AhnLab Blockchain Company to integrate digital wallet into Sogang University’s education metaverse

A crypto wallet reportedly tied to the multinational banking giant DBS Bank holds over 170,000 Ether, valued at nearly $650 million. Reporting on the matter subsequently prompted DBS to make a denial of any links to the wallet.Photo by Kanchanara on UnsplashClaim asserted, claim deniedOn May 30, blockchain analysis firm Nansen caused some excitement when it took to X, flagging a particular wallet address, identifying it as belonging to an Ethereum whale, taking matters a step further in asserting that the wallet belonged to Singaporean bank, DBS Bank. The submission of securities reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently by many large corporates led to disclosures from some within traditional finance in the United States of Bitcoin holdings via the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) products which had been approved earlier this year. A substantial holding of ETH by Singapore’s biggest bank would have been a significant boost for proponents of Ethereum. However, DBS Bank promptly refuted these claims. A spokesperson for the bank subsequently issued a statement to Cointelegraph and Decrypt, stating: "In relation to the post, DBS does not have this position on our books."  Claim not retractedFor its part, Nansen has not retracted its claim. In response to Decrypt, Nansen analyst Edward Wilson stated:"We have it under good authority, via several independent sources, that DBS owns the private key of this wallet and these assets are most likely a part of their custody solution." Wilson told Cointelegraph that it had obtained this information from “a good source,” going on to state: “This is similar to how we see institutions, both crypto-native like exchanges such as Binance or Coinbase custody funds on behalf of their users and non-crypto-native custody funds. The institution is the custodian and is responsible for managing the security of the funds.” The Nansen analyst expressed even more confidence in the claim in response to CryptoSlate. Wilson stated:“Nansen is 100% sure this belongs to DBS – DBS owns the private key of this wallet and these assets are most likely a part of their custody solution.” DBS’s foray into crypto servicesIn 2020, DBS Bank unveiled a crypto trading and custody service, including a platform for conducting security token offerings. At that time, DBS Exchange clarified that while the exchange itself would not hold any assets, it would provide custody services to investors. Since launching its crypto division, DBS Bank has seen significant success. In 2023, DBS reported an 80% growth in Bitcoin trading volume, attributing this surge to the crypto market turmoil of 2022. In February of this year, the Singaporean bank moved to integrate its digital asset exchange business into a new global financial markets unit. In April 2023, DBS opened a branch of the bank on the metaverse. It demonstrated its Web3 credentials further in August 2023 by introducing a metaverse game to tackle the issue of global food waste.

Sun Flags Unjust Token Profits of Huobi Founder’s BrotherJustin Sun, Founder of the Tron blockchain and stakeholder in Seychelles-based global crypto exchange Huobi, has stated that the younger brother of the founder of the exchange, Li Wei, has received millions of Huobi tokens ($HT) when he shouldn’t have.Taking to Twitter, Sun wrote:“Li Lin’s younger brother Li Wei has repeatedly acquired a large amount of zero-cost HT through abnormal means. He has sold it on the Huobi platform many times in history, and has withdrawn huge amounts of cash”.Negotiating a refund and token burnSun went on to outline the action that he is in favor of taking in unison with decisions taken by the Huobi Global Advisory Committee (HGAC). “In order to protect people’s interests, the [HGAC] and the HT DAO community decided to recover and destroy the HT obtained by Li Wei at zero cost,” he wrote. “The HT destruction will be announced in the HT community. Such behavior will not be condoned,” he added.Sun complained that not only were the tokens wrongly allocated to Li Wei, he had been dumping the tokens on the market, selling them off for fiat money. In addition to the tokens being burnt, Sun says that he alongside the HGAC will “negotiate a refund” by engaging directly with Li Wei relative to the fiat money that he has already extracted through selling off the token.The Tron founder added that he doesn’t think it equitable that Wei should benefit from the token allocation as he hasn’t made any contribution to the Huobi community, stating that “fairness and the importance of rewarding those who genuinely contribute to the growth and development of HT DAO” are important.Double standardsSome in the crypto community would call double standards on Sun’s claims of a lack of fairness. At the time of the collapse of the FTX exchange in November of last year, Sun offered to help, collaborating with FTX’s Sam Bankman Fried to allow assets related to Sun’s crypto projects (TRX, BTT, JST, SUN, and HT) held by FTX customers on the exchange to be traded out of the exchange into external wallets.Trading in these assets recommenced for a time, with the price within the exchange being exorbitant relative to the regular market price outside of FTX. Many FTX customers ended up buying these tokens at excessive prices, without being able to extract them from the exchange like Sun had promised. To cap it off, those customers then had the newly installed FTX Debtor under the guidance of John J. Ray III, record their loss at the time the exchange officially went bankrupt at the normal market price for these tokens.Although originally a China-based exchange, Huobi moved out of the Chinese market due to adverse regulation, re-establishing itself in the Seychelles. The firm maintains offices in South Korea, the United States, Japan, and Hong Kong, where it has had a listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since 2018.The $HT token has proven to be very volatile both in intraday trading on Tuesday and over the course of the past seven days. In both instances, it has hit high points in excess of $3.00 and low points of $2.70. At the time of publication, the token was trading at $2.90.Photo by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash

The Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan is planning to establish a pilot project that will enable the use of crypto as a means of exchange for goods and services within a specific zone. That’s according to a statement published on Akorda.kz, the official website of the President of Kazakhstan. The statement incorporates the text of a keynote speech delivered by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at the Astana International Forum. Tokayev stated: “We are planning to create a pioneering pilot zone called CryptoCity where cryptocurrencies might be used for purchasing goods, services, and even beyond.”Photo by Engin Akyurt on PexelsWorking towards digital transformationThe initiative forms part of Kazakhstan’s efforts to make progress in terms of digital transformation, as well as an aspiration to become an IT hub within the Eurasia region.  For the purposes of the pilot program, the use of cryptocurrencies for the payment of goods and services has been authorized by the government within a pre-defined sandbox environment. Alatau City, an urban development located north of the Kazakhstani city of Almaty, has been chosen for the pilot scheme. Alatau has been established as a special economic zone and planned to become a hub for new technology and knowledge, alongside global tourism. It hosts the Innovation Technology Park together with the Kazakhstan National Nuclear Center, Institute of Nuclear Physics and the Physics & Technology Institute.It’s envisaged that the existing technology and knowledge base within Alatau will support its expansion into the area of crypto payments and blockchain development. In addition to crypto payments, other blockchain-based technologies related to taxation systems, investment and decentralized identity systems will be nurtured and encouraged within the Alatau special economic zone. Potential Eurasian crypto hubIn a recent opinion piece published by the Russian-language government-backed newspaper Kazakhstanskaya Pravda, Kanysh Tuleushin, Kazakhstan’s vice minister of digital development, suggested that the Central Asian republic has the potential to position itself as the region’s leading crypto hub.  Tuleushin also suggested that crypto mining operators could help to modernize the country’s energy sector, playing a role in stabilizing the country’s power grid, while making use of surplus electricity. Kazakhstan had proven to be a popular destination for Bitcoin miners in the past. However, the sudden influx of miners following a ban on the activity in China in 2021 was unplanned for.  The surge in electricity demand put the country’s electricity grid under pressure, leading to blackouts in some cases. In 2023 President Tokayev signed legislation into law that limited the energy use of domestic crypto miners. Despite that negative experience, it appears that Tuleushin has seen the benefits that the activity can bring when regulated and planned for. Back in March, it emerged that lawmakers in Kazakhstan had proposed the creation of a crypto bank. One obstacle to the creation of the bank is a lack of a crypto regulatory framework. According to a report published earlier this month, the National Bank of Kazakhstan is now in the process of preparing a regulatory framework for digital assets.