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The brokerage arm of Singapore’s DBS Bank will be licensed to provide digital payment token services Singaporean multi-national bank DBS announced yesterday that its brokerage arm, DBS Vickers (DBSV) had received regulatory approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Under the country’s Payment Services Act, the brokerage has been granted in-principle approval to provide digital payment token services. The news makes DBSV one of the first financial institutions to receive this sort of approval from MAS. The Singaporean regulator had granted the same in-principle approval to Australian digital asset exchange Independent Reserve last week. DBSV’s approval is an important step in DBS’ asset digitalisation strategy. The bank had launched the DBS Digital Exchange (DDEx) last year, ...

Controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson appears to have turned onto Bitcoin in the latest episode of his podcast. On Aug. 10 Peterson published a podcast titled “Bitcoin: The Future of Money?” which hosted a panel of Bitcoiners including John Vallis the host of the Bitcoin Rapid-Fire podcast, Bitcoin coder Der Gigi, film creator Richard James, and Robert Breedlove, ex-hedge fund manager and host of the “What is Money?” show. In the video, Peterson — who claims to have an IQ around 150 — puts forward a succinct description of the innovation from which Bitcoin derives its value from: “It’s a very interesting idea that in some manner, Bitcoin provides an incorruptible language of value preferable to gold.” Throughout the episode, the 59-year-old author prompted his guests to...

The nonfungible token space has been a hive of activity over the past month or so but there could be more going on than meets the eye as concerns emerge over the sector’s involvement in money laundering and tax evasion. Crypto investor and uber-bearish crypto commentator Mr. Whale has drawn attention to the darker side of the burgeoning NFT space. In a blog post earlier this week, the Bitcoin early adopter attributed the popularity and notoriety of NFTs to their ability to facilitate money laundering and tax evasion for the wealthy. “Behind the facade of a bunch of bored rich dudes buying digital artwork at insanely high prices lays a sinister and twisted money laundering scheme for crypto’s ultra-rich elites to make their illegal profits look legal.” He argues that because art is so subje...

Popular social media platform Reddit has gained $4 billion in value since its last funding round earlier this year in February. Six months ago the firm raised $250 million in Series E funding at a valuation of $6 billion. In the latest move, Reddit announced a Series F funding round on Aug. 12 — which is being led by Fidelity Management and Research Company LLC and is expected to close at around $700 million with a post-money valuation of $10 billion. According to the New York Times, investment in the funding round has reached $410 million so far, with Reddit stating that it expects further financing from existing investors to reach the $700 million target. The true valuation of Reddit is hard to gauge as the firm is yet to go public. On that subject, Steve Huffman, Reddit’s co-founder and...

Bitcoin (BTC) staged yet another classic comeback on Aug. 13 as a day of losses abruptly flipped positive. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Bitcoin routs bears in classic style Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD rising from below $44,000 to top $46,300 in hours. Friday’s 5.5% gains erased the entire previous day’s downtrend, once again proving bulls’ staying power at price levels above $40,000. “Well, hello Bitcoin,” Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe summarized ahead of a YouTube update on the day. The latest return to strength for Bitcoin coincided with fresh noises from the United States, where an increasing number of senators were taking issues with language on cryptocurrency in the newly-passed infrastructure bill....

The high-flying optimism generated earlier this week when Bitcoin and altcoin prices rose was tempered on Aug. 12 as BTC dropped below $43,000. This led some analysts to warn that the price action seen over the past week was nothing more than a dead cat bounce.  Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that an early morning wave of selling pushed the price of Bitcoin (BTC) to a low of $43,752 and at the time of writing bulls are struggling to pull the price back to $45,000. BTC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView Here’s what analysts are saying about Bitcoin’s current price action and what they expect for the short term. $43,600 and $43,000 are key levels of support According to market analyst and Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe, Bitcoin’s fall...

Though Okcoin chief compliance officer Megan Monroe said that there are still certain grey areas over cryptocurrencies in the United States, further regulation may not be the best solution. In a statement to Cointelegraph, Monroe said current U.S. regulations are sufficient to police cryptocurrency exchanges, token issuers and custody wallet providers, but “jurisdictional boundaries of these federal financial regulators are neither clear nor collaborative.” Rather, she advocated for a framework with greater clarity to determine which crypto firms should be subject to regulation and let investors know which protections are available. “A clear regulatory framework with established jurisdictional boundaries, flexible compliance standards and open communication channels with registrants (as we...

Ether’s (ETH) 81% rally over the last three weeks caught professional traders off-guard, and this week’s upcoming options expiry reveals that of the $430 million in contracts set to expire, only 7% of the neutral-to-bearish put options will be available if Ether holds above $3,200 on Aug. 13. Ether price in USD at Coinbase. Source: TradingView Curiously, the crypto market is holding its recent strength despite the Senate’s ‘crypto-critical’ infrastructure deal that recently passed. Although the $1 trillion infrastructure bill may encounter some lengthy hangups in the House of Representatives, the approved version did not clarify what constitutes a cryptocurrency broker, and this is expected to harm the industry in the future. Institutional investors were likel...

This weekly roundup of news from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong attempts to curate the industry’s most important news, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory landscape, and enterprise blockchain integrations.   After ThorCHAIN and Chainswap were exploited, it’s safe to say that hacking cross-chain bridges seems to be the style of the season. This week, it was local project Poly Network that was fleeced of $615 million before leading the crypto community on a dramatic witch hunt to track down the attacker. While most news outlets have covered this story extensively, there are still a few points worth dissecting.  Who are these projects? The first point is that most western DeFi users had never heard of Poly Network despite them amassing over $600 mil...