Retail and enterprise blockchain adoption trends dominated the discussions on days three and four of the ongoing virtual conference Unitize, organized by BlockShow and San Francisco Blockchain Week and sponsored by crypto derivatives exchange ByBit. The key topic that dominated discussion was blockchain adoption, which continues to spread across the globe, with governments and corporate establishments developing solutions based on distributed ledger technology. Exploring the blockchain development landscape Speaking during one of Wednesday’s panels at the conference. Yi Ming Ng, a member of the Tribe Accelerator project in Singapore, and Marloes Pomp, a blockchain consultant with the Dutch government, shed …

Benjamin Soh, founder of blockchain development firm STACS, said that institutional players, not business-to-consumer companies, will drive the mass adoption of financial infrastructure built on blockchain technology. During the Unitize virtual conference, Soh said that if they could bring bank institutions to use the blockchain, millions of bank customers will automatically be a part of the blockchain finance infrastructure without them even knowing. Providing bank customers with a blockchain-based wallet while still using the traditional payment gateways will be the necessary first step towards bringing the efficiencies of distributed ledger technology to the financial system, Soh added. Asia is leading …

A collection of organizations teamed up to produce a “map” of what the blockchain landscape looks like in Singapore, and it’s a lot bigger in 2020 than it would’ve been in 2019. Announced at the Unitize blockchain conference, the map is supported by a Singaporean governmental agency called the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), and is mostly a collection of company logos organized by specific business sector. The categories here range from corporate services to smart cities to protocol and infrastructure and beyond. A notable addition for 2020 is decentralized finance (DeFi), a sector that seems to be gaining global …

On Wednesday, a 52-year old man named Fok Fook Seng of Singapore was found guilty of operating a multi-level marketing scam linked to the cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme OneCoin. Since its inception, the OneCoin crypto scam has defrauded investors of more than $4.4 billion. According to local news outlet Channel News Asia, Fok was convicted for promoting the MLM scheme between January 2016 and June 2017 and was fined 100,000 Singapore dollars (~$72,000). The police first pressed charges against him in April 2019 under the Multi-Level Marketing and Pyramid Selling Prohibition Act, which they said was the first of its kind. …

Building Cities Beyond (BCB) Blockchain, a Singapore based tech solution company for smart cities, has launched an innovation grant, worth $15 million, to encourage development on its ecosystem, according to Fintech News Singapore. This innovation grant comes as the company announced partnerships with leading accelerators in Asia to incubate selected projects. Targeting Asian projects The BCB Innovation Grant is said to target up to 1,000 projects within Asia. The $15 million grant will cater to technology startups in the region, with grant participants also gaining access to BCB workshops and facilities to assist and bolster their development capabilities. BCB will …

A report from the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore, or CSA, shows that the number of ransomware attacks cases rose in 2019, compared to figures recorded in 2018. According to a “Cyber Landscape 2019” study published by the Singaporean government, the entity received 35 reports of ransomware incidents in 2019. This represents a surge compared to the 21 cases that reported in 2018. Most of the attacks targeted the travel, tourism, manufacturing, and logistics industries. Phishing attacks also rose in 2019 Phishing cases also saw a sharp increase. The agency discovered 47,500 related URLs in 2019 — up from 16,100 …

A 23-year old Singaporean accused of unlicensed Bitcoin (BTC) dealing is set to become the first person to be charged under the city-state’s Payment Services Act. The Singapore Police Force said on June 23 that the woman — whose identity has not been disclosed — had provided a digital payments token service without a license. She is alleged to have received at least 13 fraudulent fund transfers, worth a total of 3,350 Singapore dollars (~$2,400), which she then used to purchase Bitcoin. The money is thought to be proceeds obtained from victims of online scams. Police claim that the fraudulent …

Spanish soccer giant FC Barcelona has sold out its first FC Barcelona Fan Tokens (BAR), which were sold via sports-focused token platforms Chiliz.net and Socios.com. The $1.3 million sale ran its course in less than two hours. At its peak it sold $777,000 of tokens in less than 2 minutes. Chiliz and Socios CEO Alexandre Dreyfus announced the news in a June 22 tweet. Chiliz and Socios saw a five-fold increase in demand during the sale Dreyfus noted that the token sale saw more than 4,000 fans from 106 countries participate. He told us that the top buyers came from …

Singapore's central bank and financial regulatory authority is looking to cooperate with China in the field of central bank digital money. Ravi Menon, the managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS, has voiced the country’s readiness to enter into a close cooperation with China in relation to digital currencies. Speaking at a financial forum in Shanghai, Menon highlighted China’s progress in the development of its central bank digital currency, or CBDC, known as the digital yuan. Singapore, which is also actively exploring blockchain-based CBDCs, is looking to exchange related knowledge and expertise with China, Sina Finance reports …

Singaporean carpooling app Ryde announced the launch of its own cryptocurrency wallet which will facilitate Bitcoin (BTC) payments for its service. In an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on June 17, Ryde claims to be the first and only ride-hailing application to incorporate Bitcoin payments into its ecosystem. The firm’s customers will be able to use Bitcoin to pay their rides starting on June 22. Other cryptocurrencies will follow Ryde’s wallet, RydePay, will allow its users to convert Bitcoin into Ryde coins to top up their balance and pay for their rides. The conversion happens at market rates, with no fees …

ByteDance, the Beijing-based multinational tech group behind TikTok, is looking into adding banking to its line of products and services. It is currently bidding for a digital bank license in Singapore, according to the Financial Times on Monday. Competition is stiff ByteDance is likely to compete with a few other Asian tech giants including Alibaba’s Ant Financial and electronic leader Xiaomi to obtain one of the five virtual banking licenses that the Monetary Authority of Singapore is about to issue later this year. The news reported, while citing sources familiar with the matter, that the company has applied for one …

The Gemini cryptocurrency exchange is expanding further into Asia with the appointment of former Leonteq Asia CEO Jeremy Ng as Managing Director of Asia Pacific region. The move sets the Winklevoss twins’ exchange up to apply for a license under Singapore’s 2019 Payment Services Act, which requires at least one director to be a Singapore citizen or permanent resident. Ng will oversee the overall strategy and build a team in the region, reporting directly to Gemini’s President Cameron Winklevoss. With more than 20 years in financial services, Ng has worked for leading global banks including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and …