Hong Kong crypto unicorns Animoca Brands and HashKey strike partnership deal as industry gears up for market recovery
- Animoca Brands and HashKey Exchange have signed a memorandum of understanding for a strategic partnership
- Under the deal, Animoca Brands will list its Sand cryptocurrency token on HashKey Exchange
Two major Hong Kong-based Web3 firms, HashKey Exchange and Animoca Brands, have signed a partnership deal as cryptocurrency firms in the city move to boost a virtual asset market that is still recovering from last year’s rout.
Animoca Brands, the blockchain investment and video gaming company, will list its Sand cryptocurrency token on HashKey Exchange, the two companies said on Tuesday at an event where they signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a strategic partnership.
Professional investors will be able to trade the token on HashKey Exchange “in a day or two”, Yat Siu, Animoca co-founder and chairman, said at the event.
Sand is the native crypto token used by Animoca’s metaverse platform The Sandbox. While it was among more than a dozen tokens named by the US Securities and Exchange Commission as an unregistered security in June last year, Hong Kong regulators have not made such statements.
Under the agreement, Animoca will also open an account on HashKey Exchange, where Animoca Brand’s trading team will trade digital assets, said Siu. HashKey Exchange, operated by HashKey Group, is one of only two virtual asset exchanges in the city that have been licensed to serve retail investors.
Both Animoca and HashKey Group are classed as unicorns – start-ups that are valued at more than US$1 billion.
