Korea crypto law applies to Binance; Samsung Next invests in Nifty’s

Transcript

Welcome to The Daily Forkast, July 13th, 2021. I’m Angie Lau, Editor-in-chief of Forkast.News covering all things blockchain.

Coming up, Korea’s Financial Services Commission says crypto laws apply to foreign exchanges. Samsung Next invests in Nifty’s, the NFTs focused social media platform. Speaking of, could NFTs be set to revolutionize the music business?

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

Looks like Korea’s new crypto exchange laws will apply to anyone who wants to do business with investors in the country, including Binance.

Korea’s head of financial authorities Eun Sung-soon says the country’s new crypto exchange regulations that will force exchanges to comply by September 24th will also apply for foreign exchanges.

The revelation came about during a meeting of the National Assembly, which we’ve been monitoring when one lawmaker asked if foreign exchanges with many Korean users, like Binance, are also subject to those rules.

The answer? Yes.

Any exchange supporting the Korean won or Korean native crypto whether domestic or foreign rules will apply.

That means any foreign exchanges that serve Korean investors will have to start preparing to follow Korea’s demanding crypto regulations, which include getting a local bank to provide real-name accounts for users.

Eun said the financial authorities will be sending a written notice on the matter to those exchanges in the near future.

Another tidbit that came out in South Korea — Naver, Kakao and SK C&C are the final contenders in the bidding race to become part of the Bank of Korea’s CBDC simulation project. The Bank of Korea has revealed that it will select one of the three at the end of this month and that it plans to start the CBDC project in August.

And onto the market — Bitcoin was down just over 3% at a little over US$33,000. That’s as of 4 p.m. local Hong Kong time today at the end of the Asian trading day. And in the top 10 for cryptocurrencies, a day of red across the board. Dogecoin down 5.5% and Ethereum down almost 5.5%.

Staying in South Korea, corporate giant Samsung is continuing to invest in blockchain projects. Its foreign investment unit Samsung next announcing that it’s part of a US$10 million seed round into Nifty’s. This is an NFT-focused social media platform based in Miami.

Nifty’s recently announced a partnership with film giant Warner Brothers to feature a collection of limited edition NFTs for its upcoming live-action animated film Space Jam — A New Legacy.

Samsung Next has already invested in a variety of blockchain and crypto businesses, including developer DapperLabs in 2019 and NFT marketplace SuperRare, earlier this year. Samsung Ventures, which is a separate part of the conglomerate, also announced that it had invested in Hong Kong-based Animoca Brands earlier this month.

Meanwhile, NFT is changing the world one industry at a time and now set to revolutionize the music business?

In an exclusive four-part series starting today, Forkast.News looks into how in Asia it’s starting to transform and revitalize the economics for artists.

Here’s a peek at part one.

Taiwan-based Oursong an NFT platform that was initially formed as a research project by the streaming service KK-Box and popular around East and Southeast Asia sees the value NTFs could offer to musicians.

“You can have a hundred fans that are willing to spend 10 bucks, that’s a 1000 dollars, whereas those same 100 fans, even if they kept listening to your song over and over again, the amount of money they’ll generate on streaming platforms are not the same.”

With research by the Communications University of China finding that 52% of artists in China make nothing from their music last year, you can find out just how welcome such moves are by checking out the full story at Forkast.News.

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 next time.