This weekly roundup of stories from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong makes an attempt to curate the business’s most vital information, together with influential initiatives, modifications within the regulatory panorama, and enterprise blockchain integrations.
On this thirtieth version of the Shanghai Man column, we preview the Wanxiang Shanghai Blockchain Week, an offline occasion that usually is the most important blockchain convention on the Chinese language calendar. Subsequent week, regardless of all of the regulatory crackdowns, the occasion remains to be planning to go forward, albeit with a one-month delay from its traditional place in mid-September.
The flagship occasion
Traditionally, Wanxiang Blockchain Week has attracted enormous crowds of business individuals together with merchants, buyers, builders, monetary establishments, and conventional corporations. The three-day occasion is normally supplemented with a busy schedule of facet occasions, specializing in areas like DeFi or network-specific meetups.
Final yr, following the COVID-19 lockdowns, the occasion was way more subdued, notably with an absence of abroad audio system similar to Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wooden bodily attending. These two thought-leaders each have robust ties to Shanghai and all the time helped to lift the profile of the occasion from a technical perspective.
Wanxiang Blockchain is a big funding outfit that helps a few of the strongest initiatives within the house. It has invested over 100 billion RMB in over 200 initiatives, working considerably just like the Consensys of the East. Its ties to China Wanxiang Group give it an elevated place within the enterprise world, together with a more in-depth relationship to enterprises and authorities assets.
This yr’s occasion is ready to happen on October 26 and 27, with keynote speeches deliberate from Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum, Sergey Nazarov of Chainlink, Yat Siu of Animoca Manufacturers and Anatoly Yakovenko of Solana. It’s not clear whether or not any of those will bodily attend the occasion, however given China’s strict quarantine restrictions and cryptocurrency insurance policies, it’s extra seemingly that they may give the speech by way of video.
Up to now, many of the speeches have centered on the infrastructure and functions, relatively than cryptocurrencies and trading-related actions. This has allowed the occasion to maintain attracting authorities representatives no matter more and more unfavorable insurance policies.
The Metaverse and NFT artwork are two subjects which have managed to keep away from the wrath of regulators. As such, various associated occasions have been grouped into what’s being referred to as Shanghai Metaverse Week, which can be only a refined approach for “Blockchain Week” occasions to keep away from scrutiny from the federal government. This Metaverse Week is being hosted by companions together with Litentry, Polygon, Concord, Circulate, Tezos and Masks Community. The occasion is planning to have unique reside streams in Decentraland.
Modifications within the ranks
Searches containing the key phrase ‘Bitcoin’ on WeChat spiked to just about 26 million on October 15, fueled by the information of an ETF approval within the US. These ranges of consideration hadn’t been seen since mid-summer when the regulatory crackdown drew a number of consideration to the asset.
Alternate volumes inform an attention-grabbing story as OKEx has picked up steam not too long ago, rising as a transparent second to Binance with about 11% of the overall market share in line with FTX’s global volume monitor. Huobi, which introduced it might be limiting Chinese language customers from utilizing the platform on the finish of 2021, has struggled to maintain tempo with OKEx and has now slipped behind FTX, into the fourth place and just a few billion {dollars} per day forward of ByBit.
Huobi dominated the CeFi scene between 2014 and 2016, the place it loved prolonged spells as the very best quantity trade. Now a brand new wave of CeFi exchanges led by FTX and ByBit are beginning to eat away on the dominance of the normal CeFi leaders Huobi, Binance, and OKEx, collectively generally known as HBO.
Catching the NFT pattern
Numerous main companies have been dropping their very own NFTs as of late, together with eCommerce large JD.com. The retailer, which has its personal blockchain, is releasing a set of seven NFT fashions via its WeChat mini-program later this yr.
Final week, logistics firm DHL additionally announced an NFT launching on the VeChain mainnet. These NFTs are rising as a approach to reward prospects, however with the strict insurance policies, it’s unlikely these NFTs will find yourself on open marketplaces and expose many customers to the better cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Shedding out to the US
An announcement on the web site for the Nationwide Improvement Reform Fee proclaimed that the US has now overtaken China as the highest Bitcoin mining nation on the earth. The temporary article boasts that this transformation has come simply two months after Beijing dominated cryptocurrency mining to be unlawful.
It’s unclear whether or not or not this text is meant to be taken actually,or as a really refined however sarcastic reminder that latest political selections might not be in the most effective curiosity of the nation.
