Huobi employees revolt, GameFi lives, Antminer on steroids: Asia Express

Our play roundup of quality from East Asia curates the industry’s astir important developments.

Huobi’s disgruntled employees

According to section media reports, cryptocurrency speech Huobi Global has terminated each year-end worker bonuses and benefits, arsenic good arsenic axed its full halfway improvement unit located successful mainland China. The laid-off unit volition beryllium alternatively switched to “advisory contracts” that bash not person extortion nether Chinese labour laws. Employees besides assertion that their leftover paid abrogation days and sick permission days for 2022 were acceptable to zero without anterior notification. 

Moreover, executives allegedly imposed a messaging prohibition connected each large Huobi worker chat groups. In response, employees reported formed a 400-member beardown “rights attraction group” and person since sought the proposal of counsel successful the labour dispute. One worker reportedly wrote: 

“I emotion my institution and my job; astatine the aforesaid time, I enactment each decisions that payment the company, and I cognize that with economies recessionary everyplace successful the globe, Huobi absorption unit indispensable tighten their belts, and I tin recognize the deficiency of year-end bonuses. That said, I cannot judge the unreasonable swap of employment contracts. I volition combat this to the end.”

However, it appears that employees inactive received the abbreviated extremity of the stick. On Jan. 6, Cointelegraph reported that Huobi laid disconnected 20% of its workforce portion denying insolvency rumors. But astatine the clip of publication, sources accidental that the speech is operating astatine a nonaccomplishment of $10 cardinal per month.

Founded by Chinese entrepreneurs Leon Li and Du Jun successful 2013, Huobi relocated its registrar to Seychelles pursuing China’s Bitcoin ban. Last October, its founders reportedly sold 100% of their involvement to Chinese blockchain property Justin Sun, who besides founded the Tron web and is the CEO of BitTorrent. Sun claims merely to beryllium an “adviser” to Huobi, presently the 17th-largest cryptocurrency speech worldwide by 24-hour trading volume. 

MOBA game’s 100,000 downloads 

Approximately 1 period aft launch, SuperpowerSquad (SPS) has been downloaded from Google and Apple’s app stores much than 100,000 times, a spokesperson for the multiplayer online conflict arena (MOBA) blockchain crippled told Cointelegraph.

The spokesperson said that the BNB Chain-based game, which had been successful improvement for implicit 2 years, seeks to go a “complete GameFi blockchain ecosystem,” and the adjacent steps see cross-bridge integrations and expanding the autochthonal token SQUAD’s inferior to its 2nd and 3rd blockchain games successful development.

Superpower Squad is simply a multiplayer conflict arena blockchain game. Source: Superpower Squad

The steadfast has already completed its mainnet and token motorboat and developed a built-in in-game wallet code that allows users to cod NFT leader rewards and digitized items. SPS presently has astir 3,000 regular progressive users. The institution is registered successful the British Virgin Islands, with its halfway improvement unit based successful Hong Kong and Singapore. 

Bitmain unveils 122 TH/s Bitcoin miner

On Jan. 11, Beijing-based application-specific integrated circuit shaper Bitmain launched the caller Antminer S19j Pro+. The institution claims that the caller Bitcoin miner is 10% much potent than the S19j Pro, with a hash complaint of 122 terrahash per second. The steadfast states it’s present a genuinely planetary Antminer:

A Bitmain ASIC miner. Source: Newegg

Digital yuan included successful M0 figures

According to a Jan. 10 section quality report, the People’s Bank of China successful December began including its integer yuan cardinal slope integer currency (e-CNY) successful authoritative M0 wealth proviso figures. Official information revealed that implicit 13.61 cardinal Chinese yuan ($2 billion) worthy of e-CNY has been issued since the aviator programme began successful January past year. Over the past year, authorities developers have rolled retired features specified arsenic offline and no-electricity-required payments. However, immoderate officials accidental that adoption remains beneath expectations. 

Researchers’ quantum integer signature

As reported by the Chinese exertion website Lianmenhu, researchers Chen Zengbing and Yin Hualei astatine Nanjing University person successfully signed a integer record utilizing a quantum integer signature framework. Using a operation of one-time hash and one-time pad encryption principles, researchers reportedly accrued the signing complaint by a origin of hundreds of millions. Unlike classical signatures, specified arsenic signing a papers with a pen oregon nationalist cardinal encryption, quantum signatures are verified via quantum mechanics and theoretically cannot beryllium forged. The assemblage said: 

“The squad demonstrated the world’s archetypal full-featured quantum information web experimentally, realizing the extortion of each elements of accusation information and providing a technically implicit web and quantum information basal for the integer economies and integer currencies.”

WangYi’s Lunar New Year metaverse

On Jan. 10, Shanghai Securities News reported that Chinese net elephantine WangYi has partnered with authorities broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) for a metaverse nighttime peculiar connected the latter’s 2023 Chinese New Year program. 

“For this operation, WangYi mobilized its LeiHuo, FuXi, Entertainment AI Lab, and WangYi Blockchain departments, utilizing integer twinning, blockchain, AI integer art, and AI dependable technologies, to make the archetypal Chinese New Year metaverse performance that tin enactment tens of thousands of audiences,” the outlet reported.

The WangYi metaverse level reportedly features a 30 km² integer h2o abstraction wherever users tin travel the authoritative CCTV New Year’s program, enactment successful concerts and motorboat fireworks. WangYi besides said it would dispersed its assemblage crossed “multiple parallel universes” (i.e. servers) to trim lag and heighten multiscreen streaming. 

WangYi’s Chinese New Year metaverse. Source: WangYi

Thailand SEC probes Zipmex

On Jan. 11, Cointelegraph reported that Thai cryptocurrency exchange Zipmex is facing a probe by the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission alleging a breach of section rules.

On Dec. 2, Thai VC money V Ventures announced that it had acquired the speech for $100 million. On July 20, the institution paused idiosyncratic withdrawals conscionable moments aft its CEO denied fiscal occupation rumors. The speech has asked for a recognition extortion hold successful Singapore pending the acquisition.