Bitcoin Daily: Hong Kong’s OSL Gets Preliminary OK To Trade Virtual Assets; VeChain Launches Eco-friendly Blockchain Solution

Asian digital asset platform OSL was given initial approval Friday (Aug. 21) to operate a virtual asset trading platform, according to a press release.

Once the approval is finalized, the license will allow it to work in dealing in securities and as an automated trading service (ATS), regulated under Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC).

OSL, a member of BC Technology Group, will be allowed to operate a brokerage and trading platform for digital assets, such as security tokens, the release stated. It will be the world’s only publicly listed, licensed, insured and audited digital asset platform, which BC Group CEO Hugh Madden said is “a game changer,” as it would give investors much more certainty and confidence in the form.

In other news, Polychain Fund, the cryptocurrency fund of San Francisco’s Polychain Capital, has attracted another $20 million in investments this year, according to a report from Finance Magnates.

SEC filings show that the fund has a total of $300 million in assets overall now. The money is mostly invested in cryptocurrencies and other such businesses, and it’s comprised of cryptocurrency assets, equity in companies and unspent cash from investors.

The new fund, according to Finance Magnates, shows there’s still confidence in cryptocurrency despite its volatility and the uncertainty from the pandemic’s economic effects.

Meanwhile, DIA, the Zug-based decentralized finance (DeFi) aggregator, has raised $15 million through selling its governance token, it announced Friday (Aug. 21).

The Swiss firm told CoinDesk that this is the first round of its token sale and that, after three days of a private sale, 30 million tokens were offered for sale. That’s 15 percent of the total DIA supply, CoinDesk reported.

DIA is marked as an open-source data aggregator for DeFi markets. The sales will go toward its ambitions of making an “open-source Bloomberg for DeFi,” CoinDesk reported.

And, VeChain, an “enterprise friendly” blockchain platform, is building a new sustainable model based on blockchain for companies to capitalize on the trend of being environmentally friendly, according to a press release.

The idea is to implement “a value-driven approach for businesses to streamline sustainable practices during the supply chain and manufacturing process,” the release stated. The model, called the Blockchain-enabled Sustainability Solution, was built on VeChain’s own ToolChain Blockchain-as-a-Service platform.

Blockchain’s transparent approach to data, the company said in the release, will allow for transparency so consumers can ascertain how eco-friendly the companies they’re buying from are, and for companies to more easily make sure they’re being eco-friendly by tracking the practices involved with the goods they use and the companies they’re doing business with.