Chinese Tech Giants to ‘Do Battle’ for Blockchain Talent + More News

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.

Blockchain news

• A Chinese blockchain talent acquisition battle has begun, with heavyweight tech giants like Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba in direct competition for a small group of top blockchain experts, per Sohu. The media outlet stated that the Big Data Research Institute at the recruitment firm Lagou’s latest report on the state of employment in the nation’s industry 4.0-era sector showed a huge spike in blockchain recruitment postings at large firms this year. Blockchain-related postings are up 67% this year. The annual rise in AI-related jobs, in contrast, was just 37%. Tech giants are leading this race, the media outlet added, noting that 93 blockchain-related job postings are currently live on the Alibaba careers page.
• An international blockchain-based food and medicine traceability collective named the Food and Drug Blockchain International Alliance has been launched in Beijing, China, also per Sohu. The media outlet reported that the alliance’s executives comprise officials from the University of Cambridge in the UK, a World Health Organization executive and a professor at the Beijing Technology and Business University, with sponsors hailing from Africa, East Asia, the Middle East, Europe, North America and beyond.
• The city of Mariupol in Ukraine has launched a blockchain-powered platform for enrolling children in sports clubs, swimming classes and even kindergartens. According to an official post from city authorities, the platform is part of a program aimed at boosting the “openness and transparency of the city council’s operations,” and make use of “unique blockchain technology solutions.”

CBDC news

• Major payments company Mastercard announced a proprietary virtual testing environment for central banks to evaluate Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) use cases. The platform enables the simulation of issuance, distribution and exchange of CBDCs between banks, financial service providers and consumers, the company said.

Stablecoin news

• Multi-asset brokerage platform eToro started an initiative that uses yield farming to give out free crypto-backed stablecoins, called GoodDollar. It is described as “a digital coin and wallet that allows you to receive FREE basic income with real monetary value straight to your phone.” The project will issue a stablecoin, $G, that can be distributed to registered users daily as “small daily income,” adding that “GoodDollar creates an ongoing money flow of basic income that is given away to users.”
• Tether (USDT) launched its first stablecoin on the Solana (SOL) blockchain. Solana claims that it will be possible to exchange USDT “at speeds greater than 50,000 transactions per second—often for less than USD 0.00001 per transaction.”

Exchanges news

• Binance said it is entering the Turkish market, through the launch of Trbinance.com, which is is a fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-crypto exchange.
• In a long-running case, the New York Attorney General’s office has asked the court for a new order that would have crypto exchange Bitfinex and the stablecoin Tether (controlled by the same owners, iFinex) produce the requested documents that would provide detailed information on a USD 900m line of credit Tether extended to Bitfinex, according to a filing.

Crypto adoption news

• Digital asset lending and borrowing platform Cred has joined Visa‘s Fast Track program, speeding up the process of integrating with Visa. Per the press release, acceptance into this program enables Cred to leverage several Visa capabilities to facilitate lending and borrowing of digital assets around the world, including sending interest payments directly to customer bank accounts through Visa’s network, issuing Crypto Line of Credit (C-LOC) cards, allowing customers to access a credit line without liquidating their crypto assets, and a way to acquire digital assets using Visa payment products.

Investments news

• Diginex, the company behind the newly launched EQUOS.io crypto exchange, has raised more than USD 20m, upsized from an initial target of USD 15m, ahead of a Nasdaq listing this month. The investment round was led by several institutions and family offices across Europe and Asia, the press release said. The new capital will help the company “meet certain listing requirements, paving the way for a successful business combination with 8i on Nasdaq in late September,” said Richard Byworth, CEO of Diginex.
• Cross-chain compatible, decentralized delta-one asset protocol Linear Finance has raised USD 1.8m in financing led by key strategic investors including NGC Ventures, Alameda Research, Hashed, CMS Holdings, Genesis Block, and Kenetic Capital among others. According to their press release, Linear Finance is now integrating with Binance Smart Chain as a layer-two solution with the aim to solve issues that existing synthetic asset protocols face.
• A major producer of Bitcoin (BTC) mining equipment, China-based Canaan, has announced that its board of directors authorized a share repurchase program under which the company may repurchase up to USD 10m worth of its outstanding American depository shares (ADSs). Under the program, the company could repurchase its ADSs “from time to time” through open market transactions at prevailing market prices, privately negotiated transactions, block trades, or a combination thereof, Canaan said in a press release.