Asian emerging-market shares rose on Friday after investors trimmed bets on a September rate hike by the Federal Reserve, following remarks from Fed Governor Christopher Waller. The MSCI Emerging Asia index gained 1.4% and was on track for its best single-day move in nearly seven trading sessions. In Singapore, the Straits Times Index briefly rose 0.9% to a record 5,807.16 points, led by blue-chip bank stocks. The index was up 1.9% for the week and headed for its strongest weekly performance since early July. The MSCI ASEAN index also climbed to a near seven-session high and was up 1% so far this week, according to Jinshi.

Goldman Sachs said in its Aug. 21 Asia-Pacific weekly report that the MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan index, referred to in the note as MXAPJ, rose 1% over the week to 891, while Hong Kong stocks gained 4%, offshore China rose 3%, and Taiwan fell 2%. The bank set a 12-month target of 1,080 for MXAPJ, implying 21% upside and roughly 24% total return including dividends. The report argued that earnings growth is the main support for any valuation recovery: with 84% of MXAPJ companies having reported second-quarter results, net profit rose 135% year over year and 52% quarter over quarter, while 46% beat expectations and the median earnings surprise was 4.3%. Information technology led the region with earnings up 390% from a year earlier. At the same time, Goldman’s prime brokerage data showed hedge fund leverage pulling back sharply. Since August, gross leverage for Asia fundamental long-short funds fell 14.5 percentage points to 181%, the lowest level in more than a year. Net leverage held at 59.3%. The bank also said MSCI’s Aug. 31 index rebalance could trigger about $42 billion in two-way passive flows across Asia-Pacific benchmarks and related non-core indexes. Goldman listed rising long-end U.S. Treasury yields, geopolitical risks, and a weaker-than-expected China recovery as the main downside risks.

Changpeng Zhao said in an interview at the ASEAN Tech Summit that the crypto industry has long faced criticism over illicit transactions, but argued that the data points to a different picture. Citing figures referenced in the interview, Zhao said the rate of illegal activity in crypto is about 100 times lower than in traditional finance. He also said the sector’s transparency and traceability help law enforcement and make it easier to combat crime. The remarks were carried by Techub News and attributed to information shared by WuBlockchain. The comments center on a familiar debate around whether blockchain-based financial systems create more room for abuse or offer clearer audit trails than legacy financial rails.

At a media briefing for Taipei’s "Trendy Taipei 2026" tech event on Aug. 4, Asian FinTech Alliance (AFA) chair and honorary chair of the Taiwan FinTech Association Tsai Yu-ling said she had specifically checked with Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission and was told that virtual asset service providers, or VASPs, will be classified as "financial institutions" under the new licensing framework rather than "quasi-financial institutions." Tsai said the change reflects how crypto assets, which were not legally defined assets last year, have now become legal and compliant assets after the passage of the dedicated law, and can be regarded as financial assets with FSC approval. She also pointed to the next issue for the market: how traditional financial institutions will work with VASP operators now that the law allows financial institutions to run such business lines concurrently. The event also outlined the first AFA Awards, which drew 88 nominations from 16 economies. Nine international judges are set to travel to Taipei for the Sept. 1 final and awards ceremony, where the Top 10 companies will pitch live and winners will be selected on site. FinTechOn 2026 and the second AFA Summit will follow on Sept. 2-3, with speakers including GBBC CEO Sandra Ro, Peter Kerstens, an Abu Dhabi regulator representative, and a JPMorgan managing director overseeing Asia-Pacific product for securities services.

Three developments that surfaced on July 28 point to the same structural shift in institutional crypto infrastructure. Ondo Finance, a major tokenized real-world asset issuer, moved away from the idea of using a public blockchain as the core venue for institutional trade execution and instead backed a model that splits execution from settlement. In Europe, 10 founding banks launched RL1, a regulated and permissioned DLT network organized as a cooperative in Luxembourg, with equal governance rights for members. In the US, CME Group challenged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in court over its decision to allow Kalshi and Coinbase to list crypto perpetual futures. Taken together, the cases suggest that institutions are not rejecting blockchain technology. They are narrowing where and how they want to use it. Execution is moving toward private or permissioned systems built for speed, privacy, and control. Governance remains with regulated entities, cooperatives, or incumbent exchange operators. Public blockchains, in this framework, are increasingly treated as settlement infrastructure rather than full-stack financial rails. According to the article, this has consequences for RWA issuers, trading venues, public L1 and L2 networks, and regional competition in Asia. The report, citing EXIO Research, argues that the long-running narrative that institutions would migrate directly onto public chains now faces a serious challenge.

ChainFeeds’ July 29 research roundup brought together five separate pieces spanning venture capital, Ethereum scaling, industry narrative shifts, RWA perpetuals, and Korean equity-linked market turbulence. One section highlighted comments from Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi, who argued that parts of crypto venture investing may not remain attractive forever, especially if the industry becomes dominated by large incumbent platforms and network effects by 2030. He also questioned tokenization projects built around single assets unless they can scale around assets such as U.S. Treasuries or stocks and solve distribution. Another section focused on Ethereum’s 2030 roadmap, describing a five-part vision that includes 4-second block times, a Gigagas L1 targeting roughly 1 billion gas per second, expanded blob capacity for L2s, post-quantum cryptography, and native privacy through zero-knowledge proofs. The roundup also featured an essay arguing that the “crypto utopia” narrative has faded and that the industry is moving into a more business-like consolidation phase centered on stablecoins, prediction markets, tokenization, perpetuals, and AI agents. The final two pieces examined the growing role of trade.xyz within Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 framework and a sharp move in the SKHX perpetual contract tied to a thin Korean premarket print, which ChainFeeds said triggered cascading liquidations. Together, the report presented a snapshot of how crypto capital, infrastructure, and market structure are changing in mid-2026.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said he supports the creation of an ASEAN-wide regulatory passport for crypto companies, a framework that would let a firm licensed in one jurisdiction expand more easily into other member states. The proposal is aimed at cutting repeated licensing applications across different countries and making cross-border compliance less cumbersome for businesses operating in the region. According to the report cited by Techub News, regulatory standards for crypto assets still vary across ASEAN countries. A unified passport mechanism could help connect those markets more closely and support the broader integration and development of the region’s digital asset sector. The item was attributed to Cointelegraph.

Chinese President Xi Jinping used the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai to pitch broader international AI cooperation, especially with developing countries. According to CNBC, Xi said China will offer 5,000 AI training slots to developing nations and plans to work with regional groups including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Arab League and the African Union. During the event, 29 countries signed an agreement to establish the World AI Cooperation Organization, or WAICO, with its headquarters in Shanghai. The list of signatories included Kazakhstan, Laos, Pakistan, Russia and Indonesia, while UN Secretary-General António Guterres and other representatives from international organizations attended the ceremony. Xi also called for opposition to what he described as the overextension of national security concepts in AI and to putting one country’s security above others. The remarks came as the US continues to restrict China’s access to advanced chips and chipmaking equipment. The report also noted Nvidia’s disclosure that its China market share has fallen sharply, while Huawei showcased its Atlas 950 SuperPoD system at the conference.