Crypto enthusiasm prevails in China despite crypto trading prohibition

XPLA Welcomes Mobile Game Idle Ninja Online on Its MainnetSouth Korean game developer Com2uS has revealed that its blockchain gaming platform, XPLA, will be launching Idle Ninja Online, an AFK MMORPG, on its mainnet. AFK MMORPG is an acronym for away from keyboard massively multiplayer online role-playing game.Photo by Rodion Kutsaiev on UnsplashGameplay and featuresIdle Ninja Online offers players the opportunity to level up their characters by battling monsters that pose a threat to the ninja village. The game’s idle gameplay element ensures accessibility for all players. Its charming graphics, unique dungeons, and various bosses captivate players’ attention. A noteworthy feature is the ability for players to strategically combine tens of thousands of in-game items to create custom decks for engaging in battles. With availability in multiple languages, including English, Japanese, Thai, and Spanish, the game has garnered continued interest from gamers across the globe.P2O system next monthNext month, Idle Ninja Online is set to introduce a play-to-own (P2O) system that will utilize its native token, NINKY, which is compatible with the Ethereum virtual machine. Players will be able to earn NINKY tokens through gameplay, which can then be traded for XPLA, the native token of the XPLA ecosystem.Paul Kim, CEO of XPLA, extended a warm welcome to Puzzle Monsters’ acclaimed Idle Ninja Online as it joins the XPLA ecosystem. He said that the close collaboration between the two entities will showcase creative and entertaining content to Web3 gamers on a global scale.XPLA is a global blockchain mainnet encompassing an NFT marketplace, a metaverse, and various entertainment services. In July, it introduced well-regarded titles like action RPG Summoners War: Chronicles, casual game MiniGame Party, and fishing game Ace Fishing: Wild Catch. The XPLA mainnet has established partnerships with renowned Web3 projects, including Japanese gaming blockchain Oasys, Hong Kong-based blockchain gaming developer Animoca Brands, decentralized gaming guild Yield Guild Games (YGG), and blockchain infrastructure platform Blockdaemon.

Korea’s FSS Seeks to Protect Investors from Crypto Exploit LossesLee Bokhyun, Governor of the Korean Financial Supervisory Service, said the agency will seek to protect investors from losses resulting from cryptocurrency exchange exploits, according to Korean newspaper Donga Ilbo.©Pexels/RODNAE ProductionsEfforts to enact legislationWhile delivering a congratulatory speech at a forum co-hosted by Donga Ilbo and its subsidiary broadcasting company Channel A on Wednesday, Lee underlined that the agency will be committed to enacting legislation that obligates crypto exchanges to be held accountable for customer asset losses caused by hacks.He explained that amidst a continued crypto winter triggered by multiple failures, such as the collapse of the stablecoin Terra last year, cases of security vulnerabilities are subsequently occurring.Cold wallet requirementsIn response to this situation, financial authorities and the National Assembly are collaborating on legislation that would require crypto exchanges to store a portion of their custody assets in cold wallets, which are disconnected from the Internet, or face liability for damages resulting from hacks.A February report from blockchain data platform Chainalysis showed that losses to crypto hacks last year amounted to $3.8 billion. Earlier this month, Korean crypto exchange GDAC suffered an exploit of 20 billion KRW (~$15 million).Lee said the agency will work with the financial industry to bolster the fraud detection system and build an immediate response system that prevents uncanny transactions when abnormalities are detected. These efforts are to curb the rise in financial crimes, which followed the growing popularity of remote banking services.Experts’ inputsAt the event held to discuss the protection of consumer information in the digital age, senior researcher Kim Gap-rae at Korea Capital Market Institute said that a law should be introduced to penalize unfair practices, such as market manipulation and use of undisclosed information, in the virtual asset market.Lee Joo-hwan, head of the information security management division at Hana Bank, suggested the approach used in the US, which is recovering ill-gotten gains from financial crimes to compensate victims.Kang Byung-hoon, a professor who teaches cyber security at KAIST, anticipated that the financial industry would accelerate the adoption of confidential computing, a highly secure system, to which even administrators have limited access.

Conflux Network, a layer-1, regulatory-compliant Chinese blockchain focused on borderless transactions, has announced the upcoming launch of the Conflux 3.0 mainnet together with an offshore yuan-pegged stablecoin, resulting in its native CFX token surging.Photo by Eric Prouzet on UnsplashPartnershipA notice published on the website of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government on July 20 reported on the Conflux Tree Graph Technology and Ecological Development Conference, which was held in Shanghai over three days from July 18 to July 20. Over the course of the three-day event, the project announced a partnership with AnchorX, a Hong Kong-based fintech firm specializing in stablecoins, and Shenzhen-based Eastcompeace Technology.  The purpose of the initiative is to develop a stablecoin pegged to the offshore yuan (CNH), the version of China’s currency that circulates outside the mainland. The report outlined that in recent years, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) have come to global attention.  Belt & Road InitiativeGiven this backdrop, it was outlined that “creating an independent and controllable high-performance public chain system” could be of great benefit to China and its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which sets out to develop infrastructure across 150 countries to facilitate trade with China. This is not the first point at which AnchorX has collaborated with Conflux. Back in February, the company received in-principle approval from the Astana Financial Services Authority (AFSA) in Kazakhstan to issue CNH-pegged stablecoins. Growing bilateral trade between Kazakhstan and China was cited as the rationale behind the license, given the need for cross-border payments. At the time, it was outlined that the AxCNH yuan-pegged stablecoin would be issued on the Conflux blockchain. It’s unclear if this same stablecoin is the focus of this latest development or whether an entirely new yuan-pegged stablecoin will be issued.AnchorX collaborated with Conflux in 2024 to bring about the issuance of AxHKD, a Hong Kong dollar-pegged stablecoin. The stablecoin runs on the Conflux blockchain, with the stablecoin issuer using OKLink Trust as its custodian. TokenPocket, a multi-chain crypto wallet project, also outlined on X on July 21 that it too is involved in the partnership with Conflux and AnchorX. The project outlined that it will support the growth of stablecoin adoption, the development of cross-border payment solutions and the promotion of tokenized RWAs in international markets through the collaboration.  Pilot projectsTokenPocket went on to explain that the companies plan to launch pilot projects in Central Asia, Southeast Asia and other regions, building “a compliant, secure, and innovative fintech framework to boost the role of the Conflux ecosystem as critical infrastructure for cross-border trade.” It was revealed at the conference that the mainnet release of Conflux 3.0 will occur in August. With the implementation of further optimized execution modules, the project expects 3.0 to result in a network throughput of 15,000 transactions per second (TPS).  These developments over the course of the weekend have had an impact on the unit price of Conflux’s native token, CFX. On July 19, the token was trading at around $0.1043. According to CoinMarketCap data, at the time of writing, it’s trading at $0.2232, a 2.58% increase over the past day.