Sebastian Sinclair

<div id="highlights-block_633d401c55aef" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Anchorage Digital is pushing deeper into Asia via partnerships with five major institutions</li>
 <li>The firm has avoided the worst effects of the recent market downturn</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Crypto lending platform Anchorage Digital said Tuesday it has decided to plow further into Asia via a partnership with five major domestic institutions.



Antalpha, Bitkub, Dream Trade, FBG Capital, GMO-Z.com Trust Company and IOSG Ventures have lined up to take advantage of Anchorage’s regulated offerings which include integrated financial services and infrastructure solutions. 



The lender is also home to the world’s first federally-chartered digital asset bank in the US and boasts Paradigm’s chief legal officer, Katie Biber, and Andreessen Horowitz general partner Chris Dixon as board members.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“We appreciate Anchorage’s attention to regulatory compliance and vetting of the digital assets they support,” Antalpha’s Chief Investment Officer Will Chiu said in a statement.</blockquote>



With a foothold already firmly established in Singapore, Anchorage is hoping to tap into the lucrative Asian market for digital assets. The platform also hosts business hubs in the US and Portugal.



Central and Southern Asia, as well as Oceania, ranked as the third-largest crypto markets this year, according to a recent study by blockchain analytics firm <a href="https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/central-southern-asia-oceania-cryptocurrency-geography-report-2022-preview/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Chainalysis</a>. The region is also home to seven of the top 20 countries in the firm’s yearly index.



Anchorage’s relationship management team based within the region also provides round-the-clock client operation support while touting a 20-minute time to transact, a feat Anchorage co-founder Diogo Mónica said is unmatched in the market.



Because of its regulatory stature and established presence within the industry, firms have turned to the lender at a time when uncertainty has racked many other players.



The downfall of lending peers <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/tag/celsius/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Celsius</a> and <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/tag/voyager/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Voyager Digital</a> has all but shattered confidence for those larger players seeking to store digital assets via a third-party platform.



Anchorage Digital has remained steadfast. The firm told Blockworks in July it had managed to navigate the credit crunch and contagion that so affected others because it was “<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-lenders-in-turmoil-as-markets-reel-from-unsafe-risk-management/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">properly attuned</a>” to inherent market risks.



Whether that plays out well in the future remains to be seen, but at least, for now, institutions remain confident in Anchorage’s ability to deliver.



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Anchorage Adds Asian Institutional Partnerships

Sam Reynolds

<div id="highlights-block_61826d261e4dd" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>SCB announced Wednesday that it is taking a 51% stake in Thai SEC regulated exchange Bitkub. In July the bank also announced it was launching a fund to invest in DeFi projects in order to prepare for “an era of disintermediation”</li>
 <li>This continues a trend of Asia’s emerging banks investing in digital assets. Earlier this year, Korean banks began to invest in some of the country’s largest exchanges as local regulators required a partnership in place for tax compliance reasons</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) announced Wednesday that it was taking a 51% stake in locally licensed crypto exchange Bitkub, pushing the exchange into Southeast Asia’s small unicorn club with a valuation just over $1 billion.&nbsp;



The terms of the deal published by SCB show the bank will take the majority stake in Bitkub for $535 million. Bitkub’s eponymous token, a rough proxy of a public listing for the exchange, shot up by 74% since the deal was announced according to <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitkub-coin">CoinGecko data</a> and is now trading at $2.44.&nbsp;



“Overall the market reacted very positively to the event, SCB share price went up nearly 10% this week, increase market cap by over $900 million (30 billion THB), approximately double the deal size to buy Bitkub exchange,” Varit Bulakul, head of digital assets at Bangkok’s <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/thailand-sec-not-a-fan-of-listed-bitcoin-macro-proxies/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Brooker Group</a>, told Blockworks in an email.&nbsp;



This is SCB’s second major investment in digital assets this year. In July, the bank announced the founding of its digital assets themed venture fund, SCB 10x, with a specific DeFi mandate.&nbsp;



SCB’s rival, Kasikorn Bank, is also doubling down on digital assets, opening an <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/thailands-regulators-soften-ban-on-nfts-as-local-banks-invest-in-ecosystem/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NFT marketplace earlier in October.</a>&nbsp;



“The best way to do that is to invest in DeFi very actively to learn and prepare the bank, find DeFi partners, integrate DeFi into traditional finance, become a player in this area, and potentially be the disruptor in this area,” SCB 10x’s Chief Venture and Innovation Officer Mukaya Tai told Blockworks in an <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/thailands-siam-commercial-bank-investing-in-defi-to-prepare-for-an-era-of-disintermediation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">interview at the time</a>.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“My view is that in the future, there will be an integration of traditional finance with DeFi.”</blockquote>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Asia’s emerging banks betting big on crypto</h3>



While Hong Kong is often <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/c6477ab5-0063-404b-8e9d-a69f7237ac06" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">associated with Asia’s premier financial center</a>, it certainly doesn’t <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/bankman-fried-says-ftx-no-longer-calls-hong-kong-home-heres-why/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">carry that crown</a> in the era of digital assets.&nbsp;Instead, emerging banks around Asia are picking up the slack and doubling down on crypto.&nbsp;



In Korea, there’s a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/morgan-stanleys-rumored-bithumb-play-shows-institutional-interest-in-koreas-digital-asset-infrastructure/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">strong interest in digital assets infrastructure</a> by legacy financial institutions, first spurred by rules requiring banks to partner with crypto exchanges attaching a bank account to every account on an exchange. This form of Know-Your-Customer authentication is a way to combat tax evasion, and is said to have attracted interest in Bithumb from Morgan Stanley, though a deal never materialized.&nbsp;&nbsp;



However, in the time since, all four of the major Korean exchanges <a href="https://pulsenews.co.kr/view.php?year=2021&amp;no=869508" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">now have strategic investment</a> and partnerships with legacy banks in the country, including KB Bank, the largest in Korea.&nbsp;



Back in Thailand, Brooker Group’s Bulakul thinks that this move by SCB as well as Kasikorn Bank, will mean regulators will act quickly in Thailand and put forward an industry-friendly digital assets framework.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Now that the top two banks are pursuing digital assets, we can expect to see regulations to support the growth of digital assets in Thailand in the near future at a much faster speed,” Bulakul said.</blockquote>



“SCB and Kasikorn Bank will definitely push for mass adoption in Thailand, using the existing customer base. Another reason for fast regulation: these banks will be unable to compete with global and regional peers if they have to endure through regulatory delays,” Bulakul added.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Of course, the elephant in the room is that retail investors in Asia appear to be more interested in crypto than they are traditional equities.&nbsp;



In Korea, the combined volume of the four major digital asset exchanges in the country — Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone and Kobit — is $14.6 billion, surpassing the local stock index called KOSPI’s volume of $14.5 billion.



Down in Thailand, crypto exchanges licensed by the Thai SEC have a monthly turnover of around $3 billion (100 billion THB) while the country’s largest stock exchange, the SET, <a href="https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/thailand-s-new-retail-investors-boost-stock-turnover-to-record" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reaches that volume in a day</a>.&nbsp;



But with two of the country’s largest banks betting big on crypto, that figure might change.