Chinese tech company Meitu has announced a massive purchase of 380 BTC and 15,000 ETH, representing an entry of about 40M USD, as of writing these lines, into the cryptocurrency market.

This came just one month after tech mogul Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, announced that the company would be purchasing 1.5B USD worth of Bitcoin.

Although a large Hong Kong-listed firm publicly buying Bitcoin is undoubtedly noteworthy in and of itself, it’s interesting to note Meitu founder Cai Wensheng’s previous interest in the cryptocurrency. Wensheng has revealed that he “saw the future of Bitcoin” long ago, and that he owned 10,000 BTC ($504M) in 2018.

The New Norm: Companies Buying Bitcoin Around The World

Companies across the US have started dipping their toes into the cryptocurrency market, including MicroStrategy with their $10M Bitcoin purchase just 2 days ago, adding to their already large position.

This announcement from Meitu signals a potential shift of interest expanding outwards from just the United States, instead, encapsulating the global market.

China has some of the largest global companies such as Baidu and Alibaba — a large Chinese firm publicizing and legitimizing the purchase of cryptocurrencies could pave the way for even bigger players like Jack Ma to become officially involved through company funds.

Tesla’s purchase may have served to act as the first domino in a chain of rippling events across the traditional finance system, and several leaders in the industry have started to take note. Some theorize that this point, not owning a small portion of cryptocurrency in one’s portfolio may serve as a much larger risk than owning some, simply because of its properties as a hedge against inflation and global instability.

India’s Finance Minister told CNBC that the country’s reserve bank is not shutting out cryptocurrencies entirely. She said that while the Reserve Bank of India will decide which unofficial cryptocurrencies will be used and regulated, there will be “a window for experiments” in the industry.

New Lease Of Life For Bitcoin In India

India’s minister of finance, Nirmala Sitharaman, spoke briefly on the country’s standpoint on digital assets in a CNBC virtual townhall. She said that several negotiations are being held with the Reserve Bank of India regarding an impending ban.

A lower parliament in India raised a bill to ban all private cryptocurrencies in January. It said that the move was to facilitate the development of the country’s CBDC, which the RBI will issue and regulate. This did not go down well with cryptocurrency enthusiasts and industry stakeholders in the country. In response, they started an online campaign tagged #IndiaWantsBitcoin to get the RBI to reconsider its stance.

Sitharaman’s remarks suggest that the campaign was quite impactful. She said:

“A lot of negotiations and discussions are happening around the cryptocurrency with the Reserve Bank of India. RBI will be taking a call on what kind of unofficial cryptocurrency will have to be planned and how it has to be regulated. However we want to make sure that there is a window available for all kinds of experiments which will have to take place in the crypto world. There will be a very calibrated position taken. A lot of mixed messages are coming from across the world. World is moving fast with technology, we cannot pretend that we don’t want it.”

Sitting On The Fence

India is renowned for its controversial stance on bitcoin after several “back and forth” regulations. The government had initially banned cryptocurrencies in 2018 after warning investors. The halt was later overturned by the Supreme court. The apex court described the ban as “unconstitutional.”

India’s lower parliament received backlash from the global crypto community for what seemed like a ridiculous exception to its proposed cryptocurrency ban. It said it will “allow for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses.” Regulatory bodies in the country had severally pushed the motion to advance blockchain technology adoption while banning cryptocurrencies.

Its non-committal approach has raised question marks regarding the country’s future in the digital asset space.

Digital Rupee Still In The Picture

Although Sitharaman did not discuss the progress of the digital rupee, the second most populous nation may take a cue from its neighbors, China.

China has continued trials of its digital yuan and has distributed millions of dollars in the digital currency to its citizens.

India’s Reserve bank governor, Shaktikanta Das, said last month that although there is no set date for the launch, the digital rupee was “receiving full attention.”

Boasting three and four-digit annual percentage yields, Big Data Protocol (BDP) has become the latest DeFi frenzy as total liquidity on the protocol has skyrocketed to $6.1 billion just two days after liquidity mining incentives were launched.

The protocol announced its fair launch on March 6 where 100% of the initial circulating supply, which is 30% of the total of its BDP token, will be distributed to the community over six days. It is backed by a team of technologists, crypto investors, and data scientists and designed to incentivize liquidity mining over the long term.

There are liquidity pools for twelve different DeFi assets and they have attracted a lot of collateral in just two days. Please mind that keeping the fact that yield farming might generate high rewards, it also carries high risk, so if you’re thinking about investing in any yield farming project – do your own research and note the risks.

Big Returns for DeFi Stakers

Over a million ETH has been deposited in the wrapped Ethereum pool according to the BDP data vault, earning an APY of 40%. Almost 17,000 BTC is currently in the wBTC pool earning 82% APY while the Tether vault has gained 728 million USDT earning 96%.

The top-earning pools are boasting 4-digit returns with OCEAN at 1,375% and TOMOE at 1,315% at the time of writing.

A blog post explaining the tokenomics elaborated:

“Users provide liquidity to earn bALPHA over the course of 3 months. Subsequent data tokens, named bBETA and bGAMMA, will launch after bALPHA, which will further incentivize liquidity.”

A portion of BDP and data tokens are burnt as the usage of the Protocol and marketplace grows over time, it added.

The total supply of 80 million tokens will be divided as follows: 30% distributed in the initial six-day yield farming incentive, 35% allocated to future staking rewards, 25% held as an ecosystem reserve, and 10% to the team and advisors.

The bALPHA data token will have a total supply of just 18,000 tokens which will all be allocated to liquidity mining rewards. Two more data token sets, bBETA and bGAMMA, will be announced in due course the blog post added.

BDP Price Update

At the time of writing, BDP was trading at $5.85, falling 19% on the day after hitting a peak of just over $14 on Sunday, March 7.

The bALPHA price is a little over $10,000 per token after skyrocketing to over $40,000 at the weekend according to Coingecko.