Bitcoin is clinging to the US$30k level for now, as the crypto and blockchain world keeps on rolling. And the biggest news overnight has probably come from HSBC in Hong Kong.

The Chinese “Special Administrative Region’s” biggest bank (and indeed the largest bank in Europe) has revealed it’s allowing its Hong Kong customers to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum futures Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), according to media reports after widely followed crypto reporter Colin Wu broke the news.

The ETFs are traded as securities and were listed on HSBC Hong Kong’s “Easy Invest” mobile app on Monday. They offer exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum futures based on derivative contracts that trade on commodity exchanges.

ASX host Blockchain Australia’s Blockchain Week

The ASX, yes, that ASX – the Australian Securities Exchange – yesterday hosted the first day of Blockchain Australia’s Blockchain Week event, which moves along to Brisbane and Melbourne next.

Binance Australia’s CEO Ben Rose told Stockhead, the fact that this conference is being held at the ASX itself is surely a positive sign for the industry here. “A handful of years ago, this might’ve been a meet-up in a cafe!”

One of the most enthusiastic speakers of the day was Immutable co-founder Robbie Ferguson, who spoke to the popularity of gaming worldwide and the opportunity for web3 games and digital asset ownership. He dropped some great info, which we’ll cover in a separate article.

Here were some other quotes that grabbed our attention during the day…

• “Blockchain is not yet mainstream but very influential… all major banks now have a digital assets team.” – Sophie Gilder, Managing Director, Blockchain & Digital Assets at Commonwealth Bank.

• “Modernising Australia’s payment system is a priority.” – Trevor Power, Department of the Treasury, who also told Cointelegraph in a separate conversation that the Treasury’s “token mapping” of crypto assets is adopting a “tech agnostic” and “principles-based” approach.

• “We’re really slow here in Australia, honestly [in relation to regulations]. And there is a risk we’re going to fall behind and maybe the regs go the wrong way where we need to then perhaps catch up and unwind some of that. [In] Hong Kong and the UAE the regs are very supportive… not perfect, but progressive.” – Ryan McCall, Zerocap.

Blockchain Week at the ASX, yesterday. (Pic: Stockhead)

• “Anyone with a mobile phone effectively has access to a digital wallet” – Ben Morris, Circle.

• “We’re sponsoring this event… this is an important region for us and we’re not going anywhere.” – Ben Rose, Binance Australia. (Binance, globally, is facing some regulatory heat and scrutiny amid a lawsuit levelled at Binance.US that alleges Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao evaded US law to solicit US customers.)

“Banks talking about efficiencies & use cases of DLT with tokenization. Reality of how banks look to derisk new tech. Let’s be real, this is a tough crowd after recent events.” – Caroline Bowler, BTC Markets, who later added in a separate tweet:

“Bitcoin at its highest trading price in a year, with volumes still way off anything like exuberance. This is a slow, slow climb out of the pit.”

 

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$1.22 trillion, down about 1% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

TRON… what the hell are you doing back in the crypto majors? Seriously? Anyhoo, where’s the market mover in chief Bitcoin at? Trader Roman thinks he knows…

(As always, none of the tweets posted here, or any information posted in Coinhead for that matter, represent financial advice.)

 

Uppers and downers

Some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

PUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

• Bitcoin Cash (BCH), (market cap: US$4.33 billion) +15%

• Radix (XRD), (market cap: US$865 million) +8%

• Near Protocol (NEAR), (market cap: US$1.37 billion) +7%

• Injective (INJ), (market cap: US$589 million) +7%

• Arbitrum (ARB), (market cap: US$1.48 billion) +4%

 

SLUMPERS

• Aave (AAVE), (market cap: US$911 million) -8%

• Kava (KAVA), (market cap: US$606 million) -6%

• Pepe (PEPE), (market cap: US$637 million) -6%

• Algorand (ALGO), (market cap: US$942 million) -5%

• Hedera (HBAR), (market cap: US$1.57 billion) -5%

 

Around the blocks

Some pertinence and randomness that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse.

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