News and insights

China is striving for advancement in Internet 3.0 technologies, with Beijing's white paper outlining plans to invest in the development of the metaverse and Web3 tech such as non-fungible tokens, but not cryptocurrencies due to the country's previous ban. Meanwhile, Hong Kong is launching its new crypto trading regulations, allowing retail investors to participate from June 1, 2023, with exchanges like Huobi Hong Kong beginning to offer spot trading to retail and institutional clients. Furthermore, the Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau of the Hong Kong Police Force is launching a metaverse platform, 'CyberDefender', to educate the public about potential threats and crime prevention in the metaverse.

A new Bitcoin “token standard” called BRC-20 is the hottest thing right now in the crypto space. It was introduced in March 2023 by a pseudonymous person called Domo. Bitcoin Request for Comment 20 (BRC-20) is an experiment that brings fungible tokens to the Bitcoin blockchain using the Ordinals protocol. Ordinals rely on ordinal theory, enabling the identification and tracking of individual satoshis within Bitcoin's existing supply, while also allowing them to be inscribed (associated) with data. Through this technique, satoshis (sats) are given ordinal numbers starting with zero. Anyone can add a script file to a sat to create and transfer a BRC-20 token on the Bitcoin blockchain. BRC-20 tokens are created using three functions: deploy, mint, and transfer.

It is official now: The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA), legislation that will guide the crypto sector in all 27 European Union member states. 517 parliament members voted for it, while 38 voted against it. This approval makes Europe the first continent with comprehensive rules for cryptocurrencies. Also, it means that all EU member states will have unified crypto regulations. So, if a crypto business is approved in one EU member country, it could easily expand operations to another member state. The EU’s milestone was lauded by Binance as well as Kraken and Coinbase.

On April 12, 2023, Ethereum successfully executed the planned Shanghai update also known as Shapella. The upgrade allows validators to unstake their staked ETH and withdraw their rewards, as well as staked ether if chosen. Now that another level of uncertainty has waned for the biggest smart contract blockchain, this new feature could attract more investors to stake their ether.

The world’s leading crypto exchange by volume, Binance, alongside its CEO, Changpeng Zhao, and ex-Chief Compliance Officer, Samuel Lim, are being sued by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Liechtenstein has a long-standing tradition in the fields of banking and asset management. Since joining the EEA in 1995, Liechtenstein’s financial centre has established itself as a professional point of reference for promoters of collective investment vehicles on the European financial market.

One of the top stablecoins by market cap, USD Coin (USDC), de-pegged briefly from the US dollar on March 11 following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Circle, the stablecoin’s issuer, held $3.3 billion in USDC reserves with the bank, which caused panic as investors rushed to withdraw their funds, assuming USDC could implode because of insufficient backing. However, the amount represented less than 8% of the stablecoin’s reserves.

Ethereum stakers have been eagerly awaiting the Shanghai upgrade, which will enable them to withdraw their staked ether. Stakers’ funds have been locked since Ethereum introduced the proof-of-stake Beacon Chain in December 2020. The upgrade was originally slated to take place sometime in March but was pushed by about two weeks to April during a recent execution layer meeting.