DWF Labs Enters Into Strategic Partnership with TRON

Seongnam City Hosts Seminar on Industry 4.0 AdvancementSeongnam City of Gyeonggi Province announced that it held a seminar on Tuesday under the theme “Seongnam: 50 Years Today, 50 Years Tomorrow” at the city hall to discuss the vision and prospects of the city’s identity as a technological hub for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0. Some 100 individuals were in attendance, including the city’s mayor, Shin Sang-jin, and the Director of the Seongnam Research Institute, Im Jong-soon, along with other experts, citizens, and city officials.Photo by Sandro Katalina on UnsplashPath to the Fourth Industrial RevolutionFor Seongnam to develop further, Shin emphasized the need for a specific vision for the city’s future growth. “Gathering individual talent and corporations to drive innovation is the key to leading the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” he said.Shin presented seven major tasks required to achieve this goal, including the establishment of a next-generation semiconductor cluster, a bio cluster, an Industry 4.0 cluster, a special zone dedicated to blockchain and the metaverse, a metaverse platform, and a smart city, as well as a Digital Twin City project. Director Im Jong-soon pledged that the Seongnam Research Institute would support the city’s development through extensive research.During the seminar, multiple experts also gave presentations on various topics, such as the growth process of Seongnam’s industry, digital transformation, and the city’s tasks in becoming an Industry 4.0 hub.Following the presentations, a panel discussion was led by Jang Yoon-jong, a research fellow at the Korea Development Institute. The discussion included participation from Lee Kwang-yong, Head of Policy Strategy at Naver; Kim Seo-gyun, Secretary-General of the Korea Fabless Industry Association; and Kwon Soon-bum, a research fellow at the Seongnam Research Institute. The panelists engaged in a lively debate on the prospects of Seongnam’s development.Innovation and research for a vibrant futureThe Seongnam Research Institute was established on July 3, becoming the first of its kind among cities with a population of over 500,000 to provide policy alternatives and improve the quality of life for citizens through systematic research on current issues.

Singapore-based startup Pontem, a Web3 product development studio, has successfully raised $6 million in a recent funding round. Broad venture capital participationThe firm announced details of the funding round via a press release published on Thursday.  The round was co-led by Faction and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The financing includes participation from notable contributors such as Pantera Capital, Aptos Foundation, market maker Wintermute, Singaporean trading firm Altonomy, Shima Capital and Kraken Ventures. This latest capital infusion brings Pontem's total raised funds to $10.5 million, building upon the $4.5 million secured in June 2021 through a private token sale led by Mechanism Capital, Kenetic Capital, Delphi Ventures and Hong Kong’s Animoca Brands.Pepi Stojanovski on UnsplashExpanding Move utilityThe primary focus of the funds is to empower developers in creating applications that are compatible with both the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and Move, expanding the utility of the Move programming language beyond its current usage on the Aptos and Sui blockchains. Move is a rust-derived programming language which was originally developed by Facebook with the intention of using it to power the Diem blockchain, prior to the company abandoning the project. It’s a platform-agnostic language designed for the writing of safe smart contracts. It distinguishes itself from the EVM's Solidity language by enhancing throughput through parallel processing. Pontem contends that Move is particularly appealing to Web2 developers from traditional finance and tech sectors due to its similarity to familiar static-type languages. Pontem envisions breaking the temporary vendor lock-in associated with the EVM, offering developers a versatile programming language that supports the security and scalability required for widespread adoption. Alejo Pinto, co-founder of Pontem, highlighted the objective of utilizing the capital influx to increase the usage of Move beyond the Aptos and Sui blockchains, providing dApp teams with a programming language that facilitates the addition of new features, promoting security and scalability. Pinto emphasized that Pontem seeks to address the vendor lock-in issue on Ethereum, enabling easier entry for Web2 developers and fostering their confidence in the decentralized space. Banafsheh Fathieh, Partner at Faction, praised Pontem's role in building critical primitives for the Move ecosystems. Pantera Capital Managing Partner Paul Veradittakit expressed excitement about investing in Pontem, recognizing the team's efforts in constructing essential financial and technical infrastructure to attract consumers and developers to the decentralized web. Lumio Layer 2The allocated capital is earmarked for developing Move Virtual Machine products on EVM-compatible blockchains like Ethereum. This includes Lumio, a Move-based Layer 2 solution which the company introduced in December. It operates as an optimistic rollup on Ethereum and leverages alternative Layer 1s like Aptos to process transactions. Pontem disclosed that products deployed on Aptos, such as the Pontem Wallet and Liquidswap DEX, have gained significant traction with 40,000 weekly active users and up to $1 million in daily volume. Looking ahead, Pontem envisions extending its support to the Solana Virtual Machine and other blockchain languages, underscoring its intention to provide a comprehensive development environment for decentralized applications. The funding secured in this round signifies a crucial step for the fledgling company in advancing the compatibility and accessibility of the Move programming language within the broader blockchain ecosystem. 

The global crypto trading platform Crypto.com has signed a memorandum of understanding with AI fashion-tech firm Altava Group, Korean media outlet Digital Daily reported. According to the press, the signing ceremony took place on Wednesday at the office of Crypto.com Korea, attended by Andrew Junhoe Ku, CEO of Altava Group and Eric Anziani, COO of Crypto.com. Photo by freestocks on UnsplashAs the initial step of the partnership, they aim to integrate Crypto.com’s NFT marketplace and payment solutions with Altava Group’s digital fashion services. Altava Group provides innovative virtual fashion experiences to major fashion brands worldwide, including LVMH, Balmain and Bulgari. By leveraging Altava Group’s network, Crypto.com plans to lay the groundwork for innovation in the digital fashion industry, with various joint promotional events with Altava Group in store.  Fashion-tech meets crypto payment“We are excited to partner with Altava Group, a leader in the digital fashion sector. We hope to leverage our technology and expertise for the growth and advancement of the global digital fashion market – an area in which we see great potential,” said Anziani. Ku also expressed his excitement about the partnership and the integration of crypto payment solutions, saying “We are extremely pleased to explore Crypto.com Pay through the partnership with Crypto.com, a global virtual asset leader with over 80 million users. We expect the addition of cryptocurrency as a payment option to help lower entry barriers for fashion brands and creators, and further strengthen the foundation for the digital fashion ecosystem.”