BSN to launch South Korea portal; Canaan secures huge rig order

Transcript

Welcome to The Daily Forkast, September 1st, 2021. I’m Angie Lau, Editor-in-Chief of Forkast.News covering all things blockchain.

So we’ve been talking about this for a while now, China’s blockchain ambitions in BSN or Blockchain-based Service Network created to spur mass adoption of blockchain technology within the country. But its latest announcement demonstrates how that’s developed into wider global ambitions. We’re going to talk about that and a whole lot more coming up.

All right, Red Date Technology, which China tapped to manage its Blockchain-Based Service Network, has now partnered with South Korea’s Metaverse Society to offer a blockchain as a service portal.

The portal, which is expected to launch in November, will allow developers in South Korea to build blockchain applications. Already thriving on home turf in China, BSN is now expanding globally.

So after this move in Korea, where next is the question?

Forkast.News Timmy Shen reports from Taipei, Taiwan,

In its first expansion outside China, BSN’s South Korean portal will allow blockchain project developers to fuse frameworks with chains such as Ethereum, EOS, and PolkaDot.

The company says its mission is making enterprise blockchain application development easy and affordable.

BSN already has eight active portals in China, with a community of over 25,000 developers. And Korea is not the only place is planning to expand into:

“Our upcoming one I can tell you is in Europe, which we’re very excited about and hope to be able to launch in several weeks. And then we’re in active discussions with potential portal operators in other parts of Asia, in Europe, in the Middle East, and even some early discussions in North America.”

But while BSN International will charge ahead towards major public chain integration, BSN China operates as a separate permission-based system that cannot access public chains deployed on BSN International, owing to the strict government laws and regulations in China for crypto and blockchain.

Bailey says building partnerships with portal operators around the world is key to the expansion strategy.

The US$30 million Red Date secured in series A funding in June is also helping fuel that growth.

For Forkast.News, I’m Timmy Shen, Taipei, Taiwan.

Meanwhile, looks like there’s no let up in demand for cryptocurrency mining rigs.

China-based Canaan, one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of bitcoin mining machines, has just secured a huge order from Genesis Digital Assets.

The initial deal is for 20,000 machines, but there’s also the option of purchasing 180,000 more. That’s a lot of confidence from both in the outlook for the mining industry.

Forkast.News Carolyn Wright has more.

Genesis Digital Assets say the deal forms part of their plan to rapidly scale operations in North America and the Nordics, with a focus on using renewable energy.

The two companies had already formed a long-term partnership earlier this year, and Genesis bought 10,000 machines from Canaan back in June.

As of August this year Genesis had a data center capacity of 170 megawatts, which it says translates to a hash rate exceeding 3.1 exahashes per second, or just over 2.4% of the global bitcoin mining hash rate.

The mining company says its ultimate aim is to increase capacity to 1.4 gigawatts by the end of 2023. Looks like the big bets on crypto mining are set to continue.

For Forkast.News, I’m Carolyn Wright.

And finally today, more developments in the play-to-earn gaming space in Asia as the trend gains speed.

A Korean mobile game has gained global popularity since it added blockchain features just a few days ago. Its tokens gaining 200% in just the 24 hours going live.

But get this, those very features also means it’s now banned in its native country.

Mir4, a massive multiplayer online role-playing, or MMORPG, game developed by WeMade, only made its global launch on August 26.

Since then, it’s expanded the number of servers it operates from 11 to 34, and raised up the online gaming platform Steam’s charts becoming the 31st most played game.

A large part of this popularity comes from allowing users to trade their in-game earnings into tokens and NFTs that can be cashed out to use, of course, in the real world.

Black Iron, the goods users earn in Mir4 can be traded into the Draco Coin, which is listed on WeMade’s own exchange. Users can also buy and sell ownership of game characters by turning them into NFTs.

So where’s the native fan base?

Well, that’s the thing – these popular new features are not available to Korean players because Korea’s Game Rating and Administration Committee refuses to give age ratings to any blockchain-based game, which means those games are not allowed to be released in its native country.

Regulators fear the games could encourage speculative behavior, while the government is still unclear on crypto as an asset.

You know what they say? It’s all fun and games until well, that’s the part Korean regulators are still trying to figure out.

And that’s The Daily Forkast from our vantage point right here in Asia. For more, visit Forkast.News. I’m Editor-in-Chief, Angie Lau. Until the next time.