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 corporate blockchain integrations.

After the global KYC requirements were enforced for all users, Binance’s dominance in CeFi has dropped from about two-thirds to just over half, according to the FTX volume monitor. The big three from Huobi, Binance and OKEx now look like a big five, with Hong Kong-based FTX and Singapore-based Bybit filling the gap.

The global NFT fever seems to be intensifying in a week that Visa hit the headlines $ 150,000 purchase by CryptoPunk 7610. Chinese internet users on Weibo were unsurprisingly baffled, with comments asking what can be done with it after purchase while others were doing it Jokes about whether a punk had artistic value or not. Since the end of June, daily searches for “NFT” have been between 2.5 million and 4 million, which shows a growing interest in the asset class.

Related: Shanghai Special: Crypto Raid Fallout and What Happens Next

Bitcoin possession is not forbidden, but many fear for the future of regulations in China. Here you can see where we are and where we could go.

Meet the MAODAO

the MAODAO is one of the first NFT communities to emerge in Asia, with a current focus on China. It is based on play-to-earn gaming, with the DAO sponsoring players in the Axie Infinity world by providing assets upfront and then returning a portion of the proceeds to the DAO treasury. The DAO uses NFT cats, which are used as both collectibles and governance tokens. These Ready Player Cats, RPCs for short, are 3000 NFT cat tokens that were minted on August 22nd for 0.08 ETH. The colorful cartoon cats now have a price floor of almost 0.4 ETH.

The brightly colored cats sell for over $ 1,500 at OpenSea.

In conversation with founder Matt Mao, we learned that a lot of inspiration comes from another famous NFT project, the Bored Yacht Ape Club.

“Perhaps our most outstanding characteristic is our eastern roots. In fact, our first mint event was mostly run by early supporters from the Asian NFT and crypto community. Perhaps everyone’s enthusiasm came from the lack of a symbolic NFT project in the Eastern Church and gave us some appreciation. “

Mao plans to harness the abundant resources of the crypto community to grow and raise awareness in order to strengthen exchanges between western and eastern NFT communities. The outfit plans collaborations with other artists and projects to increase the rewards for the MAODAO and its members.

The organization shows off its Eastern heritage with vibrant colors and illustrations. Source: maonft.com

All’s well that ends well?

After a long and dramatic journey, the Poly is the Dramatic Network Hacker returned the rest of the funds to the cross-chain bridge. The hacker had exploited a bug in the code to lift Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies valued at over $ 610 million before taking the cryptocurrency space on a wild ride that included failed attempts to stave off a blacklist, raising money to Vitalik Buterin to send and to BUT via the blockchain. Poly Network, a project incubated by Neos O3 laboratories, will be delighted with funding from its users, although it remains to be seen whether the project can continue now that so much trust has been eroded.

Objection canceled!

A high court from northeastern Shandong Province set a precedent when it ruled that a plaintiff’s cryptocurrency had no legal status in China. The plaintiff in the case had lost around $ 10,000 worth of tokens after a 2017 ruling by the People’s Bank of China ordered exchanges to close. The plaintiff had lost access to his account and was hoping to get the value of the tokens back for fraud. It is not known whether the judge reminded the plaintiff at the end of the trial that it was “not your keys, not your cryptocurrency”.

This contradicts a ruling earlier this month in a Shanghai District Court ruling that Bitcoin was a property protected by Chinese law.

Shanghai Minhang District Court stated that Bitcoin is a virtual property protected by Chinese law that is disposable, interchangeable and exclusive. https://t.co/lUO3yr44Vw

– Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 18, 2021

The lack of clarity and consensus on this issue is somewhat unusual for China, where top-down leadership can usually set clear directions. It is possible that, given the government’s focus on blockchain development, emerging technology, and the upcoming central bank digital currency, the government is hesitant to ban digital assets across the board.

Off to the west in the summer

Bitcoin and Ethereum miners appear to be completing their overseas migration after strict regulation was initiated against them earlier this summer. This is based on the fact that hash rate data recovered to around 66.7% of its pre-regulation peak in May. During the summer, most of the major mining companies closed their operations and shipped hardware to other countries, including Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, and the United States. This rebound means the mining industry and network as a whole have outgrown another major threat. Now that the network has moved away from such centralized centralization in China, it should become more attractive to risk-averse investors.

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