🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Hata uses two licenses to widen its reach

• Hata was founded by David Low, former country manager at Luno Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., a cryptocurrency exchange in Malaysia. He set out to challenge his former employer, which he said built more than 90% market share in Malaysia within five years 1.
• Hata is the only digital asset exchange in Malaysia regulated by both the Securities Commission Malaysia, the country’s capital markets regulator, and the Labuan Financial Services Authority, the regulator for Labuan’s offshore financial center 2.
• The structure lets Hata serve local users in Malaysian ringgit while running a global platform with US dollar rails and conversion to USD Tether (USDT), a US dollar-linked stablecoin, said Low 1.
• That gives Hata a regulated link between fiat currencies and digital assets that local-only exchanges do not offer, which helps explain Bybit’s investment 3.

New funding lines up with coming rule changes

• Based on Securities Commission Malaysia figures and industry feedback, local exchanges handle 30% to 40% of Malaysians’ digital asset trading. That leaves 60% to 70% on offshore platforms, with 35 billion ringgit (US$7.4 billion) to 46 billion ringgit (US$9.7 billion) estimated to have moved through them 4.
• Malaysia’s Securities Commission is expected to ease token listing rules after updated Guidelines on Recognised Markets (RMO Guidelines) for Digital Asset Exchanges arrive in the first half of 2026 4.
• Hata said the new funds will deepen liquidity, speed up user growth, and support new digital asset products for Malaysians with Bybit as listing rules ease 3.
• That may sharpen competition with offshore exchanges such as Binance, which has been on Securities Commission Malaysia’s Investor Alert List since 2020 for carrying out unlicensed capital market activities 4.