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Huobi HK is now offering crypto spot trading to retail and institutional clients in Hong Kong, having now applied for a virtual asset exchange license.

The exchange submitted an application notice to the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission on May 29, according to a statement on Twitter. Crypto firms need to apply for the license before they are able to start offering regulated services.

The platform will work with auditors and focus on compliance and anti-money laundering regulations, it added. This will be aimed at meeting the requirements of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission.

Hong Kong recently introduced a crypto licensing regime for crypto exchanges, in order to protect retail investors and allow for innovation. Other firms including BTSE, JPEX and OKX have said they want to apply for the license.

Huobi’s Hong Kong offering operates through the main Huobi website. The exchange said on May 26 that Huobi HK will list bitcoin and ether, among other major coins.

“Regulation of web3 in Hong Kong will contribute to the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies on a global scale. Huobi will continue to collaborate with regulatory authorities in Hong Kong to support the development of a vibrant web3 hub,” the exchange said at the time.

Crypto exchange Huobi has seen $12.7 billion in trading volume so far this month, behind larger exchanges like Binance, Coinbase and OKX.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The token price of the cross-chain protocol Multichain has rallied 35% in the last 24 hours, even though the protocol is still partially offline with no clear explanation.

When the reports about transaction issues first arose and rumors spread that the team may have been arrested in China, the protocol’s native token fell from $8 and dropped as low as $3.30 within days. Yet over the last day, the token’s price jumped to $5.18, before settling at its current price of $4.71.

It’s unclear what caused the price rise, as there appears to be no update from Multichain on the whereabouts of the team. Multichain’s VP of Strategic Partnerships, who goes by Mog, today said in the official Multichain Telegram group that he will “drop in news whenever I have one.”

The price of MULTI has rallied despite no clear update. Image: CoinGecko.

In the project’s Telegram and Discord channels, users are still asking for answers and questioning what the project’s ominous “force majeure” tweet — used to explain why the protocol remains partially offline — really means.

In the project’s Chinese Telegram channel, an admin by the name of Meng said that users need to “wait for Zhaojun to come back,” seemingly in reference to his ability to sign transactions related to upgrading parts of the protocol. Zhaojun is the co-founder of the project, who has been silent during this time period (including to his associates and The Block).

Throughout the last week, various crypto entities have taken action to reduce exposure to the Multichain protocol, its native token and tokens issued through its protocol. These include the Fantom Foundation, Binance, Hashkey Group, Tron founder Justin Sun and Conflux network.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The price of bitcoin has risen to $28,000 after trading below this mark for the majority of May.

Since March, bitcoin has been trading in a range between $27,500 and just above $30,000. Since May 10, the coin has been in the lower half of this range, dropping as low as $26,000, according to CoinGecko. Yet a rally in the evening on May 28 has counteracted this.

Bitcoin price has steadily built up over the last few days. Image: CoinGecko.

As a result of largely bitcoin’s efforts, the wider crypto market cap has grown from $1.19 trillion to $1.22 trillion — up 2.6% in the last 24 hours.

A few coins have followed in bitcoin’s progress, with ether and cardano each up 5% and polygon up 9%. Recently hyped memecoin pepe remains flat at around the $0.0000014 mark.

The rising prices follow news that a deal has been made to solve the U.S. debt ceiling problem. The deal will push back the debt ceiling to Jan 1, 2025, according to Reuters. U.S. President Joe Biden said the deal takes the “threat of catastrophic default off the table.”

The deal may come as no surprise to Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino, who said on The Block’s The Scoop podcast last week that a debt default would be unlikely because of the extreme consequences that it would have.

It may, however, affect former Bitmex CEO Arthur Hayes’ planning for the year. He said that the timing would be interesting if this deal was reached in the fall — something that would create a powder keg of a situation. But with a deal already in the works, perhaps this year will be a little less volatile.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Temasek, a Singaporean sovereign wealth fund that manages assets worth around $300 billion, has cut the pay of staff involved in its FTX investment that soured after the crypto exchange collapsed.

An independent team conducted an internal review of the investment and found that although there was no misconduct by its investment team, the team and senior management “took collective accountability and had their compensation reduced,” Temasek said Monday. It did not detail the amount of compensation cut.

Temasek had invested $275 million in FTX and FTX U.S. and wrote off all of its investments to zero after Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto group filed for bankruptcy in November. Temasek had taken a 1% stake in FTX International and a 1.5% stake in FTX U.S. as part of its investments.

Temasek said last year it had spent around eight months in an “extensive due diligence process on FTX” and is now said it is “disappointed” with the outcome of its investment and the “negative impact” on its reputation.

“With FTX, as alleged by prosecutors and as admitted by key executives at FTX and its affiliates, there was fraudulent conduct intentionally hidden from investors, including Temasek,” the sovereign fund said.

U.S. federal prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried of using FTX customer funds to prop up his now-failed crypto trading firm Alameda Research. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to all charges and awaits a trial in October. He could spend the rest of his life in jail if he is convicted.

Three members of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle — Nishad Singh, Gary Wang and Caroline Ellison — have already pleaded guilty and are expected to testify against him in court.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.