China has had a tumultuous relationship with the cryptocurrency sector and the speculation regarding a comeback is growing.

Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Tharman Shanmugaratnam, spoke at the WEF23 and stated a controversial take on crypto regulations and questioned if regulating crypto could legitimize speculation, VulcanPost reported.

Embattled crypto lending platform Vauld one more time gets the period of creditor protection from a Singapore court. The company should come up with a revival plan before Feb. 28. 

The head of Singapore-based Spartan Group’s $100 million venture studio has quietly left after less than a year in the role. It remains unclear what motivated the departure. Shaun Heng, who was appointed to head of Spartan Labs in March 2022, parted ways with the business, said Kelvin Koh, co-founder and managing partner at Spartan Group, who added that Adrian Lai, previously Spartan Labs’ creative and design lead, is now heading up the venture studio. Heng's departure was confirmed by two people familiar with the matter, who added that he left in December. Heng did not respond to a request for comment. (The Block)

Molecular Group, a leading investment firm based in Hong Kong, is pleased to announce the establishment of its new investment company, XMG Capital. Located in Singapore, a hub for the rapidly growing blockchain industry, XMG Capital will focus on investing in high-quality blockchain projects, equity, tokens, and Web 3.0 technologies in the payment sector. The company will also explore opportunities in the wider fintech space.

Poolin had issued I-owe-you tokens in exchange for its users’ crypto deposits. A Singapore arbitrator said that’s not OK.

Singapore’s Central Bank had earlier proposed imposing a ban on lending digital tokens of retail customers by crypto firms. The Blockchain Association of Singapore, a main crypto lobby group has opposed this proposal claiming it to be “overly restrictive.” They also disagreed about the proposal of a complete ban on crypto firms extending incentives to the retailer and called it “too draconian.”

2,000 plots of geolocation-based Freehold Land NFTs launching on December 17, 12:00 UTC

Crypto-friendly Signature Bank (SBNY) announced that it would shrink its deposits tied to crypto assets by $8 – $10 billion.

Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange BingX has listed Baby DogeCoin (BabyDoge) for spot trading. The exchange said in <a href="https://support.bingx.com/hc/en-001/articles/13209713150745-BingX-Spot-Adds-Baby-Doge-Coin-BabyDoge-Trading-Pair" target="_blank">a recent blog post</a> that it chose to list the cryptocurrency due to popular demand.