BroadChain News, April 22, 16:30, according to Bitcoinist, Bybit led an $8 million Series A funding round for Malaysian digital asset exchange Hata, with global family offices participating. This is Bybit's second investment in Hata, having previously led its $4.2 million seed round. Since commencing operations in 2023, Hata has registered over 209,000 users and recorded a trading volume of approximately 1 billion Malaysian Ringgit (about $225 million) this year.
Hata holds dual licenses from the Malaysian Securities Commission and the Labuan Financial Services Authority, enabling it to offer digital asset trading and custody services, a rarity in the region. Bybit CEO Ben Zhou stated that Malaysia, with its highly digitized population and strong willingness to adopt digital assets, is a strategically important market. Bybit is currently the fifth-largest cryptocurrency exchange globally.
This funding round coincides with Malaysia's central bank actively building a digital asset regulatory framework. The central bank has launched a Digital Asset Innovation Center as a regulatory sandbox to test use cases such as Ringgit stablecoins and programmable payments, and has released a three-year roadmap for asset tokenization. Standard Chartered, CIMB, and Maybank are participating in three tokenized deposit and cross-border settlement sandbox projects. A Malaysian telecommunications company has also issued a Ringgit stablecoin, RMJDT, based on the Zetrix blockchain.