How TIA is collaborating with the blockchain community

In line with our mission of helping to grow Asia’s tech ecosystem, Tech in Asia is taking our biggest step yet in putting our weight behind the rapidly growing blockchain community.

We started mentioning Bitcoin as early as 2011 and our coverage of the crypto and blockchain space picked up speed in 2013. That year, we wrote about how Bitcoin mining exploded in China and Terence Lee, our Editor-in-Chief also wrote a piece titled “Bitcoin can change the world but no one knows how.” A writer even gave a first-hand account on how it was like buying Bitcoin in China back in 2015. We also wrote how blockchain can potentially reduce corruption in Asia.

Community members also chimed in – Anson Zeal wrote a piece to explain why Singapore needed Bitcoin and Wayne Wong wrote about the state of Bitcoin in Southeast Asia back in 2014. Anthony Ma recounted his experience in a piece where he explained blockchain to his family and Alan Seng gave his opinion on why blockchain companies will be the future unicorns.

In more recent times, we reported on Binance’s success shortly after it launched, how China’s blockchain industry looks overseas, the rise of blockchain accelerators, and also provided an in-depth look into Bitcoin mining in Inner Mongolia. Other more educational pieces include explaining airdrop and how ICOs work.

Our community meetups have put more focus on discussing blockchain and the upcoming Tech in Asia Singapore 2018 conference on May 15 & 16 will feature a blockchain stage. Tech in Asia’s involvement in the blockchain scene is only going to increase as the community demands more attention. We have seen the number of blockchain startup pitches exponentially increase. As the pitch quantity increases, it becomes harder to decipher between good and bad projects.

We are now faced with two options: Cover every blockchain project, or a select few. We chose to do the latter, because we respect our readers’ time. We aspire to uncover good blockchain projects and produce stories that educate and intrigue readers.

The editorial team, which has always functioned separately from the business team, will continue to provide independent coverage of the blockchain space (and any technology subsector for that matter), regardless of whatever commercial arrangements we may or may not have. However, for certain blockchain companies, Tech in Asia may want to play a bigger role to help them succeed through our range of advisory, content, events, and recruitment services. Just like how we’ve previously worked with companies such as LINE, KPMG, and Baidu, we are looking for blockchain projects that fit these criteria:

• Nice and honest founders
• Strong mission and purpose
• Good blockchain use case

We are looking for founders who are genuinely nice and easy to work with. Determined but not wilful. Confident but not arrogant. Open to feedback and open to giving feedback. The product should have a strong blockchain use case that’s solving a real problem. The company needs a strong mission that is relatable. Most blockchain projects are early-stage with no or little product-market fit. So the team is most important at this stage.

In exchange for our services, we will charge (likely in tokens) to keep our office lights on and keep doing what we love. Any commercial relationship will be visibly and transparently disclosed in the content that results from the arrangement. Naturally – and we’ve remained very consistent about this since Tech in Asia started – we will visibly and transparently disclose all commercial relationships in any content piece that may result from these arrangements, to keep our readers aware of what they are consuming. We have updated our statement of ethics to reflect this too, so that readers may hold us accountable, should we fail on this promise.

Update on Mar 22: Added a clarification on the types of blockchain projects we’d like to work with.

Update on Mar 8: Added a clarification that independent editorial coverage will continue despite our closer collaboration with the blockchain community.