MetaComp’s Pre-A+ funding round, backed by Alibaba and Spark Venture, brings the total capital raised to $35 million, with aims to expand its StableX Network globally. Singapore-based MetaComp said Friday it completed a new funding round backed by Alibaba, as the company expands its stablecoin payment infrastructure. MetaComp completed a Pre-A+ round backed by Alibaba, bringing the cumulative total to $35 million across two rounds in three months, according to the announcement. The latest round also featured the European early-stage venture capital investor Spark Venture, with Beijing-based 100Summit Partners serving as exclusive financial adviser. Read more
The Bitcoin network's mining difficulty dropped by as much as 27% within a single adjustment period during China's 2021 crypto mining ban. Update (2-7-2026) This article has been updated to provide the latest projections for the next Bitcoin mining difficulty adjustment The Bitcoin network mining difficulty, a metric tracking the relative challenge of adding new blocks to the Bitcoin (BTC) ledger, fell by about 11.16% in the last 24 hours, the worst drop in a single adjustment period since China’s 2021 ban on crypto mining. Bitcoin mining difficulty is at 125.86 T and took effect at block 935,429, data from CoinWarz shows. The average block time is about 9.47 minutes, slightly under the 10-minute target. Read more
The latest announcement from the People's Bank of China follows months of flip-flopping on privately issued yuan-pegged stablecoins. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the country’s central bank, and seven Chinese regulatory agencies published a joint statement on Friday banning the unapproved issuance of Renminbi-pegged stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). The ban applies to both domestic and foreign stablecoin and tokenized RWA issuers, according to the statement, which was also signed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and China’s Securities Regulatory Commission. A translation of the announcement said: Winston Ma, an adjunct professor at New York University (NYU) Law School and former Managing Director of CIC, China's sovereign wealth fund, told Cointelegraph that the ban extends to the onshore and offshore versions of China’s Renminbi, also called the yuan. “The Beijing crypto ban rule applies across all RMB-related markets, whether CNH or CNY,” he said. CNH is the of...
The US president said he supported the GENIUS Act because it was "politically popular,” but added the main reason was in response to China. US President Donald Trump used part of his speech addressing the crowd at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Wednesday to discuss the motivations behind his crypto policies, saying China’s regulatory landscape was a factor. In a Wednesday speech at the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Trump said he supported the signing of the payment stablecoin-focused legislation, the GENIUS Act, in July because it was “politically good” and “China wanted that market, too.” “[I]t is politically popular,” said Trump on crypto. “But it’s, much more importantly, we have to make it so that China doesn’t get the hold of it. And once they have that hold, we’re not going to be able to get it back.” Read more