Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has pledged to cover all losses from a hack that it said drained around US$6.3 billion from its wallet. At that scale, it would be the biggest crypto theft on record, surpassing the US$1.5 billion stolen from Dubai-based exchange Bybit in February 2025, a theft the FBI attributed to North Korea. Binance said in a post on X on Friday that it had suspended all deposits and withdrawals while its team conducts security checks,...

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) warned of considerable uncertainty over the path of US interest rates as it kept its base rate unchanged at 4.25 per cent on Thursday, hours after the US Federal Reserve also held its benchmark rate steady. The Hong Kong dollar could continue to weaken due to the gap between Hong Kong and US interest rates, as that would lead carry trade activity, the HKMA said in a statement on Thursday. In carry trades, investors borrow in low-interest currencies to...

JPMorgan Asset Management (JPMAM) expects to launch more actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in mainland China after its first such fund there hit the 2 billion yuan (US$300 million) fundraising cap on the first day of sales, its China chief said. “The first launch is just an opening move in a much bigger game,” Desiree Wang, the firm’s CEO for China, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post on Tuesday. Any active strategy that suits the ETF vehicle and meets investor...

In September, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu unveiled the city’s first five-year plan along with his policy address, highlighting Hong Kong’s strategic role in promoting the greater use of the yuan outside mainland China as a key priority. In the second part of a four-part series on the globalisation of the yuan, Daisy Wu examines Hong Kong’s evolution from an offshore reservoir into a self-sustaining yuan ecosystem. Of the hundreds of thousands of people who cross the border between mainland...