SafePal invests in & partners with Switzerland’s Fiat24

Shinhan Bank Advances into Metaverse with the Launch of Shinamon Season 3According to a report by local news media Dailian, Shinhan Bank, a prominent financial institution in South Korea, has made a stride in its metaverse endeavors. The bank announced yesterday the launch of Shinamon Season 3, a metaverse platform, accompanied by a series of celebratory events to mark its implementation.Photo by Richard Horvath on UnsplashMerging financial & non-financial realmsShinhan Bank claims it is the first Korean bank to independently develop a metaverse platform. With the launch of Shinamon Season 3, the bank has merged the financial and non-financial realms, providing customers with access to a user-friendly platform that offers fun and engaging experiences.In Shinamon Season 3, Shinhan Bank has enhanced its financial services by replacing mobile gifts with reward points and providing additional benefits to customers who make transactions through the bank.Personalization and enhanced servicesAfter gathering customer feedback over the past two seasons, Shinhan has made enhancements to the platform’s environment and interface. Additionally, they have introduced the ability for customers to personalize their characters’ costumes. Looking ahead, the bank intends to leverage NFT wallets to help customers reach other platforms.To celebrate the release of Shinamon Season 3, Shinhan Bank is organizing special events that will grant rewards to customers who join the metaverse. Participants of Shinamon Season 3 who engage in daily quests will have an opportunity to win enticing prizes, including electronic devices, free fried chicken coupons, and reward points.A Shinhan Bank official said that customer feedback was given top priority in the preparations for the launch of Shinamon Season 3. The official added that will continue to reflect customer needs and integrate a diverse range of financial services. This approach aims to create a metaverse platform that closely resonates with real-life experiences, making it more relatable for customers.

Hong Kong last week entered the pilot phase of Project Ensemble, an initiative focused on developing infrastructure for a tokenized market and creating a sandbox where institutions can test blockchain systems in real business environments. Set to run through 2026, the pilot involves the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), several banks, and other industry participants. Its early work will examine how tokenized deposits can be used in money market fund transactions and how these tools might support real-time liquidity and treasury management. Interoperability key to tokenizationCommenting on the development, Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) CEO Julia Leung said, “To scale tokenisation of investment products, interoperability is key.” She added that the measure announced on Nov. 13 by the HKMA “will gradually allow interbank settlement of tokenised deposits in real time 24/7.”Photo by Ibrahim Rifath on UnsplashFollowing the HKMA’s announcement, Ant International, the global arm of Ant Group, revealed that it is joining Project Ensemble’s Architecture Community. As part of this digital finance effort, Ant International will help design and advance the tokenization ecosystem in the special administrative region, contribute to defining industry standards, and support broader industry adoption. Corporate initiatives in digital financeSeparately, Ant International also signed a memorandum of understanding with Swiss bank UBS to explore new opportunities in tokenized deposits, leveraging Ant’s blockchain platform Whale. Under this partnership, UBS Digital Cash, a blockchain-based payment solution developed by UBS, will be used to support Ant International’s global treasury operations. Young Jin Yee, Co-Head UBS Global Wealth Management Asia Pacific and Country Head UBS Singapore, said the collaboration with Ant aims to achieve “a real-time, multi-currency payment solution that sets standards for transparency and efficiency.” Hong Kong has been seeing a noticeable pickup in crypto-related activity more broadly. According to a post on X by Unfolded, AMINA, a Swiss-regulated institution, is now the first international banking group to roll out full crypto trading and custody services in Hong Kong. Adding to this momentum, companies are stepping up their Bitcoin accumulation. In its third-quarter results announcement, Boyaa International, a Hong Kong–listed firm specializing in online card and board games, reported a quarter-over-quarter increase of 738 Bitcoin. As of Sept. 30, its total holdings stood at 4,091 Bitcoin at an average cost of about $68,114 per coin. Adoption trends and market contractionThis push into the crypto sector aligns with broader digital asset adoption across Asia. A recent survey by CoinDesk and Protocol Theory of 4,020 individuals aged 18 to 64 in 10 Asian countries found potential crypto ownership of around 25% among respondents with internet access. The survey also noted that roughly half of adults familiar with crypto plan to use it within the next year or so. Despite the uptick in activity and interest, the market itself is currently in a downturn, with Bitcoin falling below the $90,000 mark on Nov. 18 for the first time since April 22. Analyzing the move, CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole said Bitcoin looks oversold, as the 14-day relative strength index (RSI) has slipped under 30, indicating the drop may be steep enough to trigger a pause or a possible rebound. Godbole drew a parallel with price action earlier in the year, noting that February was the last time the RSI fell below 30, when Bitcoin was trading under $80,000. After that decline, the market bottomed out at around $75,000 in April, a pattern that traders may be watching closely as they assess the current pullback. At the time of publication, Bitcoin was trading around $90,400 against USDT on Binance. 

EOS Granted Whitelist Approval by Japanese RegulatorsThe open-source layer-1 blockchain platform EOS has secured whitelist approval from the Japan Virtual and Crypto Asset Exchange Association (JVCEA).The EOS Network Foundation, an entity established with a view towards supporting and safeguarding the development of the EOS blockchain network, announced the approval via a blog post published to its website on Wednesday.EOS raised eyebrows with a staggering $4 billion initial coin offering (ICO) back in 2018. This approval will likely act as a shot in the arm for the project, given the period of relative stagnation that has followed the ICO.Photo by Paul MARSAN on UnsplashEOS price respondsThe approval paves the way for EOS to be traded against the Japanese yen, potentially opening up new avenues for the cryptocurrency’s adoption and utilization. The endorsement has had an immediate impact on the EOS token’s value, driving its price up by 5.54% over the course of the past seven days in a surge of market activity.At the time of writing, the EOS token is trading at $0.622 with an accompanying market capitalization of $696 million. This positive market response underscores the significance of regulatory greenlights in the cryptocurrency sphere.Mid-September trading launchThe Japanese Financial Service Authority (FSA) will oversee the regulation of EOS trading on local Japanese crypto exchange BitTrade, a well-established platform in the Japanese crypto space. The anticipated commencement of EOS token trading on BitTrade is slated for mid-September.The EOS development team is coming out the better end of its interaction with regulators in this instance. However, that hasn’t always been the case. In 2019 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States fined technology company Block.one, which at that time was responsible for the EOS ICO. All things considered, the sanction was recognized by most in the crypto space as being very much on the lighter end.Fostering Web3 growthJapan’s crypto ecosystem has been actively seeking ways to integrate and foster the growth of the Web3 industry. Its regulators have been lauded more recently, given that Japanese customers of failed crypto platforms like FTX were protected from those failures due to regulatory rules that insisted upon crypto platforms ring-fencing and safeguarding user funds.There have also been several initiatives taken to collaborate with international regulators on developing regulatory standards relative to digital assets. Earlier this month, the Japanese Financial Accounting Standards Foundation (FASF) met with the Korea Accounting Institute (KAI) to work on establishing accounting standards for digital assets.Japan’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) is also participating in Singapore’s Project Guardian, an initiative driven by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to explore the potential of digital assets.Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s supportive stance on Web3, describing it recently as “the new form of capitalism,” further reinforces Japan’s ambitions to establish itself as a hub for cryptocurrency activities. This regulatory nod for EOS could potentially mark the beginning of a broader trend, attracting more projects and investments to the Japanese crypto sector.