Asia Blockchain Accelerator (ABA, 亞洲區塊鏈加速器) yesterday said it aims to support local blockchain applications and founders with a focus on compliance, track record and longevity.
ABA, in collaboration with the ACE Exchange and ACE Blockchain Fund, would provide a wide range of assistance to Taiwanese and foreign blockchain entrepreneurs that includes investment resources, training and business development, it said at a news conference.
ABA aims to build an ecosystem to maximize the business potential of blockchain technology, which is poised to disrupt many aspects of how businesses and economies work, ABA chief executive officer David Pan (潘奕彰) said.
GLOBAL NETWORK
ABA has a global partnership network, which is to provide a great launch pad for blockchain-related start-ups in Taiwan to expand overseas, Pan said.
ABA is subsidized by the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Small and Medium Enterprise Administration, with the goal of making Taiwan Asia’s blockchain hub.
Blockchain technology has taken the world by storm, with 84 percent of global executives saying that their organizations have some involvement, a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey showed.
The technology’s business value is expected to surpass US$3.1 trillion by 2030, Gartner said.
The Executive Yuan has set a goal of growing the digital industry’s output to NT$6.5 trillion (US$209.7 billion) by 2025.
ABA aims to be the most powerful blockchain accelerator in Asia and create more than NT$1 billion in business value in two years, it said.
“We will incubate at least 10 start-ups and increase partnership value,” Pan said, adding that LongHash, the largest blockchain incubator in Asia, is ABA’s strategic partner.
POSEIDON
Poseidon Network, founded by blog platform Wretch Co (無名小站) founder Light Lin (林弘全), aims to initialize a blockchain-enabled content delivery network in Taiwan, Lin said.
Working with ABA, Poseidon is seeking to prove to the world that it is an example of successful blockchain application.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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