SEA
Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd, the Singapore state investor, says it did not invest in Bitmain Technologies Ltd, a Chinese bitcoin miner. This follows news of SoftBank also denying of making investments into Bitmain. (Deal Street Asia)
China
Xiaomi to foray into India’s mobile payments space. The company has completed trials and testings of India’s Unified Payments Interface and is awaiting regulatory approval. (KrASIA)
Tencent joins Final Fantasy, a Japanese developer, to produce original games for the global market. This strategic alliance comes in the wake of the domestic regulatory crackdown. (SCMP)
Best sign, a major Chinese electronic signature firm, secures US$52.4 million in Series C funding. As technology in the electronic signature field matures, the fight for market share and securing cooperation channels will become more important. (Technode)
Tencent Holdings Ltd saw its share fall by 5% in pre-market trade. This came in the wake of China’s regulatory plans to limit the number of new online games and the total number of titles. (Deal Street Asia)
Users are paying for the cash that Chinese tech giants burn. The prevailing model to prosper in China involves offering massive subsidies to snap up market share as fast as possible. (Technode)
Elsewhere
Line, a Japanese messaging giant, launches its cryptocurrency and blockchain network. The plan is to list LINK on its own cryptocurrency exchange BITBOX in September. (e27)
Why hasn’t the bitcoin bubble fully burst? Research by an economist revealed that the correlation between bitcoin’s price and google searches has been ‘near perfect’, until the end of last year. (CNBC)
Amazon reportedly acquired Tapzo to boost Amazon Pay in India. The price is $40 million and the goal is to leverage Tapzos’s one-stop services app to achieve its goal in India. (TechCrunch)
Medtech firms are getting more personal with ‘digital twins’. This digital twin device can run simulations to see if the pacemaker can keep the congestive heart failure sufferer alive. (Reuters)
New iPhone XS design got leaked two weeks before the annual Apple iPhone event. It’s believed that Apple will announce three new iPhones this year, with the new 5.8-inch and 6.5-inch OLED iPhones, dubbed the iPhone XS. (9to5mac)