HashPalette acquisition sees Aptos Labs enter Japanese market
Aptos Labs, the developers behind the Aptos layer-1 blockchain, has entered the Japanese market through the acquisition of HashPalette, a blockchain network concerned with the issuance, management and distribution of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
HashPalette informed stakeholders of the development on Oct. through an X post, alongside a press release published on its behalf by Japanese public relations company PR Times.
Expanding Asian presence
Up until now, HashPalette has been a wholly owned subsidiary of HashPort, a blockchain-related consulting and infrastructure provider based in Tokyo. This acquisition sees the project transfer to being a wholly owned subsidiary of Aptos Labs. Accordingly, this will mean that applications developed by HashPalette will be migrated onto the Aptos Network. Similarly, the Palette Chain blockchain will migrate over to Aptos.
From Aptos Labs’ perspective, the acquisition enables it to expand its blockchain ecosystem in Japan and within Asia more broadly. Aptos Labs Co-Founder Mo Shaikh described the acquisition as an investment in “the talented builders and creators of the region.”
Deal pending approvals, closing conditions
While the parties have announced the acquisition, the deal is still subject to required approvals being granted, together with various closing conditions related to the sale being met. Addressing the need to close out the deal, HashPalette tweeted:
“HashPort and Aptos Labs will work closely together in the transition and will take great care to ensure that all stakeholders, including PLT and ELF holders, are not disadvantaged by the migration.”
The PLT token is HashPalette’s native token. According to the project’s whitepaper, it has utility when it comes to the payment of NFT issuance fees and node management fees relative to the Palette Chain. Additionally, it can be used to pay for NFTs issued on the Palette Chain and for subscription payments related to applications developed on top of the network.
The ELF token is a crypto asset utilized within THE LAND ELF Crossing, an NFT farming game which was developed by HashPalette and issued on the Palette Chain. The game is being marketed in Japan with the assistance of Animoca Brands following a partnership earlier this year.
The companies have agreed to gradually migrate NFTs which had been issued on Palette Chain, relative to the EXPO2025 digital wallet developed by HashPort, to the Aptos Network. Once that migration has been achieved, it’s envisaged that the Aptos Network will become the only blockchain associated with the EXPO2025 digital wallet.
Unresolved Palette Chain issues
From the point of view of the development team behind HashPalette, it was outlined in the press release that the move goes beyond a simple financial transaction. It acknowledged that “Palette Chain still has many issues.”
Against that background, the team believes that in order to further accelerate the social implementation of Web3, it has “considered how to make services built on Palette Chain more scalable and usable, and to enable smoother access to the global Web3 market.” That consideration has brought the project team to the conclusion that migrating to the Aptos Network offers the best path forward.
At the time of writing, Aptos’ APT token was trading at $8.93, up 12.44% over the course of 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap data.
