Coincheck to become first Japanese crypto exchange to list on Nasdaq

Korea ST Exchange has committed to conducting a demonstrative experiment involving security tokens to help advance the domestic agriculture and livestock industry along with six other companies, including Korea Venture Agriculture Association, Maeil Business Agtech Innovation Center, MAM TECH, XR Touch, Jangbogo Asset and Crowdy. Representatives from all seven firms participated in an agreement signing ceremony held at the Maekyung Media Center on Thursday, according to local news site Financial News.Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash"Smart farms are an industry in South Korea with great potential for growth that is gaining a  competitive edge in the global market," said Cho Won-dong, CEO of Korea ST Trading. "With this agreement, our council plans to strengthen the smart farm security tokens ecosystem to increase the profits of domestic agricultural producers and strengthen global competitiveness." Fostering agricultural innovationThe experiment aims to promote the innovative trading system of smart farms for the development of the agriculture and livestock industry and discover stable underlying assets that will serve as a bridge for integration with innovative finance such as digital assets and security tokens. With this agreement, the parties will cooperate on issuing and distributing tokenized real assets, commodity tokens and security tokens, building infrastructure to support and encourage the trading of security tokens, exchanging information and sharing collaborative networks to build each participating firm’s business. They also plan to issue security tokens in the form of investment contract securities that attribute profits and losses according to the results of joint business ventures by creating a device to tokenize contracts for harvesting agricultural products. Korea ST Trading’s comprehensive roleBased on the platform, Korea ST Trading will provide support for all services such as security token distribution, trading, management, dividends, liquidation and investment information to help expand the smart farm ecosystem and attract private investments.

Asian Market Surge for XRP Amid Broader Market ImplicationsXRP, the cryptocurrency and native token used by real time gross settlement system, Ripple, has seen renewed activity in recent weeks in terms of trading volume. That trading volume appears to be more pronounced in Asian markets such as South Korea.©Pexels/RODNAE ProductionsThe XRP token has traded up 22% over the course of the past seven days, with a current unit price of $0.54. Trading volume has surged on South Korean exchanges such as Bithumb UpBit and Korbit where volume spiked 18%, 37% and 50% respectively over the past 24 hours. This trading activity is irregular as ordinarily the trading volume of Bitcoin and ether would account for the vast bulk of trading on the three leading Korean exchanges.Speculative interestXRP has under-performed in recent years and at the heart of its difficulties has been a multi-year legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States. In its complaint, the SEC has claimed that XRP is an unregistered security. Speculation in recent weeks suggests that this highly litigated battle may be drawing to a conclusion. Many commentators have suggested that either a deal will be struck or the court could soon decide to rule on the matter.During the 2017 bull market, the token reached the heady heights of a $3.40 unit price. That’s a target that the cryptocurrency has never been able to reach ever since. During the last bull market, it rose to around $1.76 for a short time in April 2021. There’s little doubt but the regulatory cloud hanging over it has suppressed the price. Much depends on the outcome of this lawsuit, not just for XRP but for crypto as a whole.Another notion driving speculative interest is the idea that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) may classify XRP as a commodity. That line of thought is more recent and follows the CFTC classifying a number of cryptocurrencies as commodities in its lawsuit against global crypto exchange Binance. In follow up comments earlier this week, CFTC Chair Roistin Behnam reiterated the claim.The very fact that the CFTC has made this claim is significant in terms of the case being pursued by the SEC, potentially weakening the SECs case. Lawyers for Ripple have made the court aware of the CFTCs claims.Crypto moving forwardCrypto traders in South Korea have been notorious in the past for pursuing speculative trends within the industry with the Kimchi Premium on Bitcoin back in the day as a stand out example. Whether speculative or not, the outcome for XRP, Ripple and the broader cryptocurrency space relative to the cryptocurrency’s regulatory status will be significant.A positive result will not just be a fillip for XRP, Ripple and Asian and other crypto traders who have speculated on such an outcome. It will also serve to provide a level of regulatory protection for all other crypto projects within the United States. A negative outcome to the lawsuit will not be ideal for XRP, Ripple and US-based crypto projects. However, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has said in the past that if innovation is driven overseas, Ripple will focus on developing its product overseas.In an interview this week Ripple President Monica Long suggested that over and above the lawsuit, crypto innovation is generally being pushed outside of the United States. Long cites Asia as taking the lead on “thoughtful crypto policy”. On that basis, it’s likely that one way or another crypto moves forward and maybe South Korean speculators will be proven right regardless of the outcome of the XRP..

Elliptic and CODE join forces to propel crypto compliance in KoreaElliptic, a global blockchain analytics and crypto compliance solutions provider, has partnered with CODE, a Seoul-based Travel Rule solution provider, as part of efforts to expand its operations into the Korean market. Under this agreement, the two companies aim to actively support virtual asset service providers (VASPs) in South Korea in their attempts to adapt to the evolving international regulatory landscape for anti-money laundering (AML) and the crypto Travel Rule.Photo by NordWood Themes on UnsplashCrypto Travel RuleThe Travel Rule refers to the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) Recommendation #16, which outlines that VASPs must share certain personal information about customers — including names and account numbers — when facilitating crypto transactions that exceed a certain amount.Empowering VASPs through risk mitigationElliptic and CODE will work together on comprehensive regulatory technology-based (RegTech) solutions to enable VASPs to identify AML and Counter Financing of Terrorism (CFT) risks among virtual asset transactions, ultimately leading the sustainable growth of the crypto asset industry. In particular, CODE will be able to leverage Elliptic’s services to ensure compliance with Travel Rule regulations. Elliptic offers solutions like wallet screening, transaction monitoring, crypto investigations and VASP screening for big names like Coinbase, Binance and BitGo, as well as law enforcement agencies.“This partnership with Elliptic allows us to expand our compliance services beyond Travel Rule-related solutions for VASPs. Elliptic’s advanced technology and expertise will help our corporate members achieve regulatory compliance more efficiently, contributing greatly to enhancing transparency and security throughout the larger virtual asset industry,” said CODE CEO Lee Sung-mi.