Finblox Launching Tokenized US Treasury Bonds

Web3 metaverse and NFT platform CarrieVerse has secured funding from the JB Digital Asset Investment Fund 1 operated by JB Investment, the corporate venture capital arm of JB Financial Group, and Ecrux Venture Partners. The total value of the investment was not disclosed, according to Korean news outlet TechM. "The injection of new capital is a breath of fresh air after a slow crypto winter," said David Yoon, CEO of CarrieVerse. "With aggressive business and marketing tactics, we will bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3, helping to expand and popularize the Web3 market."Photo by Precondo CA on UnsplashThriving Web3 metaverseCarrieVerse is a Web3 metaverse available in various regions, including 15 Asian countries. The platform surpassed one million pre-registrations prior to its launch and also recorded 10,000 visitors in a single day. It was also revealed that it is one of the most popular platforms in Thailand, where it recently launched.  CarrieVerse is also the base hub for the card strategy role-playing game (RPG) SuperKola Tactics and the blockchain gaming platform Cling. Its native governance token, CVTX, has been listed on several exchanges like BingX and Bitget. Notably, CarrieVerse was also recently selected to join the UAE’s Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) to establish a local subsidiary that will serve as a hub to expand the company’s global Web3 ecosystem. Reasons and expectationsJB Investment cited CarrieVerse's global business network and Web3 capabilities as the reason for providing the funding. Ecrux Venture Partners, on the other hand, aims to create synergies between IP companies and the metaverse through CarrieVerse’s projects. Ecrux is a new venture capital firm that focuses on discovering companies that can commercialize content-based IP such as animated characters.  

The Royal Government of Bhutan has moved $66 million in Bitcoin (BTC) to global crypto exchange Binance. That’s according to blockchain data analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, outlining that the assets were moved to Binance over two separate transactions. The firm took to the X social media platform on Oct. 29 to highlight the digital asset transfer. In its X post, the firm wrote:”Crypto wallets belonging to the Royal Government of Bhutan moved $66.55M BTC to Binance this morning. The last time they deposited to exchanges was 4 months ago, at the start of July.”Photo by Moose Photos on PexelsSell-off concernsSome crypto community commentators have expressed concern of a sell-off given that the nation nestled in the Himalayas still has a holding of 12,456 Bitcoin, worth in the region of $900 million. The transfer was made on a day in which Bitcoin reached a unit price in excess of $73,000.  Arkham outlined that geographical data suggests that Bhutan’s Bitcoin mines remain active. On Oct. 29, they had accumulated $600,000 worth of Bitcoin mining rewards on-chain.  In this latest market activity, the Bhutanese began selling when the Bitcoin unit price had exceeded $70,000. As Bitcoin reaches towards new all-time-high pricing, Bitcoin whales often take profits. Mining Bitcoin since $5KIt emerged in 2023 that Bhutan had been quietly mining Bitcoin over the course of a number of years, since the leading digital asset had a unit price of around $5,000. The commercial activity has been enabled via Druk Holding and Investments (DHI), the commercial arm of the Royal Government of Bhutan. The Asian nation has ample hydroelectricity resources, being the only carbon-negative country in the world. Consequently, all its Bitcoin mining is carried out using hydro. While mining activity had been ongoing for a number of years and had largely gone unnoticed by the industry, an entanglement between DHI and failed crypto lenders BlockFi and Celsius brought more attention onto the Bhutanese holding company’s activities relative to crypto.  LawsuitsDHI was sued by BlockFi with the action subsequently voluntarily dismissed. In the case of Celsius it withdrew around $65 million from the platform prior to Celsius declaring bankruptcy. As a consequence, Celsius is currently suing DHI to claw back the funds that were removed from the platform. In 2023 Singaporean Bitcoin mining firm Bitdeer entered into a partnership with DHI with a view towards jointly developing green digital asset mining operation within the Kingdom of Bhutan. At the time, DHI CEO Ujjwal Deep Dahal said that the partnership formed part of an overall strategy to ensure that Bhutan took its place at the forefront of global innovation. Arkham Intelligence outlined on X that in H2 2023, Bhutan’s Bitcoin mining operations were producing in the region of 26 Bitcoin per day, or 780 Bitcoin per month. However, over the past three months, that mining rate has decreased to 8.6 BTC per day or 260 BTC per month. Arkham suggests that the Bitcoin halving, together with the increase in the Bitcoin hashrate, explains the reduced output, although it speculated that some unknown issue with Bitcoin mining rigs may also be a contributing factor. 

Dominik Schiener, the co-founder of distributed ledger technology (DLT) project IOTA, outlined on X on Dec. 12 that he had met with Cristina Aldeguer-Roque, Secretary of Trade of the Philippines. Commenting further, Schiener wrote: “We are looking forward to expand IOTA and our trade infrastructure TWIN across South East Asia in 2025.” Photo by iSawRed on UnsplashCutting through trade barriersTWIN refers to IOTA’s Trade Worldwide Information Network, a continuation of another longstanding IOTA project, the Trade and Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP). The objective of TWIN is to cut through trade barriers and improve connections between disparate national trading systems. In rolling out the network, IOTA has formed a consortium which includes organizations such as TradeMark Africa, the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation and the Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade. TWIN seeks to optimize trade processes by merging physical goods with digital infrastructure, eliminating inefficiencies and boosting transparency. Schiener anticipates that once participants place data on the network, they will ultimately tokenize assets on it. In turn, this will result in utility for the IOTA token, once TWIN is released on the IOTA mainnet. The TWIN project is currently staffed by 28 people but Schiener believes that this will grow to 100 people over the course of the next two years. The project originally emerged in Germany, with the IOTA Foundation having its headquarters in Berlin. Initially, IOTA concerned itself with European blockchain initiatives in trying to find its place in the industry. Earlier this year, its Web3 identity authentication solution was chosen by the European Commission for inclusion within the European Blockchain Sandbox Initiative (EBSI). In August, the IOTA Foundation completed the final stage of the European Union’s blockchain pre-commercial procurement (PCP) program. Strategic expansionHowever, over the course of the past year, the project has expanded towards searching for product market fit within emerging markets. In November 2023, the project established the IOTA Ecosystem DLT Foundation within the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) financial center in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This marked the first DLT foundation to have established itself within the ADGM.  $100 million in funding was provided with the objective of nurturing the IOTA ecosystem and accelerating the growth of the IOTA protocol. Since then, the TON Foundation and the Aptos Foundation have moved to register under the ADGM’s DLT Foundations framework. East Africa has been ground zero for IOTA’s attempts to enhance cross-border processes related to trade documentation, where it has been working with TradeMark Africa and local regulators. In Singapore, the IOTA Foundation has collaborated with global innovation ecosystem Tenity to establish the IOTA Accelerator, a 12-week initiative aimed at assisting early-stage startups concerned with real-world asset (RWA) tokenization within the IOTA ecosystem. Schiener’s meeting in the Philippines would suggest that the project is making greater efforts still in terms of bringing about the adoption of the technology in Southeast Asia. In his X post, Schiener wrote: “Let's connect the world with sovereign digital infrastructure.”