Binance CEO Says Exchange ‘Pulled Back’ Bids on Bankrupt US Firms

Binance CEO Says Exchange ‘Pulled Back’ Bids on Bankrupt US Firms

Major crypto exchange Binance is holding off on any plans to invest in embattled crypto firms in the United States.

In a Feb. 18 tweet, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao disclosed that the crypto exchange has pulled back on potentially investing in some bankrupt U.S.-based companies, opting to “seek permission first.”

Zhao also responded to blockchain investor Anndy Lian’s advice to “stay clear” of these firms, saying he agreed with the notion.

Binance’s U.S.-based subsidiary Binance US was in talks to acquire bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital’s crypto assets. In January, CoinDesk reported that bankruptcy judge Michael Wiles approved initial disclosure statements of the proposed plan.

The approval came after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a limited objection to Binance US’s $1.022 billion offer for Voyager’s assets, questioning how the exchange could afford a purchase of this magnitude.

Binance was also allegedly one of the bidders for bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network’s assets, according to documents leaked by Celsius creditor Tiffany Fong last month. Investment firm NovaWulf was ultimately selected to acquire Celsius’ assets by the firm’s debtors, as per a report last week.

Regulators have turned up the heat on entities like Binance in recent weeks. The crypto exchange’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, issued by Paxos, became the subject of scrutiny after the New York Department of Financial Services ordered the firm to stop minting BUSD. The Wall Street Journal reported that the SEC also hit Paxos with a lawsuit over its BUSD offering.

In light of recent events, many believe that Binance could be turning its attention away from its U.S. business partners entirely. A Feb. 18 report from Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter, stated that the crypto exchange planned to end relationships with U.S.-based intermediaries, and delist all US-based cryptocurrencies. Zhao labelled these claims as “false” in a tweet shortly after, saying “blockchain has no borders.”

 

Source: https://unchainedpodcast.com/binance-ceo-says-exchange-pulled-back-bids-on-bankrupt-us-firms/

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

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Anndy Lian Fireside Chat with Jay Hao, CEO of OKEx “It’s OK to be daring”

Anndy Lian Fireside Chat with Jay Hao, CEO of OKEx “It’s OK to be daring”

Blockcast.cc: Dear all, good to hear from all of you this Monday. Blockcast.cc aims to bring like-minded crypto experts to our weekly interview session. This week, we have Anndy Lian, an intergovernmental blockchain advisor and Advisory Board Member of Hyundai DAC here with us as the moderator and Jay Hao from OKEx as our guest speaker.

Anndy Lian: Hi Jay, how are you? Been a while since we have last chatted. I bet everyone knows who you are but please, tell us more about yourself, your career, past and current work experience.

Jay Hao: Thank you Anndy, of course! My name is Jay Hao and I am the CEO of OKEx, one of the industry’s leading cryptocurrency spot and derivatives exchanges. I joined OKEx just over two years ago and am loving the experience. There is never a dull moment and every day brings a new opportunity or challenge.

OKEx is highly innovative and we offer the broadest range of products, services, and trading tools for our global user base. We work hard to roll out cutting-edge new projects, continually improve the user experience, and to forge partnerships with companies that are pushing the envelope when it comes to what the tech can do.

Prior to OKEx, I worked for several years in the blockchain industry with a particular focus on building blockchain-driven applications for live video streaming and mobile gaming. I started two companies and learned a lot about management, development, and the challenges that come with working in such an emerging field.

Before blockchain, my career was still very technical and I racked up more than 20 years of experience working in the semiconductor industry. We’re talking about a sector with zero-tolerance to risk, so I learned how critical it is to build products that do not fail. This unwavering focus on absolute perfectionism has helped me throughout my career and especially when it comes to keeping a cryptocurrency exchange up and running 24/7 for our users even in the most volatile of market conditions.

 

Anndy Lian: I started the crypto and blockchain early and have seen many exchanges. Far and few managed to stay on top. How did OKEx do that? How is OKEx different from its competitors?

Jay Hao: I believe that it is our steadfast commitment to innovation and to our users. We aren’t just another crypto exchange in the industry, but actively striving hard to change the world for the better and we fully believe that the time will come when financial barriers are eliminated completely and the global financial system can include everyone.

This core vision is vital because, before listing any token or adding any new functionality, we ask ourselves if it aligns with our long term objectives. User feedback is also extremely important to us and we always communicate with our customers, asking them what they would like to see, how we can improve, and serve them better.

As well as CEO of OKEx, I have another job, which I take very seriously, which is Chief Customer Service Officer. I regularly speak one on one to our users and I find this essential to understand who we are making our products for and how we can differentiate ourselves further from our competitors.

Beyond this, OKEx has demonstrated our robust infrastructure many times compared to our competitors and continued uptime even during extreme conditions. We can also offer our users superlative market depth, the most flexible suite of derivatives products on the market, a plethora of yield-enhancing products and practices, and improved risk management capability.

 

Anndy Lian: Customer service is indeed very important and the face for the organization to handle all kind of requests and grievances. You mentioned partnerships earlier, can you tell us about some of the latest partnerships OKEx has entered into and what this means for users?

Jay Hao: We’re still in the first quarter of this year and we have already made so many advances, there are many things I could talk about! As I mentioned, one of our main areas of focus is on user experience and, to that end, we have made deep strides in improving this by partnering with Unstoppable Domains to allow users to receive payments to a domain name, like jon.crypto rather than having to provide a length alphanumeric address. They can also receive payment in all currencies that we support to the same domain, making it much easier, faster, and convenient.

We are also integrating with the Lightning Network to allow users to send Bitcoin transactions much faster at a fraction of a penny. We’re excited about this because not only will it improve the user experience, but OKEx can show our deep commitment to the furtherment of the Bitcoin ecosystem by becoming a node on the Lightning Network.

 

Anndy Lian: Lightning Network is efficient and allows Bitcoin to transact at a low cost is vital for the crypto space. I do see that OKEx is working closely with the Alogorand blockchain too. Tell us more about that.

Jay Hao: Perhaps one of the most exciting partnerships, though, has been adding support for USDC and USDT on the Algorand blockchain (USDTa and USDCa via the Algorand Standard Asset (ASA) protocol). As you are well aware, with the surge of DeFi and the rising price of ETH, gas fees are sky high and transaction times on the Ethereum network are slow. This makes interacting with it using the most popular stablecoins USDT and USDC expensive and even prohibitive to many traders.

Algorand allows for high-throughput, so by using it instead of the Ethereum-based versions, transactions can be processed much more quickly, which is essential to traders when time is of the essence. In fact, the TPS on Algorand is over 1,000 compared to Ethereum’s TPS of less than 15. And, rather than having to absorb punishingly high fees, using these stablecoins on Algorand can cost users as little as $0.001/transaction — regardless of the transaction size.
This is of course extremely advantageous to our users and we are pleased to provide them with this solution to Etheruem’s high congestion and fees while the community works to resolve these issues.

 

Anndy Lian: Now, please share with us what are some of the most interesting tokens that OKEx has listed lately and what criteria do you look for when listing a project?

Jay Hao: That’s a difficult question! The pace of development is so fast in this industry and we are always on the lookout for the most innovative projects that are displaying wide adoption, that have a real use case, a solid degree of decentralization and technical security, and that our users want to see. There has been a lot going on in the NFT space and we recently listed Chiliz’ CHZ token, which is driving fan engagement in sports and proving very popular with individual NFTs selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

 

Anndy Lian: NFT is definitely the trend. This is something that I have spotted in 2018, back then there were not many talks about it. How about the Defi space? What is interesting?

Jay Hao: We’re always keeping pace with developments in DeFi as we firmly believe that this is the future direction of the blockchain space. This week, perhaps one of the most interesting tokens we listed to that end is Perpetual Protocol’s PERP. It allows users to create a perpetual contract for any asset (including gold and oil) and trade peer to peer in a completely decentralized manner.

I think though, Stacks’ token STX, is perhaps one of the most exciting projects to watch this year. There are a few features of STX that really stand out. To start with, it is one of few projects that actually connects to the Bitcoin blockchain and allows developers to build apps and smart contracts that benefit from Bitcoin’s security, network, and capital. On top of that, holders of the STX token can stack their tokens (like staking) and earn rewards for doing so in BTC. Users will soon be able to stack their tokens on OKEx and we will be launching a host of new promotions around this, so be sure to stay tuned!

Above all, we ensure that we only work with the best and most well-respected projects in the space that are showing real innovation, traction, and solving real problems. And we continually reassess the popularity and health of all trading pairs and tokens that we list to ensure that we keep a healthy and robust trading ecosystem for our users.

 

Anndy Lian: This next question will be interesting. I am always curious when I see exchanges coming out with their own chain. Can you tell us a little about OKExChain, the decentralized public chain supported by OKEx?

Jay Hao: We’re extremely excited about OKExChain and the progress that has been made on it since it went live on the mainnet in December 2020. OKExChain has many exciting features but, perhaps the most important is that it is the world’s first trading-focused public chain and, as such, we foresee an entire and robust ecosystem of decentralized trading apps and DEXs built on OKExChain for its high level of decentralization (unlike some competing chains) and its high throughput. OKExChain will be a big contributor to the growth of the DeFi sector as we move forward.

Moreover, OKExChain is compatible with the dual virtual machines of both EVM and CosmWasm, meaning that we have placed a high focus on interoperability that allows blockchains to talk with one another rather than remain in closed silos. Once EVM compatibility is deployed in the final phase of the staged launch, all of Ethereum’s smart contracts will be supported in the ecosystem and developers can easily migrate their dApps over to OKExChain to enjoy low fees and high throughput.

Like Algorand, this will also provide solutions to Ethereum’s problems while also providing some healthy competition to layer 1 protocols, to incentivize them to solve their scalability, TX costs, and interoperability issues for their users.

 

Anndy Lian: A more practical question. How does OKExChain cater to your core user base?

Jay Hao: This is an interesting question. Our core business today remains to facilitate cryptocurrency spot and derivatives trading for millions of users worldwide. However, as the industry has grown, so have the needs of the participants in it and we have to recognize that we must cater to ever-changing types of users, as well as those whose main focus is trading.

We strongly believe in the potential of DeFi even if it hurts our core business as a centralized exchange to some extent. There will always be a place for centralized exchanges in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, especially as more people on board, but those exchanges who fail to recognize the potential of DeFi and the need to create products like decentralized public chains that can satisfy the needs of a different user will likely be left behind.

OKExChain currently caters to a small percentage of our core users but we expect this number to grow steadily as DeFi becomes more mainstream and OKExChain completes EVM compatibility. We also do our best to roll out innovative products that are targeted at more risk-averse users and that allow them to make a passive income through staking instead of trading through products like OKEx Jumpstart and OKEx Earn, always embracing innovation and never being scared of trying new things.

 

Anndy Lian: So, let’s talk about traders on the OKEx exchange, what benefits are there to them for using your platform over others?

Jay Hao: Many traders already come to OKEx for our robust security, high liquidity and market depth, and wide selection of trading pairs and tokens. We also offer the most complete derivatives products, including futures, swaps, and options, in the market. But one feature that we are most excited about is the recent integration of Unified Account, otherwise known as Portfolio Margin (PM).

This is particularly appealing to professional and institutional traders as they now have advanced tools at their disposal to significantly enhance their risk management. Traders can now manage their margin more efficiently by selecting isolated margin or cross margin so that they can have more flexibility over their trading strategies and capital, while offsetting their gains and losses against each other during risk calculation.

Unified Account also places more emphasis on trading rather than operational overhead. So, what I mean by this is that it makes trading much more convenient and efficient as traders no longer need to own an asset to trade it – they can simply use any of their existing collateral and can trade with any instrument and all of their purchasing power. So, if a trader wants to trade EOSUSD, they can do so without having to purchase EOS, but just using their BTC, ETH, or other assets in their portfolio. This also reduces the fees associated with buying altcoins.

 

Anndy Lian: As more institutional and corporate investors enter the space, what is OKEx doing to cater to their needs?

Jay Hao: A huge step forward for us is Unified Account. This provides institutional traders with the type of sophisticated tools that they need to manage their margin and portfolios better. OKEx is one of the very first cryptocurrency exchanges to offer this feature that allows professional traders to access the same benefits that would normally be reserved for high net worth individuals through prime brokers

The OKEx trading platform has several advantages over our competitors, as well, the two largest probably being Binance and FTX. We offer far greater capital efficiency for traders as well as a larger variety of instruments that can be shared on margin. OKEx also supports all currencies on the exchange when it comes to borrowing, whereas Binance only supports BTC, ETH, and BUSD; and FTX only supports borrowing in USD.

Moreover, we support margin sharing among spot trading, leveraged trading, futures trading, perpetual swaps, and options, whereas our competitors limit this feature to only futures trading and swaps. Overall, we believe that our Unified Account feature is vastly superior and it will be extremely attractive to institutional investors as they continue to enter the space and seek a platform that meets their trading needs.

 

Anndy Lian: Finishing up, then, what advice would you give to anyone just looking at the cryptocurrency space now and wondering if they should change careers?

Jay Hao: Now, more than ever before is an extremely exciting time in the cryptocurrency space and these are still such early days. We are experiencing a profound technological and societal shift that has been accelerated by the pandemic and this is the time to decide what side of history you want to be on. The entire future of money is changing, how humans interact with the state, with each other, how we work, socialize, and conduct our lives. Just look at the incredible growth in crypto as traditional sectors are shedding jobs and declining. I would borrow from our company motto and say, “It’s OK to be daring,” now is the time to make the change, follow your dreams, you will not regret it.

 

Anndy Lian: Thanks Jay, good to catch up. We have spoken many times on different occasions, but today is different. We have touched on different aspects of what you are working on. Let’s work harder and do the right thing to make the crypto industry a better face.

Blockcast.cc: Thanks Jay and Anndy for their time with us this morning. You can reach out to Jay at www.okex.com or Anndy at www.anndy.com.

For more information on Blockcast.cc, you can reach us at:

Website: https://blockcast.cc/
Telegram Channel: https://t.me/Blockcastcommunity
Facebook Public Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/asiablockchain
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Blockcastcc
 

 

Original Source: https://blockcast.cc/interviews/blockcast-cc-exclusive-interview-with-jay-hao-ceo-of-okex-its-ok-to-be-daring/

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

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Anndy Lian Interviews Pavel Matveev, CEO of Wirex: “Our industry does not respect tradition — it only respects innovation.”

Anndy Lian Interviews Pavel Matveev, CEO of Wirex: “Our industry does not respect tradition — it only respects innovation.”

Blockcast.cc: The payment tech industry is growing and one of the main player in my opinion is Wirex. My name is Jenny Zheng, Cofounder of Blockcast.cc. We are based in Singapore and have presence in South Korea, China and the USA. This afternoon, I have the chance to speak to the man himself, CEO of Wirex, Pavel Matveev. We have brought Anndy Lian into the house as well for this interview. He is an inter-governmental blockchain advisor, book author for “Blockchain Revolution 2030”, investor and recently took on the role as Asia CEO of DECENT Group, previously he founded the world first blockchain supply chain solutions for fast consumer goods. He will be the one posting the questions to Pavel and facilitate this discussion.

Jenny: Dear Pavel, good to meet you. Can you give an introduction of yourself?

Pavel: Hi Jenny, thank you for the interview. Hi Anndy, thanks for being here as well despite your busy schedule.

My name is Pavel Matveev. I am the co-founder and CEO of Wirex. As well as ensuring that the company is constantly pushing the boundaries of payment tech, I believe that my role includes facilitating and evangelising the mainstream adoption of distributed ledger technology across a number of industries.

Jenny: Our readers would like to know more about you, your past and current experiences or even your hobbies too. Can you share that as well?

Pavel: Sure. Before Wirex, I helped top-tier investment banks like Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital and Credit Suisse build trading platforms and algo-trading strategies. During this time, I recognised that the cost and inconvenience of off-boarding digital currencies was an impediment to their use by both consumers and businesses, despite the latent potential in a tokenised economy. Dmitry Lazarichev and I founded Wirex to solve some of these problems and allow people to use their cryptocurrencies in everyday situations.

In my free time, I like to swim, ski and play video games. Not all at the same time!

Anndy: Impressive background. Tell us more about Wirex. We would like to know more on the progress and the future roadmap. For your information, Blockcast.cc did the PR work for OKEX during your IEO stages for the South Korea market. I was in South Korea during that period of time and we know so much about your company. How was the last 12 months for WireX?

Pavel: It’s an exciting time at Wirex and we’ve recently hit some major milestones. Over the last 12 months, we have partnered with Stellar — preparing 26 fiat-backed stable coins to revolutionise international remittance.

The Wirex Token (WXT) — our own native utility token, built on the Stellar network was also released. We then launched our next-gen, multi-currency Wirex Visa travel card in APAC.

We went on with our development work and have completely overhauled and re-designed the Wirex platform and card in early 2019, including the introduction of interbank and OTC rates for fiat and crypto exchanges respectively.

Lastly, we have received JVCEA Type II membership in Japan.

Anndy: You must have great plans ahead after obtaining the Type II membership, maybe Type I? What geographical expansion plans do you have right now?

Pavel: In terms of geographical expansion, we will begin operating in Japan, Canada and the U.S this year. We’re currently working towards acquiring our Type I Licence from Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) — this will establish the platform as a legal Crypto Asset Exchange Service Provider (only 19 companies have achieved this to date) and allow us to offer our full range of services to Japanese customers.

We’re also continuing to develop our business product, including merchant offers that will allow companies to circumvent traditional payment channels run by Visa or Mastercard and Stablecoin-powered remittance.

Anndy: One reason why I stepped up to be part of a government advisor for blockchain is that I do see that there are a lot of scams in the market and it is not getting any better, depending on how you see it. Of course in my line of work, I do see many companies trying their best to navigate this unregulated space to get the best-commercialised value for their business. How do you see the blockchain and cryptocurrency market in general?

Pavel: Blockchains first use was for the movement of money, e.g. — cryptocurrency or digital currencies. I believe digital currencies are the biggest thing to happen to the financial sector since the Bretton Woods agreement. Not only do they allow for a system of money that sits outside the authority and oversight of central banks and governments but they also enable businesses and consumers to circumvent conventional financial infrastructure.

Legacy banking rails are slow and expensive; cryptocurrencies allow for near-instant transactions at a fraction of the cost, with none of the fees associated with Mastercard and Visa payment infrastructures. Even cryptos market volatility can be mitigated through the use of asset-pegged stable coins such as Dai.

I certainly wouldn’t agree that it is ‘not getting any better.’ The introduction of the 5th Money Laundering Directive (5MLD) means measures are being taken to prevent digital assets being utilised for ransomware purpose. Generally, procedures in line with the regulatory requirements of the traditional financial service sector are being implemented across the industry — an important step in a previously unregulated space.

Anndy: How do you see the term decentralisation in the blockchain space? Do you think it is feasible? Or is there a need to “re-decentralise” it, giving a new meaning.

Pavel: It is feasible. In 2019, we’ve seen a lot of existing and new DeFi (decentralised finance) projects get traction and create real value for real users. Notable examples include MakerDAO launching its multi-collateral DAI upgrade. We expect this trend to continue and are keen on supporting and cooperating with the best projects in the space.

Anndy: What is the future of blockchain? How do you visualise it? Where are the breakthroughs?

Pavel: The future of blockchain is bright, as highlighted above. I believe it has positively changed the world and there are more industries it will have an impact on.

Whether blockchain will become mainstream is a question of when, not if. Cryptocurrencies and stable coins are already revolutionising payments, lending and other areas of finance. Blockchain overall holds huge potential in other areas, too — decentralised data storage, smart contracts and so on.

The overall quality of projects in the space is consistently improving. Real-life use cases beyond investment and trading are increasing and creating real value — this trend will continue.

Jenny: We have reached the end of the interview Pavel. Can you share an inspiring quote for our readers?

Pavel: A quote I admire from another giant in the tech space is:

“Our industry does not respect tradition — it only respects innovation.”

– Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.

Jenny: Yes innovation is the key to the technology industry. Thank for your time Pavel and thanks Anndy for being here with us today.

For more information about Wirex, please go to www.wirexapp.com. You will discover a new way to pay, giving you total control of your crypto and traditional currency, wherever you are in the world.

Original Source: https://blockcast.cc/interviews/blockcast-cc-exclusive-interview-with-pavel-matveev-ceo-of-wirex-our-industry-does-not-respect-tradition-it-only-respects-innovation/

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

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