Welcome to The Daily Forkast, July 14th, 2021. I'm Angie Lau, Editor-in-chief of Forkast.News,
covering all things blockchain.
Coming up, India's ICICI Bank blocks international crypto transfers. Korea says banks must report
crypto-related money laundering crimes and fears over plagiarism hit the NFT world.
Let's get you up to speed from Asia to the world.
India's ongoing crypto acceptance saga has taken another turn. One of the country's leading
financial institutions, ICICI Bank, has warned against using its international remittance
services for transferring any form of cryptocurrency.
The Bharat Express reports that bank customers must declare that remittances will not be
used for investment in or purchase of any crypto or virtual currencies.
Customers also being warned that funds should not be transferred to any businesses dealing
in crypto, nor can they be in the proceeds from investments in cryptocurrency.
The CEO of Indian trading platform Unocoin says investors may not be overly worried,
though, as the domestic market is healthy.
"In India itself, the market is quite mature. We have here up to US$100 million in wallets
sometimes."
India's banks have been seeking to limit exposure to cryptocurrencies since the Reserve Bank
of India, or the RBI, issued a circular in crypto in 2018. Despite the ban being overturned
by the Supreme Court a year later, confusion still exists over the status of crypto in
India. That's because lawmakers are still considering legislation that could outright
ban crypto in the country altogether, and so each development in the country is an important
clue to what will ultimately happen in India.
Same could be said about South Korea. Korea's National Assembly scrutiny of crypto industry
regulations continues.
The latest: authorities say banks will not be reprimanded in money laundering cases involving
crypto exchanges. That is, of course, if they report the crime first.
However, if the Financial Intelligence Unit is not informed about anything banks witness,
then the banks will be blamed.
That's in addition to Financial Services Commission had Eun Sung-soo saying that foreign crypto
exchanges dealing with Korean investors will have to abide by the same stringent rules
that domestic exchanges must comply with.
Now four crypto bills were also on the table at the recent National Assembly meeting with
Eun saying the FSC is studying and reviewing them all with the assistance of both the Ministry
of Science and the Ministry of Finance.
And now on to the markets: Bitcoin down almost 4% at just under US$32,000. That's as of 4
p.m. Hong Kong time today at the end of the Asian trading day
And in the top 10 for cryptocurrencies, Polkadot almost down 9% and Cardano down just over
seven.
Meanwhile, the eastern Chinese province of Anhui has become the latest to halt crypto
mining.
Local media outlet Hefei 365 reports that scarcity of electricity triggered the ban,
with the local energy bureau predicting that demand will reach 1.5 times the current supply
level by 2024.
Now authorities have already halted mining operations in Sichuan, Yunnan, Qinghai and
Inner Mongolia, prompting a mass exodus of miners from China.
Despite the bans, though, one player in the industry says miners should not just leave.
"If miners go overseas, unorganized and without strategy, each for himself, it can result
in a price rise in the market. I hope that the Chinese mining companies can save themselves
but they must keep a calm mind."
And here's a little bit of a twist.
Coverage of this mining exodus story in China has also fuelled concerns over plagiarism
in the NFT world after an image used to illustrate the story went viral.
That photo of a woman holding disused mining rig gear was originally published by China's
Caixin Media.
It's now been used to create a number of NFTs which are available for sale on the Opensea
NFT platform. However, the artist has chosen to remain anonymous, which raises questions
over whether they had permission to use the photo in the first place.
Forkast.News has asked Caixin for comment, but received no response by the time of this
report.
And that's The Daily Forkast from our vantage point right here in Asia. For more, visit
Forkast.News. I'm Editor-in-Chief Angie Lau. Until the next time.