Top News from Friday to Today

Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck has abruptly decided to cancel leveraged trading just months after relaunching the tool. http://bit.ly/36DmFcb

Update: The Reason the Founder of MicroBT Yang Zuoxing was arrested was for Alleged Embezzlement of 100,000 yuan.

Hong Kong’s first new virtual bank could potentially have a soft launch as soon as by the end of this year, according to CEO of Hong Kong Monetary Authority. http://bit.ly/2M2fyly

Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC confirmed on plans to downsize again as part of its realignment strategy aimed at retaining an innovative edge, to focus on blockchain cellphones, VR products. http://bit.ly/35o2Kh8

ConsenSys, the ethereum blockchain development company with over 30 hubs around the globe, has shut down key operations in India and the Philippines. http://bit.ly/2Pp2k4D

  Exchange News

Block Kong Breakfast: Kris Marszalek, Crypto.com. http://bit.ly/2PvXhzk

OKEx exchange to integrate Dai Savings Rate, allowing users to earn 4% return. http://bit.ly/2Z7koDL

South Korean exchange Bithumb delists five cryptocurrencies, claims the tokens have performed poorly: SALT, AUTO, DACC, ROM, and PST. http://bit.ly/2M2hKcS

CoinFLEX snags Binance OTC exec as it looks to further gameify the crypto derivatives market. http://bit.ly/35zNjTa

Hiroyuki Mihara, COO of leading Japanese crypto exchange Bitbank, says that upcoming crypto regulations will help the industry develop next year. http://bit.ly/35zhWIg

New Zealand-based ASB Bank, owned by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, has participated in an NZ$2.67 million (~US$1.7 million) seed funding round for trade finance blockchain startup TradeWindow. http://bit.ly/36Miefn

Coins

Data show: Asian countries tend to run Ethereum nodes, while many Europeans prefer Bitcoin nodes. http://bit.ly/35vz8hO

The New York Attorney General’s office has laid out in greater detail its case for investigating Bitfinex and Tether. http://bit.ly/2sysmt0

VeChain Foundation, the nonprofit behind the construction of the VeChain public blockchain platform, has announced that their buyback address was compromised at 12:27 pm ET on Friday. http://bit.ly/35wmMpS

PlusToken, an alleged cryptocurrency pyramid scheme that made the runs earlier this year, bilked investors out of two to three billion dollars. Chainalysis shows evidence of correlation between transfers to over-the-counter (OTC) brokers and subsequent drops in the price of Bitcoin. http://bit.ly/34wpOZY

Findora’s Charles Lu, Others Predict DeFi Market in 2020. http://bit.ly/2M2fQJa

🧳 Business
 

Blockchain financial services firm Diginex and the United Nations-led International Organization for Migration (IOM) jointly launched a blockchain tool aiming to prevent the exploitation of migrant workers in Hong Kong. http://bit.ly/34xKS2k

Chinese Court Freezes $676K in Assets of Bitmain Manufacturing Subsidiary: The Shenzhen Bao’An District Court in China has ruled to freeze roughly $676,000 in assets of a subsidiary of Bitcoin (BTC) mining giant Bitmain. http://bit.ly/36Ip4lX

TikTok owner ByteDance forms JV with state media in blockchain, AI: ByteDance Inc., the owner of TikTok, started a joint venture with a state-owned Chinese media group to develop business lines, including artificial intelligence and blockchain. http://bit.ly/35t6U7p

⚖️ Regulations

China’s smart courts are reportedly applying a variety of innovative technologies including blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) to decide on millions of legal cases. http://bit.ly/2YSEd1g

Gibraltar’s Minister for Digital and Financial Services says that Gibraltar has become a blockchain gateway for Chinese entrepreneurs involved in the Belt and Road Initiative to the UK. . http://bit.ly/34s0MuX