This weekly roundup of news from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong attempts to curate the industry’s top news, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory landscape, and blockchain integrations in businesses.

Bad news for Evergrande

Even after all the regulatory raids, China will not let 2021 slip away without further blows on the crypto markets. On December 9, news revealed that massive real estate developer Evergrande had defaulted on interest payments and was therefore subject to a credit rating downgrade.

Subsequently, the crypto markets gave way, which will worry investors who are already muttering about unemployment rates and new variants of COVID. On the flip side, financial regulators will have their hands full if the situation with Evergrande worsens, leaving them less time to focus on cryptocurrency eradication as we near the last month and a half of the lunar calendar.

Bitmart is recovering

Bitmart was the unfortunate victim of a major hack on December 5th that withdrew $ 150 million from an Ethereum and BSC hot wallet. CEO Sheldon Xia quickly jumped on Twitter and announced that the hot wallets only carry a small portion of the assets on Bitmart and that the exchange is performing comprehensive security review.

1/4 In response to this incident, BitMart carried out initial security reviews and identified affected assets. This security breach was primarily caused by a stolen private key that compromised two of our hot wallets. Other assets with BitMart are safe and intact.

– Sheldon Xia (@sheldonbitmart) December 6, 2021

While many Tier 2 exchanges may have been slow to respond, Bitmart was thanked for communicating very frequently throughout the time. The next day, Xia returned to Twitter to announce that Bitmart’s other assets were safe and that the exchange would compensate affected users out of its own funds. For an established exchange, that loss wouldn’t be overly crippling, especially if the remaining users don’t all withdraw at the same time.

Immediately after the news, the Chinese community showed their resilience. Instead of piling up the misery, numerous voices have come out in support, including competing exchanges like MEXC, KuCoin and Coinex. Most of them left encouraging comments on Twitter as well as hints that they would work with Bitmart to identify and blacklist funds from the stolen account. The prominent investor Fenbushi Capital and the auditors Certik, Peckshield and Hacken have also expressed their support.

Trust is the cornerstone that we value. We praised your team’s quick response to the incident and the high level of commitment. “The correct reaction, as Hanukkah teaches, is not to curse the darkness, but to light a candle.” @BitMartExchange @sheldonbitmart https://t.co/qsquPg1IuL

– Capital of Fenbushi (@fenbushi) December 6, 2021

Trend in social media

Sequoia Capital, one of the world’s largest venture capital firms with over $ 5 billion in assets under management, posted its Twitter bio on Aug.

“Mainnet faucet. We help the daring to build legendary DAOs from the idea to the token airdrop. LFG. “

Shortly afterwards, screenshots of the head of Sequoia Capital China appeared, stating that the company is all-in on crypto. Feng Bo, managing partner of Dragonfly Capital, welcomed the move with his progressive approach.

While a company like Sequoia is unlikely to actually be all-in, it’s no secret that many of these large venture capital firms have had a lot of success lately through crypto-related investments. Perhaps the bigger question is which user leaked screenshots from this seemingly private group chat for great Chinese whales.

For all the fun, Sequoia changed its Twitter bio back the next day.

Also very popular in Chinese crypto social media was the eloquent Brian Brooks from BitFury. Excerpts from his panel at the US Congress hearing on digital assets made the rounds, especially when he explained the differences between Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. The Chinese community seemed to appreciate his articulate and concise manner in dealing with the faceless politicians.

For a bit of light humor, a picture of CZ’s famous tweet “If you can’t hold, you won’t get rich” was posted on the back of a Meituan grocery truck. Meituan delivery is often referred to as a low-paying form of employment that members of the crypto community may be forced to return to when the industry suffers, much like McDonald’s in the west. It also makes fun of a famous orange vehicle that was driven by an early Bitcoin whale in China that has the same message on the side door.

A picture of CZ’s famous tweet stuck to a grocery scooter shows the current state of the markets

Crazy about the metaverse

Metaverse-related projects and events have occurred left, right, and center across China. However, it’s not clear whether these are actually aimed at building a metaverse or just a sneaky way for crypto projects to disguise themselves as something else to avoid the wrath of regulators.

China’s central bank has recognized this trend and is now observing the Metaverse and NFT space. The central bank’s guidelines or guidelines are likely to be similar to the existing guidelines on digital currencies, which means strict regulations with little room for interpretation.

At a financial security summit, the anti-money laundering director at People’s Bank of China spoke called the Metaverse and NFTs when it comes to the need to strengthen digital transaction surveillance. He also pointed out the need for regulatory sandboxes, a popular idea that probably wouldn’t offer much flexibility for truly decentralized products.

That rumble didn’t stop People’s Daily from adding “Metaverse” a list of the top ten trending words 2021 on December 8th. Most of the other words were related to societal problems such as overworked students or young adults not trying to compete and succeed. Metaverse stood out among other things as one of the few related to technology and innovation.

Over on the island in Hong Kong, Adrian Cheng, CEO of Hong Kong real estate giant New World Development, announced that by acquiring a prime Land in The Sandbox. Cheng announced that 10 different companies would be used to develop the virtual land to build an innovation center to showcase developments from Hong Kong, Macau and various nearby Chinese cities.