Good morning, Asia. Here’s what’s making news in the market:
Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing. We bring you a daily summary of the top news US time, as well as an overview of market movements and analysis. For a detailed overview of the US market, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.
China Renaissance’s reported plan to raise $600 million for a BNB-specific investment vehicle, with Binance founder Zhao Changpeng’s YZi Labs also co-investing, may seem like a simple bet on the Binance ecosystem. However, Singapore-based market maker Enflux argues that this goes deeper and is a signal that Asian financial institutions are building a different kind of crypto exposure than their Western counterparts.
“Regional capital allocators are seeking exposure to infrastructure tokens that facilitate transaction flows, rather than simply store-of-value assets,” Enfrax said in a note to CoinDesk, framing the China Renaissance movement as part of a broader divergence between East and West.
BNB is a great example. Of course, Binance is not a publicly traded company, but BNB acts as something very close to a stock. Its value represents market sentiment and confidence in Binance.
While US and European markets are leaning towards tokenized US Treasuries, funds, and real-world assets, Asian capital markets are building crypto-native liquidity networks around exchanges, staking, and trading infrastructure.
“This ties in with broader changes where Asian capital markets are building their own layer of crypto-native liquidity networks, while Western markets are tokenizing TradFi,” Enflux continued.
The logic is simple. Value should be created by activity, not scarcity. Tron’s move to create a publicly traded company to provide public investors with exposure to activity on the TRX network, which is frequently used to send USDT across Latin America, follows the same line of thought.
If Enfrax’s thesis is correct, the China Renaissance Fund could be an early blueprint for Asia’s next institutional product, a permanent capital vehicle that connects the conduits of not only gold but also the crypto economy.
Market movements:
Bitcoin: BTC is trading relatively flat above $114,500 as the market stabilizes after last weekend’s volatility.
Ethereum: Despite an outflow of $118 million from the US-listed Ethereum ETF, ETH rose 1.5% to $4,230 as network activity increased.
gold: Gold soared 2% to a record high of $4,103 an ounce as investors turned to safe-haven assets amid renewed U.S.-China trade tensions and expectations of further Fed rate cuts.
Nikkei 225: Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed on Tuesday as President Trump’s conciliatory remarks on China failed to offset renewed trade tensions, with Japan’s Nikkei stock average falling 1.34%.
Elsewhere in cryptocurrencies:
- TD Cowen (The Block) says virtual currency market structure bill may need to wait until after midterm elections
- Tom Lee’s Bitmine buys hot spots, adds over 200,000 ETH to Ethereum treasury (CoinDesk)
- Ripple is offering $200,000 to “attack” the XRP ledger lending protocol (decryption)
