GroundX to Bring NFT Activities to 2023 Seoul Light Hangang Bitseom Festival

Korea ST Exchange has committed to conducting a demonstrative experiment involving security tokens to help advance the domestic agriculture and livestock industry along with six other companies, including Korea Venture Agriculture Association, Maeil Business Agtech Innovation Center, MAM TECH, XR Touch, Jangbogo Asset and Crowdy. Representatives from all seven firms participated in an agreement signing ceremony held at the Maekyung Media Center on Thursday, according to local news site Financial News.Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash"Smart farms are an industry in South Korea with great potential for growth that is gaining a  competitive edge in the global market," said Cho Won-dong, CEO of Korea ST Trading. "With this agreement, our council plans to strengthen the smart farm security tokens ecosystem to increase the profits of domestic agricultural producers and strengthen global competitiveness." Fostering agricultural innovationThe experiment aims to promote the innovative trading system of smart farms for the development of the agriculture and livestock industry and discover stable underlying assets that will serve as a bridge for integration with innovative finance such as digital assets and security tokens. With this agreement, the parties will cooperate on issuing and distributing tokenized real assets, commodity tokens and security tokens, building infrastructure to support and encourage the trading of security tokens, exchanging information and sharing collaborative networks to build each participating firm’s business. They also plan to issue security tokens in the form of investment contract securities that attribute profits and losses according to the results of joint business ventures by creating a device to tokenize contracts for harvesting agricultural products. Korea ST Trading’s comprehensive roleBased on the platform, Korea ST Trading will provide support for all services such as security token distribution, trading, management, dividends, liquidation and investment information to help expand the smart farm ecosystem and attract private investments.

Hacking Attempts on Upbit Reach 160,000 in First Half of the YearThere have been approximately 160,000 hacking attempts on Upbit, Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, in the first half of this year alone, according to a report submitted by Upbit’s operator Dunamu to lawmaker Park Sung-joong of the National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee.“Cryptocurrency hacking incidents are increasing both domestically and internationally, and hacking attacks on exchanges such as Upbit, which have daily trading volumes exceeding KRW 2 trillion, are a serious issue,” Park said.Photo by Clint Patterson on UnsplashAn uptick in hacking attemptsThe data revealed that the number of cyber breach attempts in the first half of the year totaled 159,061–2.17 times higher than the number of attempts in the first half of last year, which stood at 73,249.Hacking attempts on Upbit have been steadily increasing in recent years, from 8,356 in the second half of 2020 to 34,687 and 63,912 in the first and second half of 2021, respectively. In the first half of last year, there were 73,249, and 87,242 in the second half. Notably, the exchange suffered losses of approximately KRW 58 billion (approximately $43 million) from a hacking attack in 2019.Ramping up securitySubsequently, Dunamu has taken action to enhance security by managing over 70% of its assets in cold wallets and operating hot wallets in a distributed structure instead of a singular one. Hot wallets refer to online crypto wallets, whereas cold wallets are crypto wallets that are offline and disconnected from the internet. Hot wallets offer the advantage of direct deposits and withdrawals, but they have weaker security levels — most known exchange hacks have thus occurred through this medium. On the other hand, cold wallets store private keys on offline sources like external hard drives and portable storage devices, making real-time trading difficult but providing better security and stability.“We have taken various preventive measures since the hacking incident in 2019, such as operating hot wallets in a distributed manner. There have not been any successful cyber breaches to date,” Upbit said.Regarding the role of the Ministry of Science and ICT in managing and overseeing crypto hacking incidents, Park pointed out that this still remains ambiguous. “The Ministry should conduct large-scale white-hat hacking tests and security assessments for crypto exchanges that are frequently faced with hacking attempts, as well as for hospitals and subway systems that manage large amounts of personal information,” he said.

GDAC Joins Hands with Bitgo to Fortify Crypto Wallet SecurityCryptocurrency trading platform GDAC, which is operated by South Korean blockchain fintech company Peertec, revealed on October 19 (local time) a partnership with crypto wallet provider Bitgo. This collaboration aims to bolster the security measures for the exchange’s wallets.Bitgo, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and backed by investment bank Goldman Sachs, is renowned for its secure wallet solutions. As a qualified custodian for digital assets across various jurisdictions such as the United States, Switzerland, and Germany, Bitgo has been serving more than 1,500 institutional clients in over 50 countries since 2013. The company also touts that it processes about 20% of all on-chain Bitcoin transactions by value.Photo by Shubham’s Web3 on UnsplashBitgo’s growing presence in KoreaBitgo’s latest partnership with GDAC isn’t its first venture in the Korean market. Just last month, the company entered into a strategic partnership with Hana Bank, one of Korea’s leading banking institutions. This collaboration aims to drive the development of security solutions, foster technical cooperation, and even explore a potential joint venture in the future.With this collaborative initiative, GDAC is now a partner of two major digital asset custodians: Bitgo and Fireblocks. Through this cooperative network, the Korean exchange seeks to take a leading role in enhancing security as a virtual asset service provider (VASP). In May, GDAC launched a mobile application where users can seamlessly enjoy all of its crypto services, including exchange, custody, and staking.Han Seung-hwan, CEO of GDAC, said that the company places the utmost priority on bolstering its security technology and ensuring the secure storage of customer assets. He added that having solidified its position as an exchange dedicated to institutional clients, GDAC will focus on delivering customer-centric, high-quality services.