Asia's weekly TOP10 crypto news (July 22 to July 28)
1. Johnny Ng Kit-chong: Bitcoin Could Be Considered for Strategic Financial Reserves in the Future link
In response to Trump’s speech at the Bitcoin Conference, Hong Kong Legislative Council member Johnny Ng posted a tweet stating: “Bitcoin and Web3 are critical junctures in global development and should be encouraged for worldwide advancement. In the future, under regulatory compliance, considering Bitcoin as part of strategic fiscal reserves could be worthwhile. I believe the SAR government will responsibly and gradually open the market.”
2. South Korea Regulatory News This Week
2.1 South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service Summons Five Major Virtual Asset Exchanges to Discuss Deposit Usage Fees link
The Financial Supervisory Service of South Korea urgently summoned the top five virtual asset exchanges (Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, Gopax) to discuss issues related to “deposit usage rates.” Recently, competition to raise usage rates has intensified following the implementation of the Virtual Asset User Protection Act. Bithumb’s recent increase of the usage rate to 4.0% per annum, followed by a retraction, has highlighted the ongoing issues, prompting Korean authorities to take measures to coordinate the “usage rate calculation method.” A spokesperson from the Financial Supervisory Service stated, “It appears there is no consensus among the exchanges regarding the deposit usage fee calculation standards in the regulatory provisions, so we have summoned the exchanges to reconfirm the calculation method.”
2.2 Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) to Be Held from September 1 to 7, 2024 link
Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) will be held from September 1 to 7, 2024. Over 10,000 attendees are expected at the IMPACT event, which will take place on September 3 and 4 at the Walkerhill Hotel & Resort in Seoul, South Korea. KBW will feature 100 sessions and 250 speakers, including notable figures such as Vitalik Buterin (online), Arthur Hayes, Richard Teng, and Rune Christensen.
3. India Reports 92 Dark Web and Cryptocurrency Drug Trade Cases in Nearly Four Years link
Indian Minister of State for Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai, responded to opposition MP Jose K. Mani’s query in Parliament, revealing that from 2020 to April 2024, there were 92 cases of drug trafficking involving the dark web and cryptocurrencies in India. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), which oversees drug law enforcement, reported 3 cases in 2020, 49 in 2021, 8 in 2022, 21 in 2023, and 11 in 2024 up to April. Rai also mentioned that, in addition to other preventive measures, a special task force has been established to monitor suspicious drug-related transactions, including those involving cryptocurrencies.
4. Chinese Police Crack Down on Criminal Gang Counterfeiting TokenPocket Wallet link
Recently, Chinese authorities dismantled a criminal gang that had been distributing counterfeit TokenPocket wallets. The group had been advertising phishing links through Sogou Browser, luring users to download APK packages and subsequently stealing their wallet private keys or mnemonic phrases. Currently, Google and Baidu have prioritized the official TokenPocket website in their search results, significantly reducing the number of users downloading fake wallets from these platforms. However, many counterfeit wallet links still persist on browsers like Sogou and 360.
5. Gate Exchange Announces Suspension of Services in Japan link
Gate Exchange has announced the cessation of its services in Japan. As of July 22, 2024, it will stop opening new accounts for residents of Japan. The exchange has initiated a legal compliance plan in Japan and will assist customers in migrating their trades to crypto asset trading providers that comply with Japanese regulations. The detailed plan for halting services and transitioning trades will be implemented in accordance with compliance requirements from the Financial Services Agency and other authorities.
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6. Japanese Listed Company Metaplanet Increases Holdings by 20.381 BTC, Now Holds Approximately 246 BTC link
Japanese listed company Metaplanet has acquired an additional 20.381 BTC, bringing its total holdings to 245.992 BTC (approximately $15.5 million). Metaplanet stated that this acquisition completes its initial plan, announced on June 24, to purchase Bitcoin worth 1 billion yen. The company added that the average purchase price of its total Bitcoin holdings is 9.96 million yen per BTC (approximately $63,250).
7. Indian Crypto Exchange WazirX Announces Bounty Program link
Indian crypto exchange WazirX announced two bounty programs: “Track and Freeze,” offering up to $10,000 for actionable intelligence leading to funds being frozen, and “White Hat Recovery,” providing 5% of the recovered amount as a white hat reward. Following a $230 million hack, WazirX reported the incident to the police. The white hat recovery bounty has been increased to 10%, potentially reaching $23 million. The exchange invites global white hat hackers, blockchain forensic experts, and cybersecurity professionals to participate. SlowMist’s @im23pds suggested that the attack was likely by North Korean hacker group Lazarus, rendering the bounty potentially ineffective.
8. Toyota Blockchain Suggests Using Ethereum ERC-4337 for Designing Car Accounts link
Toyota Blockchain Lab, a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corporation, has proposed developing a Mobility-Oriented Account (MOA) based on Ethereum’s ERC-4337 standard. This account abstraction separates the authentication process from key management, ensuring that the account remains intact even if the private key is lost. By maintaining externally referenceable states, it aims to manage vehicle-related information (such as usage history and maintenance records) more transparently and efficiently.
A unique feature of ERC-4337 is the use of the CREATE2 opcode, defined in EIP-1014. This opcode allows for address determination before account deployment, facilitating asynchronous bridging of existing vehicle ID systems with on-chain addresses during the manufacturing process. Toyota Blockchain Lab looks forward to more proposals from the Ethereum community, including EIP-7702.
9. Xiaohongshu User Claims Coinbase Account Deactivated Due to Inactivity, BTC Transferred to Unclaimed Property link
A user on the Xiaohongshu community reported that they transferred all their cryptocurrency to Coinbase at the end of 2021 due to security concerns and only occasionally logged in to check their account. In June 2024, they discovered they could not log in and, upon contacting Coinbase customer service, found that their account had been closed. Coinbase had sold their BTC and sent the funds to an institution in Wyoming, citing the reason that their account had been inactive for a long time and the assets were considered “unclaimed property.” According to Coinbase’s policies, accounts with no activity for 3–5 years may be classified as unclaimed property, depending on state laws.
By checking the Wyoming Unclaimed Property Division’s website, the user found that this situation is not uncommon. However, some comments pointed out that it is a common practice in the U.S. for financial accounts with no activity for two years to be sent to unclaimed property and that users can reclaim their assets by applying through the proper channels.
10. Case Within a Case: Former Huobi Employee Suspected of Stealing Tens of Thousands of Private Keys Sentenced to Three Years link
According to an official post by Ping An Xuhui, three employees of Company A — Zhang, Dong, and Liu — decided in early March 2023 to insert a backdoor program into a certain virtual currency wallet software to obtain users’ private keys. By the end of May 2023, after storing the stolen private keys and corresponding digital wallet addresses, they destroyed the server and database, agreeing not to use these private keys to illegally obtain users’ virtual currency until two years later. They managed to illegally obtain over 27,000 mnemonic phrases and more than 10,000 private keys, successfully converting more than 19,000 digital wallet addresses. In April 2024, the Xuhui District People’s Court sentenced the defendants Liu, Zhang, and Dong to three years in prison and fined each 30,000 yuan for the crime of illegally obtaining computer information system data.
However, the informant, Ou, was not a victim of the theft by these three individuals (as the agreed time had not yet arrived). Upon investigation, it was found that another former employee of Company A, Zhang Yi, had inserted a backdoor program into the virtual wallet software used by Ou on another platform. In July 2021, Zhang Yi wrote code in the client software that collected users’ private keys and mnemonic phrases, which were then sent to his email whenever users conducted virtual currency transactions.
In April 2023, facing personal financial pressure, Zhang Yi used the illegally obtained mnemonic phrases and private keys to access Ou’s virtual wallet and transferred all virtual currency to his own wallet. Zhang Yi had illegally obtained more than 6,400 users’ private keys and mnemonic phrases. For the crime of illegally obtaining computer information system data, Zhang Yi was sentenced to three years in prison and fined 50,000 yuan.
Notably, Company A is suspected to be the original Huobi company. According to an exclusive report by WuShuo in 2023, due to the actions of former employees, mnemonics and private keys of some iToken (formerly Huobi Wallet) users had been leaked. HTX responded that the incident was due to actions by former Huobi employees prior to the acquisition and that the stolen mnemonics and private keys were a result of personal misconduct by these employees. HTX stated it was cooperating with Shanghai police to conduct investigations and collect evidence.
Justin Sun responded that the employees involved in the theft of private keys were problematic employees hired during the period before 2022 by the former shareholders. After conducting financial and code audits in 2023, these issues gradually surfaced. The company cooperated with the Xuhui police in successfully investigating the crime of illegally obtaining computer information system data. The court eventually sentenced the defendants to imprisonment and fines. From the beginning of the investigation, the company actively cooperated with relevant authorities in all investigative and evidence-gathering efforts. The transparency of on-chain data helped ensure that the criminals could not evade detection, assisting the police in swiftly solving the case.
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