Bitmain Pays Employees Following Salary Suspension

Dunamu Loses Lawsuit Seeking $19M in Corporate Tax Refunds After Venture Status RemovalDunamu, the operator of South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Upbit, lost a 24.8-billion-won (approximately $18.7 million) corporate tax lawsuit, according to local news outlet The Korea Economic Daily. This legal action emerged after Dunamu was removed from the list of registered venture firms in December 2018. The Seoul Administrative Court ruled that since Dunamu was no longer a venture, it was not eligible for the associated tax benefits.Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on UnsplashLosing venture statusIn September 2017, Dunamu obtained certification as a venture company from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. However, this certification was revoked in December of the following year. This revocation was due to an amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the Venture Businesses Act in October 2018, which resulted in the exclusion of “blockchain-based crypto asset trading and brokerage” from the venture business classification. Consequently, the withdrawal of this certification rendered the company ineligible for government tax incentives.Tax refund request deniedIn August 2020, Dunamu took action by formally requesting a refund of KRW 24.8 billion in taxes previously paid to the tax office. The foundation of its claim rested on its entitlement to venture company tax benefits up until the corporate tax period of 2018. However, its request was turned down, leading Dunamu to escalate the matter by initiating an administrative case against the tax authorities, following an unfavorable decision by the Korean Tax Tribunal.Meanwhile, an amended version of the Act on Special Cases Concerning Taxation Restrictions, which excluded cryptocurrency-related industries from benefiting from tax reductions, went into effect in January 2019. Pointing to the effective date of this act, Dunamu argued that the company should be entitled to benefits applicable up until the corporate tax cycle of 2018. Furthermore, Dunamu highlighted its legal action, which had led the administrative court to suspend the effects of the venture company certification revocation from December 31, 2018, to January 18, 2019.Court’s stanceDespite these arguments, the court rejected Dunamu’s argument and upheld that tax relief could not be granted for the tax year encompassing the date of the removal of its venture status. Additionally, the court affirmed that the tax authorities’ decision was valid since the venture status had been revoked in 2018, regardless of the amended Taxation Act’s implementation.In disagreement with the court’s ruling, Dunamu has filed an appeal against the decision.

LH Leverages Blockchain to Certify Legally Important DocumentsThe Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) is set to build a certification platform to replace paper documents as the sole form of legal certification. The initiative aims to bring the credibility of traditional methods like contents-certified mail to electronic documents by leveraging blockchain technology.Photo by Liam Truong on UnsplashContents-certified mail — transitioning from postal to digitalContents-certified mail refers to a specific type of mail service provided by the post office, which offers special guarantees regarding the delivery and content of a document. When a document is sent using contents-certified mail, the post office provides certain assurances that can be beneficial in legal and official contexts.Amidst the rise in demand for digital administrative services due to increased remote technologies in the post-COVID-19 era, the ongoing expansion of Web3, and enhanced customized administration, there has also been a growing need for the digitization of documents related to compensation for land and buildings.According to industry sources, LH plans to automate document transmission and management functions through the platform, establishing a digital environment for generating, sending, receiving, viewing, and storing electronic documents.Factoring in blockchain techA key feature of the proof platform is its integrated blockchain technology. “Utilizing blockchain allows accurate documentation of LH as the sender, as well as the timestamps of delivery and reception. This will subsequently enhance transparency and security,” LH said.Going paperlessBy establishing the digital platform, LH will be able to introduce a more convenient method of sending legally significant documents, essentially replacing the manual method of sending them through postal services. This could include sending them via platforms used nationwide like Naver or KakaoTalk or through text messages sent by the country’s major telecommunication companies.This innovation can contribute to the proliferation of paperless methods, addressing the expected increase in postal delivery failures tied to the rise of single-person households.“By constructing this platform, we can better protect user rights and provide administrative services that transcend the temporal and spatial constraints of registered mail,” LH said. “We will broaden our legal, institutional, and technical discussions to innovate processes for verifying the validity of electronic documents.”The project is currently in operation in certain areas related to compensation. According to LH, the plan is to expand the project’s scope to encompass all areas of compensation by next year and then to other areas such as the management and sale of rental apartments.The corporation said that it posted a bidding notice last Wednesday to hire a company that can build the blockchain-powered platform that certifies legally important documents. LH is currently undergoing a selection process.Employing smart contractsLH also mentioned that it is preparing a smart contract system. The system programs the terms agreed upon by involved parties in advance, embeds them in an electronic contract, and enables automatic execution of the terms of the contract when all conditions are met.

SC Ventures and Deutsche Bank Execute Stablecoin Payments via UDPNSC Ventures, the Singaporean disruptive technology investment subsidiary of UK banking conglomerate Standard Chartered, has partnered with Deutsche Bank in completing the first successful proof of concept (PoC) for the Universal Digital Payments Network (UDPN).Photo by Conny Schneider on UnsplashConnecting blockchain networks with CBDCsThe UDPN is a brainchild of Hong Kong’s Red Date Technology, which in turn is a co-founder of the Chinese Blockchain-Based Service Network (BSN). The PoC was aimed at facilitating seamless connections between central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and various blockchain networks through message-based transactions.News of the successful PoC emerged via a report by India’s English-language business newspaper Financial Express earlier this week. In conventional finance and international payments, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is the foremost, dominant financial messaging service. Notably, UDPN distinguishes itself from SWIFT as it operates on a permissioned blockchain, ensuring heightened security and regulatory compliance.As part of the PoC, several real-time transfers and swaps of synthetic USDC and EURS (Stasis Euro stablecoin) were executed between the two banks. While SC Ventures utilized code that leveraged UDPN software development kits (SDKs) and APIs, Deutsche Bank employed a graphical user interface. Rafael Otero, CTO and CPO of Deutsche Bank’s Corporate Bank division, emphasized the significance of this trial, stating that it provides an opportunity to explore how clients can actively engage in the decentralized global economy. Otero sees this as the logical next step in the evolution of financial transactions.Overcoming digital currency adoption challengesUDPN has been under development in collaboration with consultancy firm GFT Technologies and DLA Piper’s Hong Kong-based digital asset creation platform, TOKO, with further governance provided by the UDPN Alliance.The primary goal of UDPN is to overcome the hurdles that hinder the broader adoption of digital currencies, especially in the face of the surging number of CBDCs, stablecoins, and deposit tokens. The lack of interoperability among these digital assets necessitates innovative solutions.Currently, interoperability among stablecoins primarily relies on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges. However, due to the absence of proper oversight and regulatory framework in these exchanges, this method is not a sustainable solution for achieving interoperability between CBDCs and deposit tokens.UDPN takes a unique approach by providing a decentralized identity infrastructure. The actual currency transactions occur on their respective native blockchains or infrastructures. This means that UDPN enables users to seamlessly swap a USDC stablecoin on one network for a Euro stablecoin on another or even a bank deposit token.Improving upon financial messaging systemsAs UDPN incorporates an element of financial messaging for digital currencies, this hybrid approach streamlines transactions, eliminates the need for reconciliations, and enables atomic settlement. Therefore, UDPN ensures that either both sides of a transaction succeed or both fail. In contrast, purely messaging-based systems can result in one side of the transaction failing.SWIFT recently experimented with a messaging solution to connect CBDCs, and other conventional integration methods are being explored, involving APIs and routing networks, such as finP2P. It has collaborated with the central banks of Hong Kong and Kazakhstan recently in testing CBDC connectors.A report by Nikkei Asia last week suggested that Standard Chartered is venturing further into the world of digital currencies, particularly so in Asia, via SC Ventures.