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The Metaverse In Asia: Strategies For Accelerating Economic Impact
- HODL: The Cryptocurrency Strategy of ‘Hold on for Dear Life’ Explained
- Binance cryptocurrency exchange giant reportedly considering acquisition targets including banks as the boundary between digital-asset industry and traditional finance blurs
- Mastercard adds 7 blockchain-based startups to Start Path Crypto accelerator, featuring Web3-focused social payments, brand-oriented platforms and more
- ‘First Came the Crypto Crash. Now Comes the Taxman. Cryptocurrency investors may need to act within the next few weeks to reduce their tax bill – and get ahead of an increasingly aggressive IRS’
“The benefit is that if an investor sells this crypto and books a capital loss, it can be used to offset future capital gains on winners. These gains don’t have to be on digital assets; they could be on stocks, real estate, or other investments.”
- “Crypto is the commoditization of populist anger, gambling and crime.”
- Q3 2022 Cryptocurrency Report from CoinGecko, online now
Singapore: Cryptocurrency Index 2022 (pdf download)
- Government of El Salvador, first country globally to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, seeks congressional approval to issue investment bonds in the cryptocurrency
- ConsenSys revises self-custody wallet MetaMask policy, affecting over 21M monthly users, to start collecting Ethereum wallet addresses and IPs during on-chain transactions
- The PwC 2022 US Metaverse Survey – ‘82% of executives expect metaverse plans to be part of their business activities within three years…’
- The Fabricant, a fashion house that only makes clothes for digital avatars, raises $14M – here’s a brief video intro
- “The metaverse could contribute between S$0.8TN and $1.4TN per year to Asia’s GDP by 2035 if investments…are sustained in the next five to 10 years, according to research by Deloitte.”
- Nike unveils metaverse play, Swoosh Web3 marketplace allowing users to customize digital-only products
India: Crypto assets – Imagining the way forward / KPMG
- Meta updates for Instagram to allow users to create NFTs and sell directly to fans, on and off Instagram, partnering Polygon for the feature
- “Faced with such profound uncertainties, it would take a particular kind of bulletproof optimism to go big in the NFT market right now. Enter Meta Platforms.”
- Sony publishes details of 2021 patent for system using NFTs and blockchain to create, modify, track, authenticate, and transfer unique in-game digital assets like characters, costumes and items
- Travel NFTs are the new passport stamp. Here’s how they work and why they’re collectable’
“Early adopters like Marriott International are testing out NFTs in several ways, including hotel booking partnerships, travel perks and fundraising drives. Exclusive access and a members-only mentality is a driving force in the NFT space, replicating the attractive offers that traditional airline and hotel membership clubs have lured travellers in with for decades.”
- Monetary Authority of Singapore launches Ubin+, an expanded collaboration with international partners on cross-border foreign exchange settlement using wholesale central bank digital currency
- China’s supposed crypto trading & mining crackdown: “…China recorded more than US$220 billion in total transactions between June 2021 and July 2022 to remain East Asia’s top cryptocurrency market…”
China: Fintech, Cryptocurrencies & CBDC
- UnionBank of the Philippines launches pilot program to intro crypto assets custody and trading for clients, partnering Switzerland’s Metaco to offer retail clients trading in Bitcoin and Ethereum
- ‘Digital currencies, monetary sovereignty, and US–China power competition’
- Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu is building a digital replica of itself in the metaverse, seeking to preserve its history and culture in the face of rising sea levels
“Our land, our ocean, our culture are the most precious assets of our people and to keep them safe from harm, no matter what happens in the physical world, we will move them to the cloud,” he said in the video that sees him standing on a digital replica of an islet threatened by rising sea levels.
- China’s Tencent and Alibaba lead $40M investment in Sweden’s Yahaha and drag-and-drop metaverse creation tools, and existing userbase of over 100,000 games content creators
- South Korea: A deep-dive into those startups selected for the ‘best of’ category in the recent COMEUP 2022 Global Startup Festival, spanning medical-tech, retail technology, metaverse avatars and more
- “A recent analysis performed by Deloitte estimated that the potential 2035 economic impact of the metaverse in Vietnam is [likely to be] $9-17 billion per year…”
- Pinktada secures $975K with blockchain-based hotel marketplace, with features including allowing travelers to book a specific room and then swap or sell their reservation
Project mBridge: Connecting economies through CBDC
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