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TOPIC

Bitcoin

Bitcoin
Bitcoin, released to the world in 2009 by a person or people called Satoshi Nakamoto, is not backed by a central bank or a government and is seen as an alternative payment system. In February 2013, Bitcoin went into the mainstream as a monetary crisis threatened to bankrupt Cyprus, seen as a safer bet. Early adopters of Bitcoin have been richly rewarded as the price has soared – in one case, a young Norwegian bought a house from an $850,000 windfall on a US$22 investment.
Illustration: Henry Wong
China-Asean relations

Why China was so keen to get to alleged cybercrime boss Chen Zhi first

Young tycoon, who was indicted by the US in October, was extradited from Cambodia this month, accused of running a vast scam network.

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Banking & finance

Scam, corruption cases spark Chinese debate about future of virtual money

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Banking & finance

Opinion | To harness crypto ingenuity, financial threat must first be neutralised

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Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin drops below US$90,000 as AI worries sour risk appetite

The fall signals renewed market jitters after the historic crypto crash in October.

Standard Chartered slashes expectations that bitcoin would hit US$200,000 by the end of 2025, lowering its forecast to US$100,000. Photo: Shutterstock
IPO

Hong Kong crypto exchange HashKey wins listing nod in test of investor appetite

HashKey could raise around US$300 million this month amid Hong Kong’s push to develop its digital asset sector.

Cryptocurrency

Uptick in China’s bitcoin mining prompts debate on tapping energy surplus

China’s oversupply rate of solar energy in some regions has exceeded 10 per cent while that of wind energy has reached up to 15 per cent.

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Banking & finance

Macroscope | Global stablecoin surge highlights overlooked risks in crypto finance

The politics around digital currencies have extended into the long-running battle for supremacy between the world’s major currencies.

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A pedestrian walks in front of a currency mural on a shop shutter in Hong Kong on December 2024. Photo: Antony Dickson
Cryptocurrency

Macroscope | Bitcoin’s bruising month shows the perils of going mainstream

Despite years of progress, the cryptocurrency is still in a vulnerable spot halfway between pure speculation and institutional adoption.

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China economy

Bitcoin mining in China rebounds, defying 2021 ban

Individual and corporate miners exploit cheap electricity and a data-centre boom in some energy-rich provinces, miners and industry data say.

Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency market extends slide as bitcoin falls below US$86,000

The slump has options traders eyeing the US$85,000 threshold for market bellwether bitcoin.

Cryptocurrencies are in bear market territory. Photo: Shutterstock
Law

Legal Tales | How Hong Kong’s law protects those drawn to crypto and virtual asset investments

City has introduced groundbreaking, tailor-made laws designed to protect the public when investing in new class of financial products.

The price of bitcoin fell to as low as about US$16,000 in late 2022. Photo: Jelly Tse
Cryptocurrency

Chinese crypto founders shelve US$500 million ether digital asset treasury plan

Proponents call off the project amid the worsening cryptocurrency market conditions.

India

India’s debt-backed stablecoin challenge to US dollar dominance explained

Advocates argue the ARC token will lower India’s borrowing costs, strengthen the rupee and stem outflows to dollar-backed cryptocurrencies.

Malaysia

Crypto power theft drains US$1.11 billion from Malaysian utility firm

According to the government, 13,827 premises had illegally used power to mine cryptocurrency between 2020 and August this year.

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Illegal cryptocurrency mining has cost a Malaysian utility company more than US$1 billion. Photo: Shutterstock
United States

ChatGPT and X among sites disrupted in worldwide Cloudflare outage

The company, whose network handles around a fifth of web traffic, says a fix has been deployed and services restored.

A woman holds a smartphone displaying the logo of social network X. Thousands of users reported issues with the platform on Tuesday. Photo: AFP
Alibaba

‘Extreme fear’: bitcoin crash hits Hong Kong-listed firms tied to digital assets

Bitcoin dives below US$90,000, impacting firms that had boosted their shares by rolling out various digital asset strategies.

Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin ETF investors in the red after cryptocurrency’s US$89,600 level breaks

The breach marks a test of mettle for investors, underscoring how fast optimism has faded in cryptocurrency markets.

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Blockchain

Bitcoin erases year’s gain as crypto bear market deepens

‘The general market is risk-off,’ one analyst says.

Bitcoin has fallen back to levels reached at the end of last year. Photo: Reuters
Cryptocurrency

US, Chinese authorities ramp up actions against syndicates running crypto scams

Syndicates either trick or coerce targeted victims to invest in bogus schemes and transfer funds via bitcoin, ether or stablecoins.

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Cryptocurrency

Video | China’s ‘Goddess of Wealth’ jailed for over 11 years by UK court

Qian Zhimin defrauded 128,000 investors in China from 2014 to 2017 in fraud case that also led to conviction of Malaysian Seng Hok Ling.

Britain

Chinese ‘super villain’ jailed in UK for US$6.4 billion bitcoin fraud

Qian Zhimin and her assistant Seng Hok Ling are jailed after the largest bitcoin seizure ever by British police.

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Qian Zhimin was sentenced on charges of money laundering and possessing and transferring criminal property after pleading guilty in September. Photo: Metropolitan Police via Reuters
Cryptocurrency

China, UK police join forces to recover funds from massive crypto fraud

UK police in 2018 seized digital wallets holding more than 61,000 bitcoins, now worth more than US$6.7 billion.

British police in 2018 seized digital wallets holding more than 61,000 bitcoins as part of an investigation. Photo: Shutterstock
Artificial intelligence

DeepSeek and Qwen AI models crush Western rivals in cryptocurrency trading challenge

In a real-world test of trading intelligence, China’s DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Qwen AI models have outpaced their Western rivals including GPT.

Currency war

Could China ‘militarise’ cryptocurrencies to beat financial sanctions?

Communist Party newspaper Study Times argues that digital assets are the new toolbox for wartime financial strategies.

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Crime

Binance founder Zhao pardoned by Trump in latest crypto clemency

Zhao served a four-month sentence in 2024 after pleading guilty to failing to safeguard anti-money-laundering measures at Binance.

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Binance founder Zhao Changpeng in Hong Kong on August 28. Photo: SCMP
Hong Kong

Hong Kong launches Asia’s first Solana ETF ahead of the US

Launched by fund manager ChinaAMC (HK), the ETF will offer returns that closely correspond to the performance of the SOL token.

The Solana network was founded in 2017 and took off in popularity in 2021 during the non-fungible token boom. Photo: Shutterstock
Asean

Asian Angle | Safer than cash? The real risks cryptocurrency poses to Southeast Asia

Crypto’s champions argue the technology offers unmatched transparency and security. But a closer look at the numbers tells a different story.

Blockchain

US seizure of tycoon’s US$13 billion in bitcoin raises anonymity questions

Seizure of alleged ‘pig butchering’ scammer’s tokens is latest in series of cases showing law enforcement’s ability to confiscate crypto.

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