OK Group Expands into China

Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange, OKEx’s parent firm, OK Group, has announced investment into a blockchain firm in Wuhan, China to the tune of 10 million RMB.

According to the announcement on April 8 via China’s state news network, Xinhuanet, the investment has been in deliberation since late 2019. With the completion of the agreement, OK Group will be investing $1.4 million into Yun Qu Technologies, a blockchain startup.

Yun Qu Technologies provides blockchain-related information services including managing a Chinese language crypto news website. It is also in the process of developing a big data tool. The tool is designed for extracting and providing insights into analytical information from blockchains. It garnered the interest of OK Group as having possible applications in streamlining Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance.

Chainalysis, Elliptic, and CipherTrace are reportedly among Yun Qu’s clientele.

Utilizing Asia Pacific Innovation Center

Last year, OK Group had lined up investment plans in China with an announcement of setting up the Asia Pacific Innovation Center.

“OK Group will make full use of the Asia Pacific Innovation Center to support the innovation and entrepreneurship in the blockchain industry via selecting the potential projects, cultivating industry talents, and incubating the blockchain star-ups,” said Xu, who is also CEO & co-founder of Beijing-based OKCoin exchange.

The Group had detailed the center’s function as housing a blockchain data research institution besides being an international blockchain entrepreneurship base. It also added that the institution would focus on building blockchain applications to boost the adoption of the technology.

The latest interest and investment in Yun Qu Technologies seems to be in line with this.

OKEx launch small balances conversion tool

As the parent firm is expanding and increasing its relevance, its subsidiary OKEx has also been busy delivering interesting features to users.

OKex recently announced the launch of a tool that helps users convert their small balances, commonly referred to as ‘dust’.

Notably, OKEx clients convert “dust” to the OKB token. Users can obtain some value from the unutilized “dust” by selecting the “Convert Small Balances to OKB” button in the “My Account” settings menu. This works similarly to Binance’s conversion of small balances to BNB, its native exchange coin.