Crypto rumors spark panic in Korea, Binance airdrops for BNB hodlers: Asia Express

Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments.

Fake altcoin delisting rumors cause panic in Korean markets

Roughly half of the altcoins listed on major Korean exchange Upbit have plunged between 10% to 20% in the past week amid rumors of an impending, but so far non-existent, regulatory crackdown.

As reported by South Korea’s EBN News, investors panic sold after seeing the widespread dissemination of fake news that “financial authorities will quarterly review 600 domestic virtual assets from next month and suspend trading of coins that do not meet listing maintenance standards.”

However, the country’s Financial Supervisory Service has since stated that it would not directly monitor any altcoin listing reviews:

“The financial authorities do not directly review the items but inspect the virtual asset businesses. We participated in the creation of best practices due to a request for support, but the announcement will be made by the exchanges and DAXA (Digital Asset eXchange Alliance).”

Korea’s new virtual asset rules will kick in next month. These rules, in part, require the country’s 29 registered crypto exchanges, including Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax, to regularly evaluate the tokens listed on their exchanges and whether to continue supporting their trading.

Industry experts have since clarified that the items in the new guidelines, such as “circulation plan violations or unidentified hacking incidents,” are “not significantly different from before.”

Binance introduces loyalty rewards for BNB holders

Crypto exchange Binance is set to reward its most loyal BNB tokenholders with airdrops for holding on for dear life through the company’s ups and downs.

“Users who hold BNB for a long time will receive benefits, and Hodler’s projects will be distributed to BNB holders,” the exchange’s co-founder, Yi He, wrote on June 19. “The statistical time is not based on the future holding logic, but on how long you held BNB in retrospect. We work for BNB Holders!”

Exchange staff said that Binance HODLer Airdrops are designed to benefit users who invest in Simple Earn products with their BNB holdings. “This program will airdrop tokens from projects with a substantial token supply that are set to list on Binance soon,” developers explained.

The program will encompass small to medium-sized projects with strong fundamentals, a significant circulating supply, and vibrant, organic communities.

To participate, users must subscribe to Simple Earn products, both Flexible and Locked, using their BNB holdings and ensure their account is verified (KYC) from an eligible jurisdiction. Airdropped tokens will then automatically be transferred to users’ Spot Wallets before the token lists on the exchange.

In June 2017, during Binance’s early days when it was still based out of China, the exchange raised $15 million in a BNB initial coin offering (ICO). The token has since returned 402,159% and currently trades at $601.74 apiece at the time of publication.

Hong Kong’s zero tolerance for unlicensed crypto exchanges

Hong Kong regulators have become more and more stringent on crypto entities operating in the East Asian city after the collapse of two unlicensed entities, JPEX and Hounax, last year that left investors hundreds of millions of dollars out of pocket.

In the Securities & Futures Commission’s annual report, regulators disclosed that out of 23 virtual crypto exchange license applications it received, just two were approved: HashKey and OSL. Those two exchanges received 234 in-person visits from SFC staff within the past year to ensure their compliance.

On May 31, Hong Kong officially banned all unlicensed crypto exchanges, requiring all platforms that have not applied for an operational license with the SFC to cease operations in the region immediately.

“It is a criminal offense to operate a VATP in Hong Kong in breach of the AMLO [Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance], and the SFC will take all appropriate actions against any breaches of the law,” regulators warned.

Spot Bitcoin ETF hype wanes

It appears that investors’ enthusiasm for Bitcoin ETFs around the world has hit a standstill.

On June 20, the first Bitcoinexchange-traded fund (ETF) approved for Australia’s leading stock exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange, closed its first day of trading with just $1.3 million in trading volume.

Australia has about one-tenth of the population of the U.S., so a rough conversion would make that equivalent to about $10 million in inflows. However, Australia has two Bitcoin ETFs listed on the alternative exchange CBOE, and such products have been available since 2022.

“Notwithstanding the Australian market being a lot smaller than the U.S. and most of our flow being retail rather than institutional, there is a possibility that we may follow a similar path,” VanEck deputy head of investments and capital markets Jamie Hannah told Cointelegraph.

Back in April, the first spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs listed in Hong Kong had a day-one trading volume of around $12 million, which was dwarfed by the billions of dollars in trading volumes from the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs’ debut in January.

All eyes are now on the Ethereum ETFs in the U.S., which, after their surprise approval by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, are slated for a July 2 launch. Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, noted that the SEC’s staff comments on the spot Ether ETF applicants’ S-1 applications were “pretty light, nothing major,” with staff asking for the applications back within the week.

The future of crypto in Hong Kong looks bright

David Wu, chief financial officer of Hong Kong crypto exchange OSL, sees Hong Kong as a global financial center able to experiment with innovative crypto asset products. Wu stated:

“Different investment projects can raise funds in Hong Kong through debt issuance or stock offerings. Besides these traditional methods, companies could issue security token offerings (STO) in Hong Kong, providing an alternative to mainstream fundraising methods.”

Wu talked up the East Asian city’s “low tax rates, clear legal systems, and comprehensive investor protection” in contrast to other countries in Asia. “Institutional investors in virtual assets have faced difficulties opening accounts. For example, many large banks in Japan refuse to open accounts for such funds,” Wu explained. “However, Hong Kong banks are open to it, with many Chinese banks welcoming institutions specializing in virtual asset investments to open accounts.”

Currently, Hong Kong’s crypto exchange licenses allow both cryptocurrency and tokenized asset trading, with neither feature being available in other financial hubs such as Singapore and the U.S. The SFC is currently considering protection initiatives, Anti-Money Laundering, and hacker prevention, as well as actively exploring policy formulation to further enhance Hong Kong’s advantages in the virtual asset market.

Zhiyuan Sun

Crypto, like most other new tech praised upon its creation as apolitical or neutral, becomes political in the hands of the people who use it and regulate it.

“For a long time, crypto people tried to avoid this [governance] question by simply saying that ‘the community’ or ‘the market’ should decide.”