Top News from Friday to Today

Markets in China have been speculating that more hedge funds will flow into the crypto market amid the coronavirus fears partially due to money will withdraw from the poor performing Chinese stock market, and also the coronavirus quarantine in the country has led to production suspend, leading to a crunch in Bitcoin supply. http://bit.ly/2GM3bHo

Chinese Search Engine Baidu and Wechat Shows “Bitcoin” Search Surge. http://bit.ly/2ttVenl

Crypto WeChat crypto group have turned into “how-to-smuggle-face-masks” groups- a look inside whats happening in China in amidst of the virus. http://bit.ly/31nfKCz

On the first day back trading after the extended Lunar New Year holiday, investors fled Chinese stocks en masse; total Chinese stocks shed $400 billion. http://bit.ly/2u6Iun0

Binance postpones its Blockchain week in Vietnam as Coronavirus hinders Chinese Blockchain Industry: Summits and Miner Sales are Delayed; Chinese banned from multiple countries. http://bit.ly/3986sgs
China prints $174 billion to offset economic effects of coronavirus. Most recent official stats show a 2.1% death rate. http://bit.ly/2vP0Byd

  Exchange News

Block Kong Breakfast, Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX. http://bit.ly/2GT8Yen

Line, the Japanese social network with more than 700 million users has announced it will start trading its own digital currency in Japan from April 2020. http://bit.ly/2uVE8PF

Go, the exchange powered by OmiseGo technology, has closed after months of negligible volumes and regulatory difficulties. http://bit.ly/3b692Fj

Zebpay Crypto Exchange Announces Return To India Operations Since 2018. http://bit.ly/392CkCZ

COSS crypto exchange says it’s been acquired by unnamed ‘investors’ while some 200,000 users are still locked out of their accounts. http://bit.ly/3b4xreF

Investments

Japanese financial group SBI Holdings has invested $20 million in OpenLegacy, a provider of microservice-based APIs for legacy and core systems, enabling a blockchain-based payment application in Japan and globally. http://bit.ly/2v2AELi

Coins

Fraudulent use of Bitmain brand by bitmain.farm and antminersmining.com. http://bit.ly/31oFVc1

The Iranian government has reportedly issued more than 1,000 licenses for cryptocurrency mining since it began regulating the industry. http://bit.ly/3917ZVt

Hong Kong-based blockchain remittance startup Bitspark has abruptly announced its closure, citing internal restructuring issues. http://bit.ly/2UkeBdz

EOS developer Block.One is offering $200,000 to any developer that can make it easier for Ethereum applications to run on the EOS blockchain. http://bit.ly/2OqNDgx

Tendermint director accuses Cosmos founder Jae of “evading responsibility”. http://bit.ly/2u9UkwG

LocalBitcoins, one of the oldest cryptocurrency exchanges out there, has reportedly begun to suspend accounts of long-term users, in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and Nigeria. http://bit.ly/2UnjK4G

🧳 Business
 

Private asset trading platform  on blockchain iSTOX is set to go fully live after receiving approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) as a recognised market operator and a capital markets services licensee. http://bit.ly/36TRIQw

From Asia to Worldwide, Public Blockchains Becoming More Legitimate, Vitalik Says. http://bit.ly/2u7mdFG

⚖️Regulations

Tech Like Blockchain Will Transform Chinese Economy, China Bank Chair Says: Digital transformation is a national priority for China, and it’s being integrated into both enterprise and banks and other services industries. http://bit.ly/2u7X65D