IOTA commits $10M to advance tokenization in UAE

South Korea’s southeastern port city of Busan signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Wednesday with the BDX Consortium led by ITCEN GROUP, a Seoul-based tech company specializing in system integrations. This marks the beginning of the establishment of the Busan Digital Asset Exchange (BDX). Photo by Minku Kang on UnsplashPlans to establish BDX CorporationFollowing the MOU signing, Busan and the BDX Consortium plan to join forces to set up and operate BDX successfully. The two entities are also dedicated to swiftly establishing a private entity, “BDX Corporation,” within the blockchain regulation-free zone in Busan, as part of their ambitious plan to make Busan into a global blockchain hub.  ITCEN GROUP is known to have extensive experience in trading real-world assets (RWAs) such as gold, silver and copper. Other participants of the BDX Consortium include Hana Securities, Hana Bank, OCON and Barunson, who are set to provide RWAs and intellectual properties (IP) to BDX in cooperation with ITCEN GROUP. Following the founding of BDX Corporation, the BDX Consortium is required to provide investment capital to the city of Busan until April, in accordance with its business plan.  A blockchain exchange with its own mainnet based on decentralized governanceThe decentralized governance upon which BDX will operate is an independent framework capable of handling securities settlements, listing assessments and market monitoring. It also serves as an investor protection measure through its mutual check and balance system.  BDX plans to support 24/7 transactions of various assets including commodities, jewelry, IP and carbon credit, all of which will be tokenized into small units for convenient trade.  “This partnership lays the foundation for the BDX launch, which will serve as a cornerstone of the city’s plan to foster the blockchain industry. In close cooperation with local enterprises, Busan will do its best to build and operate the exchange and contribute to the city’s economic growth,” stated Park Hyeong-joon, the mayor of Busan. 

OKX Wallet to Support BRC-20 Tokens and Bitcoin OrdinalsIn a press release published on Tuesday, Seychelles-based cryptocurrency spot and derivatives exchange OKX announced that it is in the process of enabling an Ordinals marketplace on the OKX Wallet, which will enable customers to mint and trade BRC-20 tokens.Photo by Karolina Grabowska on PexelsRising BRC-20 market capThe move will also enable users to inscribe non-fungible token (NFT)-based digital content on the Bitcoin blockchain by way of ordinal inscriptions. The market capitalization of BRC-20 tokens has been rising exponentially over the course of the past few weeks despite only being in existence since March.BRC-20 is an experimental token standard which was created by an anonymous developer with the handle “Domo” and username ‘@domodata’ on Twitter. A token standard governs how and where a cryptocurrency can be used. The approach has been pioneered by developers on the Ethereum blockchain who created the ERC-20 standard a number of years ago, relative to the Ethereum network.OKX has clearly identified a rising trend and wants to be an early adopter in benefiting from it. In their short existence, BRC-20 tokens have mainly implicated meme tokens but as more experimentation follows, use cases that rely on the token standard are likely to expand.Binance has signaled a similar intent, having stated last week that before the month is out, Bitcoin Ordinals will be added to its NFT marketplace. Ordinals preceded the development of the BRC-20 standard by a couple of months, with over five million of the inscriptions having been generated since they emerged. It’s believed that the minting of those Ordinals has generated fees to the value of around 1,000 BTC (or $27 million as per the BTC/USD price at the time of publication).Growing painsWhile the emergence of the BRC-20 standard and Bitcoin Ordinals brings quite a lot of excitement to a bitcoin blockchain that many found to be boring and lacking diversity in terms of potential use cases, it’s not been without its problems. On the one hand, these tokens and inscriptions make use of unused block space on the network.They also offer a solution to the longer term issue of a reduction in fees. The bitcoin blockchain in-built subsidy to miners is halved every four years, meaning that there will be a need for fees to sustain the incentive to miners to continue to secure the network.The downside to these recent developments is that the new tokens are going beyond using up unused block space. Instead, they’ve been responsible for driving Bitcoin transaction fees up to uncomfortable levels over the course of the past two weeks. It’s still early days in terms of this development, so there is every hope that developers can find solutions to the issue.Last week, Singapore-based project OmniBOLT announced that it will support BRC-20 tokens on Lightning Network. Taking some of this activity away from the bitcoin mainnet will serve to dampen excessive transaction costs and transaction delays due to an excessively long queue of transactions within the bitcoin mempool.The recent transaction cost difficulty relative to Bitcoin has prompted Binance to respond by stating its intention to add support for Lightning Network transactions in the not too distant future. OKX already supports Lightning transactions but not from within its wallet. As part of this announcement, the company stated that Lightning support will be coming to its wallet in the near future.

The Korea Association of Game Industry (K-GAMES) – the body responsible for overseeing and nurturing the country’s successful gaming industry – released its 2023 Global Game Policy and Legislation Study on Tuesday (KST) in collaboration with the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA).Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on UnsplashThe report summarizes gaming-related regulations and laws in six Western European countries – the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and France – including those on standard terms and conditions, the protection of minors, personal privacy, payment and more. "Through cooperation between public and private sectors, we have been able to achieve tasks like collecting information and securing databases on overseas gaming markets by country and continent," said Kang Shin-chul, President of K-GAMES. "We will continue to contribute to the development of the domestic game industry," he added. Regulatory landscapeThe study found that operators in the specified countries are not required to obtain special licenses, appoint local representatives, or set up servers in order to operate a gaming business in their respective countries. It also details country-specific requirements, such as in Germany, where the use of content that glorifies or justifies Nazi-related symbols or actions is prohibited. A closer look at Belgium’s stanceInterestingly, the report revealed that the regulation of randomly distributed in-game items varied by country. The UK, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and France have no legal restrictions on such items, but the UK and the Netherlands have recommended that information on the odds of winning them in games of chance should be disclosed before a player obtains or opens an item. Meanwhile, Belgium has implemented a regulation that prohibits paid games of chance for stochastic items altogether due to its laws regarding gambling. However, there are no regulations on Play-to-Earn (P2E) games unless they constitute gambling, which is also true of the other five countries. Minting game items into NFTs is also not subject to oversight in all six nations unless they are considered financial instruments. There are also no standard terms and conditions set by Belgium’s national government for gaming services, which are instead governed by the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).