We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Yat Siu, the co-founder, group executive chairman and managing director of Animoca Brands, who leads various NFT projects.A veteran technology entrepreneur and investor, Yat is the co-founder, group executive chairman and managing director of Animoca Brands — a global leader in blockchain and gaming with the mission to deliver digital property rights to the world’s gamers and internet users. Animoca seeks to create a new asset class, play-to-earn economies and a more equitable digital framework contributing to the building of the open Metaverse.Yat began his career at Atari Germany in 1990. In 1995, he moved to Hong Kong to establish Hong Kong Cybercity/Freenation, the first free webpage and email provider in Asia. In 1998, he set up Outblaze, an award-winning pioneer of multilingual white label web services. In 2009, he sold Outblaze’s messaging unit to IBM and pivoted Outblaze to become an incubator of projects and companies to develop digital entertainment services and products. One of those incubator projects is Animoca Brands. 1 — From smart contracts to DApps, NFTs and DeFi, we have seen so many of crypto’s next “killer apps,” but none have really taken off yet. What will stick?The killer apps for crypto are already here, they’re just in need of further growth and penetration. Gaming is the killer app — more specifically, GameFi. Games like Axie Infinity and The Sandbox have captured the imagination of thousands and have grown accordingly by enabling their users to own their own game content and benefit materially from that content. The top DApps tend to be games (DappRadar currently lists six games in the top 10 DApps), and I do not expect that to change. 2 — If you were investing in startup companies right now, what kind of blockchain-based business opportunities would catch your eye? As it happens, we are, in fact, actively investing in blockchain companies (startups and non-startups) all over the world. We are particularly interested in projects that can drive mass adoption, and in this we consider Metaverse-related companies to be critical to future growth. By that, I don’t just mean Metaverse world builders but also the companies that provide open assets that will be used in the Metaverse — for example, virtual car builders as opposed to an entire racing game.Another important quality that we look for is openness. We invest in projects that grow the open Metaverse and facilitate the delivery of true digital property rights based on assets that derive their utility from being open, interoperable and composable. This includes platforms and protocols (Flow, Polygon, etc.) and marketplaces (OpenSea, Bitski, BNV, etc.), as well as consumer products like games and worlds. In essence, the companies that we invest in must be open to openness.My concern is that the large Web 1.0 and 2.0 companies, which already enjoy a massive user advantage, will try to shape the Metaverse into a series of closed systems operated on their terms and under their total control. These proprietary metaverses are not likely to be very democratic and will lack the openness and digital property rights that should rightfully characterize the next iteration of our online experience.I think that tech giants like Facebook are unlikely to offer their metaverse users any meaningful degree of ownership — or they might do so at face value, but then implement strict content and usage licenses as we see in social media services today. Without digital property rights, it will not be possible to create a democratic, responsible, equitable Metaverse.  3 — Which countries are doing the most to support blockchain — and which ones will be left behind? The winners in this arena will be countries with a history of serving alternative and/or fast-growing financial products and that are highly supportive of blockchain — such as Liechtenstein, Singapore and Switzerland. Other winners will include highly developed economies that have contributed to and promoted the blockchain industry — Germany, for example, where spezialfonds allow pension funds and insurers to hold up to 20% of investments as cryptocurrencies, and where the stock exchange (Deutsche Boerse) and a major bank (Commerzbank) have already invested to support the trading of NFTs.Countries that experiment and invest in the blockchain space will attract growth and the best and brightest talent, and those that don’t will miss out not only on the benefits of the technology but also on the talent. One example of this is how Australian crypto companies are moving to places like Singapore and drastically lowering Australia’s competitive capacity in this important, growing segment of technology and finance.This alert about Australia’s missed opportunity is being sounded not only by crypto pundits and similarly interested parties but also by respected industry sources such as the CEO of National Australia Bank, one of the major financial institutions in the country.Countries with a well-established culture of disruptive innovation, such as the United States, continue to forge ahead in blockchain despite the risks involved and the lack of clarity from regulators. I think that the U.S., despite having more regulation, will remain a key environment for blockchain-related companies and associated venture capital (global crypto growth is fuelled in significant part by U.S. venture and other capital). Regulation is important, and I hope it can be achieved without stifling growth and innovation.The biggest losers will be countries that reject applications of blockchain (including crypto) and, particularly, countries that reject the entire digital asset space. The use of fungible and nonfungible tokens provides an open, transparent value system where growth is being driven by the network effect. The more people join this new open system, the stronger it becomes, while the old closed networks become more isolated and less attractive.For a nation, rejecting blockchain and crypto is like refusing to join the World Trade Organization and saying no to global free trade. 4 — What talent do you lack and…

Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.Top Stories This WeekBinance to launch $1B fund to develop BSC ecosystemBinance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, announced an accelerator fund worth a whopping $1 billion this week. The funds will go toward supporting the development of the Binance Smart Chain ecosystem. Binance outlined that the 10-figure sum will be part of a tiered development model across four specialist areas: Talent Development, the Liquidity Incentive Program, the Builder Program and the Investment & Incubation Program.The largest benefactor of the fund is said to be the Investment & Incubation Program, which will receive around $500 million, according to Binance. The branch will focus on multichain expansion in areas such as metaverses, gaming, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Coinbase follows FTX and Binance in launching NFT marketplaceCoinbase announced on Tuesday that it is launching an NFT marketplace later this year. The platform will initially support tokens from the Ethereum blockchain and will be launched in the U.S. before being expanded globally.Given that Coinbase tallied around 68 million verified users and 8.8 million monthly active users in Q2, the firm’s new NFT platform could soon mount some serious competition to giants such as OpenSea.Evidence of this was seen after the announcement, as sign-ups for the waitlist reached almost 1.1 million people within 48 hours. In contrast, data from DappRadar shows that OpenSea has a rolling 30-day average of 261,000 active users. G7 leaders issue central bank digital currency guidelinesThe Group of Seven (G7) forum, composed of the world’s seven largest advanced economic nations, discussed a totally centralized form of digital assets called central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) this week. The meeting resulted in the endorsement of 13 public policy principles regarding their implementation.The G7 determined that any newly launched CBDCs should “do no harm” to the central bank’s ability to maintain financial stability, suggesting that harm to individual sovereignty by tracking one’s spending habits and programming their money is on the table.Some of the CBDC-focused policies included mandates that the digital currencies must be energy efficient and fully interoperable on a cross-border basis, along with complementing the current cash-based system. Crypto lending firm Celsius Network raises $400MCrypto lending platform Celsius Network raised $400 million in an equity funding round led by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and WestCap. The firm said it will use the fresh capital to double its headcount to around 1,000 employees and expand its offerings and products. “It’s not $400 million. It’s the credibility that comes with the people who wrote those checks,” Celsius Network co-founder Alex Mashinsky said in an interview with the Financial Times on Tuesday.Another firm to close a capital raise was crypto risk management company Elliptic, which raised $60 million in Series C funding. The round was led by Evolution Equity Partners and included support from SoftBank Vision Fund 2, AlbionVC, Digital Currency Group, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital and SBI Group, to name a few. Top engineers working on Facebook’s wallet jump ship to A16z’s crypto fundReports surfaced on Monday that two of the top engineers working on Facebook’s spooky digital currency project packed their bags and took a hike to venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).The engineers who escaped the clutches of Mark Zuckerberg are named Nassim Eddequiouaq and Riyaz Faizullabhoy. The duo spent two years working on Facebook’s digital wallet dubbed Novi. Faizullabhoy will serve as the chief technology officer of a16z’s crypto division, while Eddequiouaq will take on the role of the chief information security officer.“Andreessen Horowitz has shown an impressive dedication to advancing the entire crypto ecosystem over the past decade, and we jumped at the chance to join their premier team and provide technical support to their rapidly expanding portfolio,” Faizullabhoy said.  Winners and Losers  At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $60,687, Ether (ETH) at $3,817 and XRP at $1.13. The total market cap is at $2.44 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Stacks (STX) at 38.94%, Perpetual Protocol (PERP) at 30.55% and Telcoin (TEL) at 24.63%.The top three altcoin losers of the week are Arweave (AR) at -21.68%, Terra (LUNA) at -17.50% and Fantom (FTM) at -15.41%.For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.   Most Memorable Quotations “Bitcoin is a lot less risky at $43,000 than it was at $300. It’s now established, huge amounts of venture-capital money have gone into it, and all the big banks are getting involved.”Bill Miller, founder of Miller Value Partners “I think the big difference between Ethereum and Bitcoin is that Bitcoin is a platform where the value of the ecosystem comes from the value of the currency but, in Ethereum, the value of the currency comes from the value of the ecosystem.”Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum “I can say ‘I have a gold ETF or a Bitcoin ETF,’ but I’m storing that gold in my basement. Is the SEC going to allow that? Probably not. Unless companies can show they can custody it and actually address a lot of the issues Gensler specifically mentioned, it’s not going to work.”Tad Park, founder and CEO of Volt Equity  “I’m not a student of Bitcoin and where it’s going to go, so I can’t tell you whether it’s going to $80,000 or zero. But I do believe that there is a huge role for a digitized currency, and I believe that’s going to help consumers worldwide — whether it’s a Bitcoin or something else, or more of a governmental official digital currency, a digital dollar, that will play out.”Larry Fink, chairman of BlackRock “We haven’t even gotten to the parabolic growth part of Web 3, which is going to create untold wealth.”Mark Yusko, CEO of Morgan Creek Capital “The reason I own Bitcoin is because the U.S. government and every government in the western hemisphere is printing…

This weekly roundup of news from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong attempts to curate the industry’s most important news, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory landscape, and enterprise blockchain integrations.  This week China is back to work after its week-long national day celebrations, an event that is always filled with flag-waving, military parades and enthusiastic nationalism. This year’s version was intensified by the recent homecoming of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou after three years of detention in Canada, as well as heightened tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Government regulators have spent the better part of the last half-year wiping out the cryptocurrency industry in the mainland, a topic that has given the Shanghai Man plenty of topics to discuss in this weekly column. Limited access to marketsOn Wednesday, Binance took a step towards compliance by announcing it would be closing P2P for RMB markets. According to the announcement on Binance’s website, the change will happen on December 31, 2021. Meanwhile, it will check for users from the mainland of China and switch their accounts to a withdraw-only mode. At the same time, users will only be able to withdraw, close positions, and other essential functions. Binance will notify corresponding users by email 7 days before the account switch.  The closure of RMB P2P markets makes holding crypto a bit more risky in China  The news was not well-received by the remaining retail holders, who feel that fewer and fewer reliable off-ramps are available without resorting to more drastic measures such as offshore accounts. Binance had been one of the most popular P2P markets, due largely to the reputation of the exchange, its liquidity, and Binance’s geographic distance from Beijing. Binance has always maintained that its website was blocked in China and it doesn’t have an exchange business presence here, therefore it was exempt from mainland regulatory policy.  There’s no denying that a lack of P2P fiat options will make investing in crypto a lot less comfortable for Chinese citizens living in mainland China. With the eCNY central bank digital currency right around the corner, tighter fiat regulations might make it hard to move large amounts of fiat in and out of the crypto markets. On the other hand, many people are less concerned, knowing that OTC markets will spring up whenever there is an opportunity to provide an in-demand service. Technology always has a way of developing where it is needed the most. Reading between the linesThe move seems quite severe on paper, but there are still a few grey areas that need to be examined. It’s no secret that going into this year, millions of Chinese users were registered on top exchanges and many of them were active traders and large holders. Some of them will likely be deterred by recent government policies and exchange rules, and reduce their exposure to the asset class. Others are actively being funneled into DeFi, as evident by the rising on-chain trading volumes coming from China. Other users will simply elect to wait, especially considering the rapidly-changing nature of national policies. One common belief is that exchanges that elect to self-regulate may not actually enforce this policy very strictly at first. This is supported by the lack of clarity on how overseas Chinese users should be handled. Users may be able to circumvent rules altogether by supplying proof of international residency or alternative forms of ID. The silver lining here is that any sell pressure caused by uncertainty or fear from Chinese investors will be dampened by a long transition period of compliance. For a company that operates completely outside of China, it’s very difficult for regulators to enforce policies, especially if the exchange is claiming to self-regulate, by banning IPs, and not accepting new Chinese registrations. This is the strategy that exchanges such as OKEx and Gate.io seem to be following, as both of these large platforms with Chinese roots announced that they were already fully compliant, didn’t accept Chinese users, and as a result wouldn’t be making any drastic changes. Gate announced its policy without emphasizing the removal of existing mainland Chinese users. https://t.co/q3yYLMX0Wp— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 13, 2021 A prominent social media Influencer on Weibo wrote: “The content of this announcement is a bit strange. I think the exchange will conduct a self-check and try to discover the remaining Chinese users on the platform, but in the case after the self-check the exchange announces there are no Chinese users, the exchange will just leave them there.” This post was later deleted on Weibo. Currently, all topics related to Binance and other exchanges are censored by social media apps like WeChat. Waning impactPerhaps the most surprising takeaway from all this was the market indifference to the news. Previous announcements of this magnitude have had very pronounced effects on the market price. On Wednesday, following the announcement by Binance, the BTC price dipped briefly before bouncing back to over $58,000 the following day. What this shows it that the market is putting less weight on the impact of news coming out of China, instead focusing on narratives like the hoped-for upcoming ETF approvals in the US and Vladimir Putin’s surprise admission about cryptocurrencies. Investors can take solace in the fact that with more growth and decentralization, the market risk is more diversified. The right to enforceOn October 11, the financial magazine Caijing put out a story discussing the enforcement of the recent crackdown on cryptocurrencies. The main points were that the recent announcements from the Central Bank were merely guidance and that actual judicial interpretation and enforcement needed to come from the public prosecution authorities in the court system. The article implied that judicial bodies were now conducting research into the legality of mining and cryptocurrency businesses, and that this could spell trouble for rule breakers. Those who had currently succeeded in skirting the rules might not be out of hot water, yet.