A Dirty Dozen

Looking holistically at Crypto where V1.0 remains in its death throes and the wave of upcoming court cases will do nothing to remove the concern about its inherent criminality - even if SBF gets a unilateral not guilty verdict - the history is being made in Asia right now and it’s a grinding, bloody history from which crypto emerges bowed and supplicant, or very very dead indeed.

The Hong Kong authorities are all over the previously voluble and unrepentant lippy louts of JPEX, having ‘lifted’ a dozen into custody over a long weekend: Hong Kong JPEX Cryptocurrency Scandal: Police Arrest 12th Suspect, As City Leader John Lee Welcomes Move To Name Trading Platforms Eyeing Licence. The South China Morning Post is leading in its coverage as might be expected. Their article JPEX Scandal Erodes Public Trust In Cryptocurrencies, Sets Back Hong Kong’s Virtual Asset Hub Ambitions: Analysts is highly thought provoking insofar as the linearity of ambition is concerned. The realpolitik is that if HK CEO John Lee is concerned about JPEX and saying so in public that means a lot of regulators (and certainly South-East Asia’s leading pair MAS and HK SFC) are going to have a long hard think about just how they approach the crypto business… To which end the future is a lot more regulation. 

All of a sudden frat boy Friedman and his sorry trial is an afterthought to amuse the American populace just as anything Brian Armstrong or Gary G now joust over, is pretty much an afterthought too on the global stage. I suppose we might spare a thought for Canada’s finest CZ but the reality is he has always sought to eschew his Chinese pedigree in favour of Trudeaunia…and I doubt he will prove overly welcome if he seeks to amp up his presence in S-E Asia very soon unless it is in a super-supplicant way (which would mean closing that controversial oft alleged linkage to the Chinese mainland’s underground crypto business.

Speaking of CZ Inc, they are back in Belgium, baby…