Korea reveals crypto exchange ‘Death Note’: DeFi investment booms

Transcript

Welcome to The Daily Forkast, August 26th, 2021. I’m Angie Lau, Editor-in-Chief of Forkast.News.

Coming up, South Korea reveals its crypto exchange “Death Note”; DeFi investment booms, and a white knight rides in for a hacked Japanese crypto exchange and its users.

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

First up, in South Korea, the top financial regulator in the land has issued a so-called “Death Note” of crypto exchanges.

On that “Death Note” – a list of 24 out of 63 exchanges in Korea most likely to close up shop after stricter rules kick in September 24th.

It’s changing the face of the crypto exchange industry in one sudden swoop. And the impact on both the exchanges and crypto investors in South Korea will be dramatic.

Forkast.News Danny Park has more.

The clock is ticking for Korean crypto exchanges. Expiration date September 24th.

That’s when any crypto exchange who wants to remain in business in South Korea must be licensed under Financial Services Commission’s new regulations.

But the FSC “Death Note” list shows 24 exchanges haven’t even started on meeting the first condition of the FSC’s requirements – obtaining the Information Security Management System certification.

Since the ISMS’s certification takes three to six months to process, they’ve simply run out of time to even be considered for a license.

And with the names of those exchanges clearly appearing on that list, the FCC is possibly triggering a crypto run on the exchanges as well. That’s if users decide to withdraw their crypto or cash in case of a sudden closure.

From 63 to possibly just a handful left and there are still more hurdles to come ahead of next month’s deadline.

For Forkast.News. I’m Danny Park.

In the rest of the world, the markets are buzzing and we’re seeing things heating up in DeFi as well, with the total value locked into DeFi hitting an all time high.

But this time DeFi’s defiance of market gravity looks different. Could it be a sign of things to come?

Forkast.News Lucas Cacioli has the details.

According to data from DeFi Llama, that value locked in hit US$157 billion earlier this week. And many of the top 10 DeFi tokens gained more than 20% in the last 30 days, coming within reach of all time highs, others are soaring, with project Avalanche’s AVAX token gaining more than 400%.

In May 2021, when DeFi last saw the value locked in climbing to new record heights, bitcoin and ethereum were also hitting all time highs.

This time, DeFi is defying that coupling, rising to new heights, even as the price of bitcoin and ethereum remain a little cool.

Tanya Xu, APAC business development at Celcius Network told Forkast.News, that the exploration of new chains has seen the emergence of a flurry of layer-2 and layer-3 solutions that are attracting a chunk of the market that’s thirsty for yields.

She also said that while crypto markets have typically been retail focused, DeFi yield farming is seeing interest from bigger players.

That more liquid space means more projects and more protocols can be developed, which means we could see more growth to come.

For Forkast.News, I’m Lucas Cacioli.

There’s a boom in tokenized green bonds as well, and Bank of International Settlements, the central bank for central banks, if you will, has joined forces with Hong Kong’s Monetary Authority to go green.

It’s called Project Genesis, and the goal is to build a digital infrastructure prototype that gives peace of mind to investors that enable transparency on the use of proceeds of green investments.

And it’s tapping a Hong Kong Blockchain startup to help out. Allinfra will verify data tracked in real time. Tests of the prototype start now with a report expected by the end of this year.

And finally today, victims of a recent hack of the Japanese crypto exchange Liquid are probably breathing a sigh of relief right now. They’re going to be made whole thanks to a Hong Kong based knight in shining armor.

Another crypto exchange, FTX, has offered a loan of US$120 million, with FTX CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried tweeting that he admires Liquid and wanted to make sure its customers were protected.

Almost US$100 million worth of assets were stolen in the attack last week. But Liquid has confirmed the loan means that users will not suffer any loss as a result.

Meanwhile, an update on the Poly Network hack, Tether says it’s worked closely with Poly Networks since the US$600 million hack two weeks ago and has now unfrozen the US$33 million worth of assets involved in that attack.

Cybersecurity lessons learn the hard way over the past few weeks, another reminder that you might want to consider that cold wallet of yours again.

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.