Hello, Asia. Here’s what’s making news on the markets:
Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of the top news stories during U.S. business hours and insight into market movements and analysis. For a detailed look at US markets, check out CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.
China Renaissance’s reported plan to raise $600 million for a BNB-focused investment vehicle, with investment from Binance founder Changpeng Zhao’s YZi Labs, may seem like a simple bet on Binance’s ecosystem. But Singapore-based market maker Enflux says it’s about something deeper: a signal that Asian institutions are building a different type of crypto exposure than their Western counterparts.
“Regional capital allocators are seeking exposure to infrastructure tokens that drive transaction flows, not just store of value assets,” Enflux said in a note to CoinDesk, framing the Chinese Renaissance movement as part of a broader divergence between East and West.
BNB is a great example of this. Binance, of course, is not a listed company, but BNB is very close to a stock. Its value is an indicator of market sentiment and confidence in Binance.
As U.S. and European markets shift toward Treasuries, funds, and real-world assets, Asian capital markets are increasingly building crypto-native liquidity networks centered on exchange, staking, and transaction infrastructure.
“This is part of a broader shift in which Asian capital markets are building their own layer of crypto-native liquidity networks while Western markets tokenize TradFi,” Enflux continued.
The logic is simple. Value must be created by activity and not by scarcity. Tron’s decision to create a publicly traded company to give listed investors exposure to activity on the TRX network – which is widely used to send USDT across Latin America – follows the same reasoning.
If Enflux’s thesis is correct, the China Renaissance fund could be an early model for the next wave of institutional products in Asia: permanent capital vehicles that hold the pipes of the cryptoeconomy, not just its gold.
Market movement:
BTC: BTC is trading above $114,500, relatively stable as the market stabilizes after last weekend’s volatility.
ETFs: ETH rose 1.5% to $4,230 as network activity accelerated, even as US-listed Ethereum ETFs saw outflows of $118 million.
Gold: Gold jumped 2% to a record high of $4,103 an ounce, as renewed U.S.-China trade tensions and expectations of further Fed rate cuts pushed investors toward safe-haven assets.
Nikkei 225: Asia-Pacific markets were mixed on Tuesday as Trump’s conciliatory remarks on China failed to offset renewed trade tensions, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 falling 1.34%.
Elsewhere in Crypto:
- Crypto Market Structure Bill May Have to Wait Until Midterm Elections, Says TD Cowen (The Block)
- Tom Lee’s Bitmine Bought the Dip, Adding Over 200,000 ETH to Ethereum’s Treasury (CoinDesk)
- Ripple offers $200,000 to ‘attack’ XRP Ledger lending protocol (decrypt)
