DBS Bank to offer cryptocurrency service in Hong Kong; Huobi Cloud Wallet ceases operations; Paxos disagrees with SEC that BUSD is a security.
DBS Bank to offer cryptocurrency service in Hong Kong
As Hong Kong opens up to the crypto sector, major financial institutions like DBS Group are also aiming to introduce new crypto services over the country.
DBS Group, which is affiliated with the state of Singapore, plans to expand its cryptocurrency services to Hong Kong as it seeks to expand in the China region.
DBS Bank will receive a license to offer crypto trading services to its customers in Hong Kong.Hong Kong lawmakers passed legislation in December 2022 to establish a licensing system for virtual asset service providers.
Sebastian Paredes, CEO of DBS Bank Hong Kong, said:
“We plan to apply for a license in the country so that the bank can offer digital assets to our customers in Hong Kong”
Parades said it welcomes DBS’s new policies regarding crypto in Hong Kong and is highly sensitive to the risks associated with digital assets. The bank added that they want to be one of the first crypto lending companies in Hong Kong once the regulations are fully clarified and DBS fully understands the framework.
DBS Bank launched an institutional crypto exchange in Singapore in late 2020.
Huobi Cloud Wallet ceases operations
Crypto exchange Huobi has announced that it will cease operations of Huobi Cloud Wallet. Although the company says it is a strategic move, the real reason is not yet known.
According to an announcement on Huobi’s support page, maintenance and upgrade activities of the multi-token wallet service will be officially discontinued on February 13. Users still using Cloud Wallet are reportedly transferring cryptocurrencies and NFTs to their main Huobi account or other wallet address.
The withdrawal and transfer functions of Huobi Cloud Wallet will remain active for the next three months. Users were warned not to transfer digital assets to their Cloud Wallets. The official decommissioning date of Huobi Cloud Wallet has also been set as May 13, 2023.
As it is known, Huobi Wallet was rebranded as iToken in May 2022. A total of 200 million dollars was invested for iToken. Huobi Cloud Wallet was first released as a feature of Huobi Wallet in October 2021, allowing users to manage digital assets without private keys.
Paxos disagrees with SEC that BUSD is a security
Paxos disagrees with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on the characterization of BUSD as a security Paxos, the company behind the Paxos Dollar and Binance USD stablecoins, has unequivocally disagreed with the SEC regarding the idea that BUSD is a security.
Paxos said it received an SEC Wells notice regarding BUSD after the regulator claimed it had listed it as an unregistered security.
The company used the following statements in an email to The Block:
“We will engage with SEC personnel on this matter and are prepared to file lawsuits if necessary. To put it bluntly, there are no other conclusive allegations against Paxos.”
Due to the order of the New York Department of Financial Services, the company will stop printing BUSD.
“Paxos has always prioritized the security of its clients’ assets. BUSD issued by Paxos is backed 1:1 by US dollar reserves held in a completely separate account”
The company stated that it will stop issuing new BUSD from February 21, while underlining that BUSD redemptions will be allowed until February 2024.
As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, in a statement on Twitter, stated that they received guarantees that Paxos’ reserves are fully backed.
However, CZ stated that its users could stop using BUSD for transactions and it would make sense to switch to alternative stablecoins.