Thailand’s Incoming Prime Minister Signals Crypto Embrace

The Sandbox Adds Singapore Virtual Neighborhood Lion CityMetaverse platform The Sandbox has announced the launch of Lion City, Singapore’s virtual neighborhood, during its inaugural Singapore Partner Day event.In a blog post published on Tuesday, The Sandbox project team outlined that Lion City is set to debut in September 2023 and will feature 512 plots of virtual land. With over 40 partners and 10+ studios, Lion City aims to showcase global and regional brands, along with established Web3 natives, representing Singapore’s culture in sports, fashion, entertainment, and technology within The Sandbox metaverse.Photo by Kin Pastor on PexelsRegional brand partnershipsThe Sandbox has attracted a range of local partners for Lion City, including MM2 Asia, ONE Championship, Mighty Jaxx Group, Spa Esprit Group, METAVI, Technology Development Centre (TDC) of ITE College Central, UKISS, Bandwagon, Renovi, Affyn, 8sian, The Engineers, Metaskull by Jacky Tsai x Froyo Games, Fabric of Reality, CreativesAtWork, Memotics, FXMedia, Kappou, The Parlour, Manifest, Vaniday, PengWine, LOFI, and Zodium. These partners represent various industries and will contribute to the diverse offerings and experiences within Lion City.Studio partnersMoreover, studio partners catering to the Singapore market will be an integral part of the Lion City experience. These studios include Smobler Studios, CGame Studio, Oceanus Media Global, and iCandy Interactive subsidiaries Lemonsky Studios and Hashcode Studio, New Moon Studios, Pangu by Kenal, and Clevereen. Collaborative ecosystem partners such as OKContract, Pinnacle, DIFY, and Peatix are also contributing to the development of the metaverse.Unlocking Web3 opportunitiesThe Sandbox emphasized the significance of Lion City as a gateway and launchpad for Southeast Asia. With over 400 global brands, including Singapore’s DBS Bank, already on board, Lion City has the potential to unlock new Web3 possibilities in the region. The supportive and collaborative ecosystem in Singapore will provide companies with opportunities to explore digital frontiers and test decentralized technologies.The project also announced the milestone during the Singapore Partner Day event held at the Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre. The event served as a platform for networking and sharing insights among The Sandbox’s partners.Keynotes were delivered by Sébastien Borget, the Co-Founder and COO of The Sandbox, and George Wong, the project’s Head of Singapore. They discussed the vast opportunities within the metaverse, and panel discussions with ecosystem partners took place, covering topics like intellectual properties (IPs) and the metaverse’s future, as well as the development of the open NFT metaverse.During the event, Borget highlighted Singapore’s regulatory environment, as being conducive to emerging technologies. He also emphasized Singapore’s position as an innovation hub for Web3 advancements.The metaverse faces new challenges in 2023, with the crypto market gravitating towards a more institutional-friendly approach, and questions surrounding its relevance. Recently, Borget had a clash with the SEC in the United States, disagreeing with the regulator’s classification of the project’s native $SAND token as a security.No doubt that experience has helped to underscore his appreciation for Singapore’s regulatory setup. Nevertheless, Wong described 2023 as an important and pivotal year for metaverse growth.

Stables Money, an Australian platform that claims to be on a mission “to make stablecoins usable for everyday use,” has partnered with Philippines-based digital assets platform Coins.ph to use the latter’s peso-pegged stablecoin (PHPC) for remittances. Peso-denominated stablecoinIn a press release published to the Coins.ph website on Aug. 28, the firm laid out details of the deal. PHPC is a retail stablecoin which is backed by Philippine peso-denominated cash reserves and pegged to the peso on a 1:1 basis. The stablecoin was launched by Coins.ph in July.  It’s an ERC-20 token which runs on the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM)-compatible Ronin blockchain network. The stablecoin was accepted into the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ regulatory sandbox in May.Photo by Aeron Oracion on Unsplash$35 billion in remittancesThe Philippines has always been seen as a lucrative remittance market due to the high number of Filipinos who work outside of the country, sending funds home to family on a regular basis. In 2020, remittances back to the Philippines from overseas were just shy of $35 billion, according to data from the World Bank. It appears that Australia’s Stables Money has identified this opportunity, with the company entering the Philippine market back in March. The Philippine peso already accounts for over 25% of all outward transactions sent via the platform. Stables Money CEO Bernardo Bilotta spoke to the opportunity that the company is trying to exploit. He stated: "Recognizing the Philippines as a key player in global remittances, we expanded to deliver smooth PHP transactions. With 28.44% of our send transactions now in PHP, this move highlights our commitment to making cross-border payments hassle-free for those sending money to the Philippines.” Coins.ph has the intention of engaging in further industry partnerships in an effort to expand the reach of PHPC. That will mean additional collaborations with crypto exchanges, digital asset wallet providers and those financial institutions who are increasingly delving into the world of stablecoins. Commenting on this latest development, Wei Zhou, Coins.ph CEO, stated:”We’re encouraged to see growing adoption of PHPC among our user base. Our partnerships with Stables and Ronin underscore the vast potential of PHPC in cross-border transactions, trading and other financial activities.” Stables has also made efforts to expand through the use of Circle’s USDC stablecoin. Last month, it partnered with global payments card platform Mastercard in a collaboration which facilitates Stables users in purchasing goods using USDC at locations across 27 European countries where Mastercard is accepted. The firm’s partnership with Mastercard dates back to March 2023 when it entered into a similar collaboration relative to the Asia-Pacific region. Previous peso-based stablecoin projectsCoins.ph is not the first entity to try and drive adoption of a Philippine peso-based stablecoin. The Southeast Asian country’s UnionBank launched a similar product back in 2019. However, the product failed to find product-market fit and ultimately, it was withdrawn from the market. The company tried once again in 2022, attempting to launch a similar product through its digital bank subsidiary UnionDigital, in an effort that seems to have failed. More recently still, UnionBank subsidiary company UBX launched a peso-based stablecoin on Polygon back in March.

Singapore’s DBS Bank, the largest bank in Southeast Asia with assets totaling $739 billion, has launched a pilot project that utilizes blockchain technology for the purpose of distributing government grants. According to a report from Fintech News Singapore, the bank has partnered with Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG) and the Singapore Fintech Association (SFA) to establish the pilot program. The objective is to realize greater efficiency, governance and user experience where programmable grant disbursements are concerned, as a direct consequence of bringing blockchain technology into the equation. Purpose-bound money The pilot program relies on the use of a protocol known as purpose-bound money (PBM). A whitepaper relative to PBM was first published in 2023 by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). In developing the protocol, MAS had collaborated with DBS, alongside Amazon, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank of Korea, Banca d’Italia and JPMorgan-owned blockchain platform Onyx. PBM enables the sender of funds to specify certain conditions relative to funds released. This may include such items as validity periods or a set of controls on how funds can be spent by the recipient. Such conditions can be programmed in through the use of smart contracts. Baking specific parameters in from the outset in turn empowers the distributor to automate disbursements to beneficiaries. With disbursements automated, the process realizes efficiency gains. Manual oversight can be cut out of the process entirely.  DBS noted a previous program established during the Singapore Fintech Festival in 2023. It involved 27 local fintech firms. Prominent among them were Advance Intelligence, Experian Singapore, Intersystems, Dobin and Aspire. DBS Bank effected such payments over its permissioned blockchain, ensuring that specified recipients received the grants only when specific parameters had been met. SFA President Shadab Taiyabi commented on the pilot project, stating:“The solution is designed to streamline business grant disbursements that enables local companies to receive payouts more quickly and efficiently, providing them with additional capital to expand their key business areas.” Taiyabi added that the SFA will continue to support collaborations between the public and private sectors relative to programmable grant disbursements as Singapore works towards its Smart Nation objectives.Photo by Mike Enerio on UnsplashEfficiency gains Han Kwee Juan, DBS Bank’s country head, emphasized the efficiency gains, stating: “Smart contract technology automates and streamlines grant disbursements for government agencies to enable faster, more secure disbursements and payments.” While DBS has progressed this project as a consequence of its collaboration with MAS on PBM, the bank has also been working with the Singaporean regulator on Project Orchid, a project which aims to progress technology and competencies relative to the development of a digital Singaporean dollar. Similarly, it has participated in Project Guardian, an asset tokenization initiative between policymakers and the financial industry. Earlier this month, DBS entered into a collaboration with Ant International, the international division of the Ant Group which in turn is an affiliate of Chinese e-commerce behemoth, Alibaba, with the aim of providing treasury tokens to improve treasury and liquidity management.