Stacks surges after NFT push; Samsung Next invests in Sky Mavis

Transcript

Stack Search has got our newsroom fired up this week.

Welcome to The Daily Forkast October 11th, 2021. I’m Angie Lau, Editor-in-Chief of Forkast.News covering all things blockchain.

Now, despite a rough start to crypto trading Monday morning Asia time, there were a few notable exceptions, with one token in particular making real ground that was the alt-coin Stacks. It gained over 70% in the past 24 hours to Sunday night. We’re going to dive into what drove that surge and a whole lot more coming up.

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

First up, while bitcoin traded steadily down less than 1% Monday morning, Asia time.

Stacks recent push into bitcoin NFTs has seen its price soar. Sunday night saw it hit a high of US$2.45 before it settled around the US$2.10 mark on Monday morning.

Forkast.News, Lachlan Keller takes a look at the latest trending alt-coin.

Stacks is a smart contract layer built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. That means it offers much of the functionality of smart contract enabled Ethereum with the added security of Bitcoin.

It does this by running the smart contract application on its own network, but sells them on the Bitcoin network.

This allows nonfungible tokens, which are largely been the domain of Ethereum to be run on Bitcoin, and that’s generated a great deal of interest in Stack’s own NFT marketplace.

Last week, its Bitcoin Birds collection, created by a 12 year old, sold out within an hour, and it’s allowing some Ethereum based assets, such as the NFT series Satoshibles to make the move to Bitcoin. But one expert warns.

“Generally, I think it’s good from a security point of view for it to really take hold and for it to really mature. It’s definitely going to take more years of development, of research, of education. So to be honest, this rally that saw STX go up by so much, I would say it’s a little bit premature. And so generally, I think investors ought to be a little bit more cautious.”

Various layer two applications like Stacks have been implemented on top of the Bitcoin network of late to address some of the shortcomings of the network, notably its transaction speed.

For Forkast.News,I’m Lachlan Keller.

Meanwhile, Samsung Next has invested over US$150 million in Sky Mavis’s Series B funding round.

While it may initially seem no surprise for big player like the investment arm of Korea’s electronics giant to make such a move, what makes it interesting is the fact that Sky Mavis is best known as the developer of NFT based game Axie Infinity and NFT based games are currently banned in Korea.

Forkast.News Danny Park reports.

Samsung, the leading South Korean conglomerate, has shown a lot of interest in NFTs lately, and its latest move was placing US$152 million funding for Sky Mavis through Samsung Next.

Prior to that, the investment subsidiary also invested in blockchain based game developers such as the DapperLabs and Hong Kong based Animoca Brands.

Given the global surge in popularity of blockchain based games like Axie Infinity. Such investments are hardly a surprise, but things are quite different in Samsung’s home base, South Korea.

Korea’s Game Rating and Administration Committee currently refuses to give age ratings to any game developed using blockchain technology, saying that the rewards gained, which may include NFTs, could encourage speculative behavior.

But many gaming industry members argue that in-game rewards and items are already being liquidated and traded among users in non-blockchain games, so that’s not a good enough reason to stop the sector’s growth.

One expert tells Forkast.News, that he thinks the ban on blockchain based games will be lifted or at least eased in the future.

“Because the [Korean] government is very much focused on [developing] the metaverse the topics of ownership and value transfer in virtual assets is likely being discussed very positively in multiple angles. So any developments from that may send positive signals to [resolving] the situation we’re seeing with gaming.”

However, Kim agrees with the regulators that the speculative elements which currently exist in blockchain games need to be eliminated for the industry to move forward.

For Forkast.News, I’m Danny Park.

And finally, today, China’s clampdown on cryptocurrency mining continues to bite.

The country’s latest move could see crypto mining labeled as outdated, and that would mean ongoing, harsher restrictions for the industry.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce have asked for comment on crypto mining in their latest draft market access negative list document.

Now, if the document is passed by, the government policy support will be given to authorities to help further crackdowns. That means investment will be prohibited, no administrative approval will be given, and electricity prices for the industry will be increased.

Now more than 20 cryptocurrency related companies have withdrawn from China since its further ban on cryptocurrency was announced on September 24th.

The latest is Bitmain, which says it is halting shipment of its latest mining equipment to mainland Chinese customers. That includes orders already placed.

In a statement, the company also says it strictly abides by the laws and regulations of the countries its entities are located in.

Looks like those tough times are showing no sign of letting up for anyone involved in crypto mining in China.

And that’s The Daily Forkast from our vantage point right here in Asia. For more visit Forkast.News.

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I’m Forkast Editor-in-Chief Angie Lau. Until the next time.