Japanese Survey Finds One-Third Familiar with Web3

Bizplay Improves Payment Experiences for Foreign Tourists in South KoreaBizplay, a cost management solutions provider, is gearing up to introduce a mobile payment service for international visitors to South Korea. This innovative service will empower tourists with the convenience of seamless transactions across a nationwide network of 1.75 million merchants who accept ZeroPay, a QR code-driven mobile payment platform.Photo by Federica Bisso on UnsplashBlockchain involvementOn September 7, Bizplay joined HIVEX Network, the cross-border payment system of blockchain tech company TBCASoft. This collaboration opens up opportunities for Japanese and Taiwanese tourists in South Korea to access the same payment services they are accustomed to in their home countries.Native apps and currenciesBy the first half of next year, these tourists will be able to readily identify ZeroPay-accepting merchants in their native apps without having to install a separate app, and they will have the ability to pay in native currencies such as Japanese yen and New Taiwan dollars without the cumbersome process of currency conversion.Once integrated with the HIVEX Network, Bizplay’s services will be available in all member countries of the HIVEX Network. By strengthening its partnerships with global payment companies, Bizplay aims to facilitate easy payments for the 4.5 million Korean users of its BeplePay, another app similar to ZeroPay, when they travel abroad in the latter half of 2024.Kim Hong-ki, CEO of Bizplay, expressed his excitement that international tourists in Korea will soon be able to enjoy a convenient travel experience by easily making payments with their native apps at ZeroPay-accepting shops. He further emphasized the company’s commitment to leveraging its technology and extensive global network to expand its services, with the aim of meeting the diverse needs of consumers.

BlackRock Investment Marks its Return to IndiaBlackRock, the world’s largest money manager with $9.4 trillion in assets under management, has made a significant move by joining forces with the financial services arm of Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani.This strategic partnership aims to tap into India’s rapidly growing asset management market and marks BlackRock’s return to the country following a six-year absence.The collaboration between BlackRock and Jio Financial Services, a company built by Reliance Industries Limited, will establish a 50–50 joint venture called Jio BlackRock. BlackRock announced the collaboration via a statement published to its website on Wednesday.Photo by Naveed Ahmed on Unsplash$300 million investmentBoth companies plan to invest up to $150 million each in this venture. Larry Fink, BlackRock’s Chairman and CEO, articulated his satisfaction regarding the partnership in a LinkedIn post, emphasizing the significance of expanding BlackRock’s presence in India.Mukesh Ambani, the Founder and Chairman of Reliance Industries, is India’s richest man with a net worth believed to be in the region of $90.6 billion. The conglomerate is the country’s largest listed company by market share. Collaborating with BlackRock will likely strengthen its position in the financial services sector.The joint venture aims to leverage BlackRock’s expertise in investment and risk management, combined with Jio Financial Services’ technological capabilities and deep market knowledge. The objective will be to provide “tech-enabled access to affordable, innovative investment solutions” for Indian investors. With rising affluence, favorable demographics, and the ongoing digital transformation across industries in India, the market is undergoing a significant shift.Potential implications for cryptoThis move comes shortly after Jio Financial Services was spun off from its parent company, Reliance Industries. The digital-first service is focused on delivering innovative investment solutions to cater to the growing needs of Indian investors.While there’s absolutely no mention of crypto relative to this announcement, it may still have implications for crypto in India. BlackRock has progressed from taking a dim view of Bitcoin and crypto to now turning towards this new asset class. It recently filed an application to launch a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States. That move is considered highly significant by most market commentators.Given that Jio Financial takes a digital-first approach and that the idea of the partnership is to bring the latest financial products to retail customers in India, there’s potential for this new entity to bring digital asset-related products to that market.Indian market re-entryBlackRock’s re-entry into India’s asset management industry is not the first attempt by the US investment management firm. In 2018, BlackRock exited the Indian market by selling its 40% stake in an asset management venture to partner DSP Group, but the company recognizes the enormous potential that India presents.Over the past five years, assets under management of Indian mutual funds have doubled, reaching 44.39 trillion rupees ($542 billion) by June this year. The exponential growth in this sector highlights the immense opportunities India offers to global asset managers like BlackRock.While the launch of the joint venture is subject to closing conditions and regulatory approvals, the collaboration between BlackRock and Jio Financial Services appears to be poised to unlock the power of investing for millions of people in India.

Alibaba Cloud Partners With Avalanche to Deploy MetaversesChina’s Alibaba Cloud, a subsidiary of the e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group, and one of the world’s largest cloud computing companies, has entered into a partnership with layer one blockchain project Avalanche.The cloud division of the Chinese tech giant has built a launchpad which will allow businesses to deploy metaverses, hosted on the Avalanche blockchain.Photo by C Dustin on UnsplashEnter the CloudverseAlibaba has named the launchpad “Cloudverse”. In accessing the Cloudverse, businesses will be enabled in customizing, launching and maintaining their very own metaverses, running on top of the Avalanche blockchain. In a tweeted message on Thursday, the Avalanche project team stated that “Alibaba Cloud’s millions of clients can easily deploy custom metaverses and unlock new dimensions for consumers.” It’s clear that the blockchain specialist sees the value in linking up with an entity with the market reach that Alibaba Cloud can provide. Expanding on that, it stated: “Cloudverse gives businesses an easy, white-glove, and cost-effective way to expand their brands to the Web3 virtual world.”Singapore’s MUA DAOAlongside Alibaba Cloud and Avalanche, a Singapore-based project is participating in the collaboration. Metaverse Union of Architects Decentralized Autonomous Organization makes for quite a long-winded entity, meaning that the project is more commonly known as MUA DAO. The DAO sees its mission as helping entities to overcome the technological hurdles of the crypto world by offering the largest virtual reality guild of architects, thus making available a large number of capable builders for the metaverse.Taking to Twitter on Thursday, the project outlined that the partnership marked a significant milestone for the DAO. “As the metaverse middleware, #MUADAO will support Cloudverse from creation and customization to continual operation in #MUAverse,” it outlined.MUA DAO sees the likely outcome of the collaboration as leading to a cost effective mechanism through which Asia-Pacific businesses can expand into the Web3 world, empowering clients to create custom metaverses and unlocking new customer experiences.MUA DAO terms its offering as “MUAverse, describing it as “a one-stop Metaverse Middleware Infrastructure developed and operated by MUADAO, designed to empower enterprises and businesses in the creation, operation, and management of digital assets.”Avalanche’s unique structureThe three entities coordinated the announcement of the collaboration to coincide with the Avalanche Summit II conference, which commenced on Wednesday in Barcelona, Spain and runs until Friday.As a layer one blockchain, Avalanche has a unique structure which enables subnets, sets of nodes or validators which can be built on top of blockchains. Subnets offer the advantage of allowing developers to customize them on an application-specific basis. Such a blockchain infrastructure will be beneficial in facilitating customizable blockchain solutions relative to the proposed Cloudverse.Blockchain credentialsRecently, Alibaba announced its intention to open a Web3 incubator lab in Japan. The lab will be a collaboration between Alibaba, Tokyu Land Corporation and Skeleton Crew Studio. One of its principal objectives will be to enable game developers to learn about and harness blockchain technology relative to virtual reality gaming.Additionally, Alibaba Cloud intends to launch a blockchain node service in Japan at a later stage in 2023. In a further nod to its blockchain credentials, Alibaba Cloud was also a co-organiser of Hong Kong’s recently-held Web3 Festival, alongside Amazon Web Services and Hong Kong-based Cyberport.