Animoca Brands & Standard Chartered form Anchorpoint in Hong Kong

Korean pro female golfers to compete in WEMIX golf tournament this weekendThe world’s first blockchain-assisted golf tournament, WEMIX Championship 2023, will take place this weekend at the Haeundae Beach Golf and Resort in Busan. 24 female golfers from the Korea Ladies Professional Golf Association (KLPGA) — including the top 20 who earned the most WEMIX points during the preliminary Race to WEMIX Championship — are set to compete.Photo by Mick De Paola on UnsplashBringing blockchain to sportsNotably, blockchain technology is incorporated into all aspects of the tournament. This includes dynamic Real World Event NFTs that are available via NFT Is Life Evolution (NILE), Wemade’s decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and NFT platform. These NFTs come in two categories: “ticket NFTs,” which function as admission tickets and food or parking vouchers for spectators, and “prize NFTs,” which contain WEMIX token awards for tournament winners. The total prize budget is one million WEMIX, or approximately KRW 2.4 billion ($1.9 million) as of 4:30 p.m. on Thursday (local time). The first-place winner will receive 250,000 WEMIXThe tournament venue will also have a Gallery Plaza with various activities and showcases for visitors to enjoy, like exhibitions for Volvo’s newest vehicles, photo zones and putting games. The food and beverage zone will serve BAYC-themed burgers from Californian burger brand Bored and Hungry, as well as beverages from Hide Me, Please, a Korean food and beverage NFT membership brand. BAYC is the globally renowned IP from the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection.The competition’s top playersMeanwhile, the subject of many golfing enthusiasts’ interest is Im Jin-hee, the golfer who won the most WEMIX points during the Race to WEMIX Championship with 6,450 points. She secured 90,000 WEMIX for earning the top ranking, adding another personal achievement to her successful season this year. Coming in second and third place were Lee Ye-won and Kim Min-byeol. The final results of the competition were determined based on the golfers’ performances in the Lotte Rent-a-Car’s Ladies Open and the SK Shieldus-SK Telecom Championship.

Klaytn Foundation partners with CoinMarketCap to support Web3 startups and developersThe Klaytn Foundation, South Korean conglomerate Kakao’s Layer 1 public blockchain, announced on Monday (local time) that it has been selected to be one of the official partners of CoinMarketCap Labs (CMC Labs), a Web3 startup accelerator program operated by the crypto information platform CoinMarketCap.Photo by Shubham Dhage on UnsplashEmpowering buildersThe CMC Labs program offers builders an array of benefits that serve to promote their projects, boost discoverability, communicate with users, and more. This includes the “Learn and Earn” campaign, where startup owners can attract users through a system that distributes token rewards after engaging in educational content. The Airdrop Campaign, on the other hand, helps participants keep up to date on a startup project’s important developments, such as price movements. Startups can also promote their projects through a long-form article or YouTube video published on the CMC Deep Dive platform.Fostering the growth of dAppsCoinMarketCap, in turn, has agreed to be a partner in the Ignite On Klaytn (IOK) Program — a program run by the Klaytn Foundation to support promising developers both in Korea and abroad in their endeavors to bring their decentralized apps (dApps) to the Web3 market, thus cultivating the Klaytn ecosystem. Developers stand to benefit because they can concentrate their efforts on product development, while the program provides support for other crucial aspects like wallets, API nodes and development outsourcing.Through this latest collaboration with CoinMarketCap, the Klaytn Foundation plans to assist various projects in their entry into the global market. It also aims to play a bridging role, enabling more projects within the Klaytn ecosystem to participate in the CMC Labs program.“We are looking forward to the mutual participation of Klaytn Foundation and CoinMarketCap in our respective programs, which is expected to provide momentum to Klaytn’s ongoing efforts to expand its reach into Asia and global markets,” explained Seo Sang-min, Representative Director at the Klaytn Foundation.

Artificial intelligence-driven education technology firm, Genius Group, has announced a plan to buy Bitcoin from the proceeds of damages that the company is pursuing through the courts. In a press release published to the Singapore-headquartered company’s website on June 26, it outlined that the firm’s Board of Directors has approved a distribution plan that would see any potential damages received from litigation that Genius Group is currently embroiled in, divided equally for distribution to shareholders and for the purchase of Bitcoin for the company’s Bitcoin treasury.Photo by Kanchanara on UnsplashUp to $1 billion in potential damagesGenius Group CEO, Roger Hamilton, commented on the matter, stating:“We are seeking combined damages of over $1 billion. As both lawsuits are being pursued by the Company to recover damages caused by third parties directly to our shareholders, the Board believes that 100% of any proceeds from the successful outcome of these cases should be directly distributed or reinvested for the benefit of shareholders.” On X, Hamilton outlined that there’s no guarantee with regard to how much the company recovers through litigation. However, he added that if justice prevails and the company is awarded $1 billion in damages, that would equal a $7 dividend per share for shareholders and the addition of 5,000 BTC to the firm’s Bitcoin treasury. Last month, the company provided an update on a lawsuit it has taken under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Initially, $450 million in damages had been pursued but Genius Group amended the lawsuit, raising its claim to $750 million.  The lawsuit is being taken against Peter Ritz and Michael Moe as the controlling officers and directors of LZGI International, and against Michael Carter and John Clayton, in the United States District Court, Southern District of Florida. The company alleges that the defendants attempted to defraud Genius Group.  ‘Bitcoin First’Genius Group announced its “Bitcoin First” approach, and the launch of a Bitcoin treasury in November 2024, getting started with an initial purchase of 110 BTC valued at $10 million at that time. In April 2025, a New York court prohibited the company from selling stocks in order to fund the purchase of Bitcoin. Those court-imposed funding restrictions led to the firm selling off a small proportion of the overall Bitcoin that it was holding.  Prior to that prohibition on the purchase of Bitcoin being imposed, Genius Group had expressed the aspiration to build up its Bitcoin reserve to a value equivalent to $100 million. Wading further into the Bitcoin space, the firm acquired blockchain learning platform, XD Academy, in December 2024. On May 22, Genius Group announced that the U.S. Court of Appeals had overturned the ban imposed on the company. With that, it increased its Bitcoin holdings by 40%. As of June 17, the company held 100 BTC, valued at around $10 million. The firm plans to bring forward another lawsuit “alleging naked short selling and evidence of spoofing against certain parties,” with damages being pursued in the region of $250 million. Commenting on the coming of age of Bitcoin and the pursuit of a Bitcoin treasury strategy back in November 2024, Hamilton stated that “we're living in a unique moment in history - one most public companies will miss.”