Hong Kong regulated exchanges reach major milestones
HashKey Exchange, one of the first regulated crypto exchanges to debut in Hong Kong, has raised $100 million at a valuation of $1.2 billion in a Series A funding round. In the January 16 announcement, the firm stated that the capital would be used for product diversification, compliance efforts, and innovation. HashKey reports that within the first four months 155,000 users had registered and the daily average trading volume in the past 30 days hit US$630 million.
Core businesses include HashKey Capital, an asset manager investing exclusively in blockchain technology and digital assets, HashKey Cloud, a blockchain node validation service provider, HashKey Tokenisation, and HashKey NFT, Web3 PFP incubation and community operation service provider.
Hashkey’s crypto insurance partnership with OneDegree. (Hashkey)
The firm has also established strategic partnerships with 10 brokerage firms and six publicly listed companies since it was licensed. In August 2023, HashKeu and OSL became the first crypto exchanges to receive Securities & Futures Commission (SFC) approval to provide crypto trading services to retail investors.
OSL received a $91 million strategic investment from blockchain services firm BGX in November 2023 and currently has a market valuation of $490 million.
The deal closed earlier this month with Patrick Pan leading as the firm’s new CEO. In a post on January 12, OSL stated that it plans to expand its business offerings beyond Hong Kong and Singapore. Around the same time, the firm rebranded from the previous BC Technology Group to OSL as to focus on its exchange efforts.
OSL executive team at Autumn Dinner 2023. (Twitter)
United Nations reprimands Tether
The United Nations (UN) has published a highly critical report on the use of Tether (USDT) stablecoin by various crime syndicates in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Researchers wrote in their January 15 commentary:
“Online gambling platforms, and…
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