billion on June 15, 2022, overall crypto market capitalization currently stands at $1.6 trillion.With the Bitcoin unit price having exceeded the $42,000 level on Monday for a time, it’s likely that news of a crypto market resurgence would have aided Phoenix Group’s IPO success on Tuesday morning. In trading on Monday, publicly quoted bitcoin miners such as Riot Platforms, Marathon Digital and CleanSpark had recorded share price gains of between 8 and 11% on the Nasdaq in the United States.Surpassing expectationsTuesday’s trading surpassed the expectations of even the most optimistic analysts, with shares opening at 2.25 dirhams and marking a 50% increase from the IPO price of 1.50 dirhams. The ADX, chosen as the platform for Phoenix’s IPO, was strategically selected due to its alignment with the company’s dynamic vision and the rapidly expanding financial market it offers.The overwhelming response from investors resulted in a 33-times oversubscribed offering, translating into orders totaling $12 billion. The retail portion of the offering experienced an even more astonishing over-subscription rate of 180x.Munaf Ali, Co-Founder & Group MD of Phoenix, sees this milestone not merely as a listing event but as a profound declaration of the Middle East’s ascendance in the global tech and blockchain landscape. He attributes the success of Phoenix’s debut to a burgeoning appetite for financial innovations in the Middle East, underscoring the growing interest in exposure to the cryptocurrency sector among investors in the region.Mining to AI pivotPhoenix’s debut on the ADX occurs at a time when other publicly listed companies in the cryptocurrency sector are reorienting their focus from mining digital currencies to supporting the computational needs of the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. In 2022, the sector generated revenues of $6 billion, a slight dip from the record-breaking year of 2021.Industry analysts, including JPMorgan, posit that the high-performance computing (HPC) sector in AI could prove more profitable than Bitcoin mining. This strategic shift is evident in the rebranding of well-known Bitcoin mining entities such as Riot Blockchain (now Riot Platform) and Hive Blockchain Technologies (now Hive Digital Technologies), emphasizing their diversification efforts.Phoenix, acknowledging the potential of the AI-focused sector, believes it could complement its existing operations and contribute to future growth, aligning with JPMorgan’s forecasts regarding the profitability of HPC in the AI industry.