Today’s top tech news, January 9: Coinhako to offer 100 fiat-crypto pairings, SoftBank will no longer take controlling stake in WeWork

Prisca Akhaya

9 January 2019 at 8:10 am

Also, Equinix to build US$85M worth of data center in Singapore, Privé Technologies buys digital engagement startup Hive Up

Coinhako to offer 100 fiat-crypto pairings [Press Release]

Coinhako, a Southeast Asia-based blockchain platform, announced that it now offers trade option pairings for 25 cryptocurrencies and 4 Asian fiat currencies for Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. This puts the total number of cryptocurrency and fiat currency trade pairings on the platform at 100.

Although speedy, the limitation in direct cryptocurrency purchases with fiat currencies makes it debilitating and complex. To access certain cryptocurrencies, users must make multiple transactions – ranging from FX exchanges, crypto-to-crypto exchanges and moving tokens across different platforms. These practices incur a variety of fees.

Also Read: Online investment startup Ajaib secures US$2.1M from SoftBank

The mission of Coinhako is to help to accelerate crypto access in the region. Besides Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) exchange services, Coinhako users can now gain access to Bitcoin Cash(BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP), Omisego (OMG), Zilliqa (ZIL), the 0x project (ZRX), Kyber Network (KNC), Status (SNT), Golem (GNT), Basic Attention Token (BAT), QuarkChain (QKC), Waltonchain (WTC), District0x (DNT), Pundi X (NPXS), DigixDAO (DGD), Mithril (MITH), Loom Network (LOOM), Storm (STORM), Binance Coin (BNB), SONM (SNM), Gifto (GTO), Civic (CV), True USD (TUSD).

Coinhako has also added wallet support for Stablecoins such as Paxcoin(PAX), USD Coin (USDC) and Dai Stablecoin (DAI). Coinhako has shared that it will add on new cryptocurrency and fiat pairs through the year focusing mainly on emerging markets.

SoftBank Group Corp. will no longer take a controlling stake in real estate company WeWork Cos. [Bloomberg]

After investing more than US$8 billion in WeWork, SoftBank now has come to a decision that it will no longer go through its initial plan of taking a controlling position. Had it come through, the Japan company would spend another US$16 billion just to buy a big chunk of the company, as shared to Bloomberg by an anonymous source.

The cold feet is likely due to recent declines in tech stocks — particularly SoftBank’s shares — which are down about 20 percent in the last month.

On its own, WeWork’s 7.875 percent bonds dropped 3 cents on the dollar to 86 cents on Monday afternoon in New York, which made it the lowest price since the debt was issued last April. The bonds are due in 2025.

Originally the SoftBank Vision Fund, in part backed by the Saudi Arabian government, had discussed buying the controlling stake in WeWork. Now, SoftBank the company is planning to make a minority investment directly.

Both SoftBank and WeWork declined to comment on the issue.

Equinix put in US$85M for the fourth data center in Singapore [Press Release]

The interconnection and data center company, Equinix Inc., announced yesterday that it plans to start the construction of its fourth International Business Exchange

(IBX®) data center in Singapore, called SG4.

The new facility is said to provide interconnection and premium data center services to help businesses with their IT transformation and cloud adoption initiatives, while also supporting the digital infrastructure of Singapore. The investment made onto the seven-story data center is worth US$85 million, scheduled to open in Q4 2019.

Located at the eastern part of the country, SG4 will provide approximately 4,220 square meters of colocation space, offering an initial capacity of 1,400 cabinets. The facility is planned to accommodate more than 4,000 cabinets at full build out, with a total colocation space of approximately 12,280 square meters, all using 100% clean and renewable energy.

SG4 will also provide software-defined interconnection through the Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric

(ECX Fabric

) to more than 1,300 businesses. Names that already on the list to use the facility are some of the largest cloud service providers (CSP) like Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud, and Tencent Cloud.

Fintech Privé Technologies buys digital engagement startup Hive Up [Press Release]

A global fintech solution Privé announced that it has bought out Hive Up, a financial-literacy content startup from Singapore.

“Privé will be able to help us accelerate our mission of bring wealth management to the masses. Our team is excited to join forces with Privé,” said Qiuyan Tian, the CEO and co-founder of Hive Up.

“Hive Up’s expertise in the mass affluent and wealth management segments contributes to Prive’s mission to bring wealth management to all,” said Charles Wong, CEO and co-founder of Privé Technologies about the acquisition.

Hive Up focuses on highlighting financial concepts and engaging the everyday person via mediums such as articles, infographics, workshops, and webinars, all the way to curriculums and institutional trainings. For enterprise businesses, the company builds management platforms and client-facing applications for financial advisors.

Malaysia’s RHL Ventures invests in SaaS platform HealthMetrics [Press Release]

Malaysia-based investment firm RHL Ventures has made an undisclosed amount of investment into healthcare SaaS platform HealthMetrics. The investment is a follow-on and RHL Ventures has participated in the seed round before.

HealthMetrics Co-Founder, Alvin Yuan, said that the investment will enable them to build an extensive network of healthcare suppliers not only Kuala Lumpur, but also in Penang, Johor and Malacca.

Also Read: Go-Jek is forced to pause expansion to the Philippines

Employees’ medical benefits has been an overlooked segment which has resulted in companies overpaying on employee insurance premiums and in employees underutilising their benefits due to the lack of transparency, inconvenience, and overcomplexity involved in the management part.

The platform supports human resource (HR) administrative tasks related to employee well-being by integrating its solution to a company’s existing HR management system. Employees, on the other hand, can use HealthMetrics’ mobile app to check their medical benefits balance and enjoy cashless visits to the clinics.
–

Image Credit: HealthMetrics

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