China Biz Talk - Baiguan Radio EP 9. Binance criminal settlement, US vs. China crypto regulation, and why are(ethnic) Chinese entrepreneurs are so successful in crypto?
Highlights
* The Binance case is significant (although the hefty penalty is only estimated to be ~1 year of profit of the crypto exchange). This case shows that US regulators are tough on crypto, but also do not want to crush it.
* China has an interesting dual-system crypto regulatory regime, with total ban on anything crypto in mainland China, but very encouraging policies in Hong Kong, effectively protecting mainland citizens against scams but also keeping a foot at the forefront of innovation. "One country, two systems" in real action.
* Despite China's ban, Chinese and ethnic Chinese account for a disproportionate share of the crypto community. One big reason is that many crypto businesses, especially the crypto exchanges require a high level of "operational excellence", something Chinese entrepreneurs are very good at.
* Crypto does not equal scam. At the fundamental level, it's not much different from venture capital. So it is possible to look for high-risk, but high-quality teams in this field.
Transcript
[00:00:00]Robert Wu: Welcome to China Biz Talk by Baiguan. This is Robert Wu. The past week is very dramatic for the whole world. The roller-coaster events at OpenAI are simply jaw-dropping. In this part of the world, Taiwan elections have also seen an supposedly unprecedented alliance between leading opposition groups, shattered only within 48 hours after announcement (I had a discussion about that in my personal newsletter). In the meantime a ground-breaking event also occured in the crypto world. World's largest crypto exchange, Binance and its CEO CZ Zhao pleads guilty to US Department of Justice for violating anti-money laundering laws, and pay a whopping $ 4 billion penalty. What does this event mean for crypto?
Today we are having Raymond Huang, a Hong Kong-based serial entrepreneur. Raymond's career spanned from investment banking, management roles at internet companies and starting his own cross-border ecommerce company. Now Raymond runs a Hong Kong-based crypto fund named Mars Capital, which specializes in liquid token investment.
Let's welcome Raymond!
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