India proposes crypto ban; Metaverse race heats up

Transcript

India’s long running debate over a crypto ban has now taken a serious turn in. We are keeping watch.

Welcome to The Daily Forkast November 24, 2021. I’m Angie Lau, Editor-in-Chief of Forkast.News covering all things blockchain.

Well in India, despite earlier reassurances from the finance minister that cryptocurrencies would not be banned. The government has now listed a bill seeking to do exactly that. We’re going to take a look at what that could mean for the industry and investors in the country and a whole lot more coming up.

Let’s get you up to speed from Asia to the world.

Let’s kick off with some of the top stories out of Asia today.

First up, Australia’s Securities and Investments Commission has accused the owners of Gold Coast based business, “A One Multi” of scamming 92 people out of 25 million Australian dollars, that’s US$18 million.

The agency is now trying to gain access to a cold wallet believed to hold almost US$20 million worth of Bitcoin purchased with the defrauded funds.

The case now raises concerns regarding the oversight capacity of Australian crypto exchange CoinSpot as it was unable to provide authorities with adequate know-your-customer documentation regarding the accounts of one of “A One Multi” owners.

Meanwhile, South Korea is looking into increasing punishment to meet the crime when it comes to crypto.

The country’s Financial Services Commission submitting basic outlines for stronger laws for the crypto market to the National Assembly for review.

The law aims to better protect investors from fraudulent or unfair trading practices, such as market price manipulation, with potential penalties of more than, get this five years in prison.

It’s part of increased scrutiny of market players. Speaking earlier this week, FSC chair Koh Seung-beom said policies should focus on strengthening supervision over virtual asset operators.

And you can find out a whole lot more at Forkast.News.

Meanwhile, the government’s stance on crypto is an even hotter topic in India, though a parliamentary meeting just last week reached a consensus that cryptocurrencies should be regulated instead of being banned. The government has now apparently done a 180 and listed a bill that seeks to ban all private crypto.

However, while the draft bill has yet to be released to the public, it does say that certain exceptions could be made.

Forkast.News Monika Ghosh has more from India.

The legislation, entitled The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021, says it seeks to create a facilitative framework for creation of the official digital currency.

However, it also seeks to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India. Albeit, with some exceptions, to promote the underlying technology of blockchain and its uses. One investor told Forkast.News, it’s very unclear what that actually means.

“So right now, for investors or people who are actually building applications in the cryptocurrency or decentralized ledger tech industry, it is a wait and watch game.”

Gaitonde says that whatever the bill includes, he hopes the government tackles key issues, including investor protection, law and order, taxing economic activity and encouraging innovation all in one go rather than in a piecemeal fashion.

In a written statement, the crypto exchange WazirX said it will respectfully wait to find out more about the draft bill to be tabled, and CoinDCX had not responded to a request for comment by Wednesday afternoon Asia time.

Several investors told us they are now looking to transfer assets to foreign exchanges or hard wallets.

However, certain functions on major exchanges appeared to either be limited or halted altogether for several hours on Wednesday morning.

A message on the WazirX app said there was a delay in processing Indian rupee deposits via its payment partner MobiKwik, while attempted transactions on CoinDCX showed as pending payment.

For Forkast.News, I’m Monika Ghosh, Pune, India.

Well, the metaverse is heating up, and to help us understand it and how it’s defining decentralized pop culture, our NFT insider, Duc Luu, executive chairman of Sports Network, a cross-chain DeFi powered NFT marketplace, is back in the hot seat.

Angie: Good to see you again.

Duc: Good to see you, Angie.

Angie: Ok, the latest, of course, is that the Winklevoss twins are dropping a cool US$400 million to build their vision of a decentralized metaverse. This shake things up a bit, doesn’t it?

Duc: It means that the world of walled gardens like Facebook, et cetera, Web 2.0 companies want a piece of this, “The Metaverse”, that Zuckerberg keeps talking about.

And the Winklevoss twins are, of course, very much Web 3. And so they’re saying, You know what? We’re going to raise a treasure chest to fight for decentralization. So really, that’s what it’s going to be a fight between the walled gardens who want to say here there’s only one metaverse in which we can exist. Whereas Gemini and and Web 3 companies are saying, actually, guys, sorry, but the metaverse is plural. Not singular.

Angie: Yeah, no more walled gardens, the overgrowth is absolutely honing in on that, including South Korea. It’s emerging as quite the hub for metaverse. We’ve seen home shopping businesses joining banks jumping on the bandwagon. The gaming authorities are trying to clamp down on NFT games, but the physical and virtual worlds are set to meet in the metaverse in South Korea. What’s your perspective there?

Duc: Yeah, I mean, I think that that we’ve seen for the last one decade or so, Asia very much leapfrogging old technologies and adopting new technologies much faster than than than the West, right? I mean, we saw that with WeChat.

South Korea has always been at the forefront of gaming, even even ed-tech. And so it’s not surprising that they’re wholeheartedly in in into Web 3.

Angie: And that is the NFT insight from our NFT insider, Duc Luu, thank you so much, Executive Chairman, Sports Network. Thanks again for joining us.

And thank you for joining us. That’s The Daily Forkast from our vantage point right here in Asia. Hit like, hit subscribe, hit that alert button and join us here at Forkast on YouTube. We appreciate it as always, it helps us reach more of you.

For more, visit Forkast.News. I’m Editor-in-Chief Angie Lau. Until the next time.