Upbit’s banking partner Kbank, BPMG team up on overseas stablecoin pilots

Asian fund acquires majority stake in The BlockIn the wake of certain difficulties experienced following the FTX collapse, prominent crypto publication The Block has secured its future through a strategic sale to Singapore-based venture capital group Foresight Ventures.Taking to the X platform on Monday, The Block’s CEO Larry Cermak announced the acquisition, with Foresight Ventures taking a majority stake in the publication. The deal results in a valuation of the US media group at $70 million. Cermak stated:”This [transaction] gives The Block a fresh start ahead of the bull market and provides us with more capital to build out new exciting products and expand our footprint into Asia and the Middle East.”Cermak also thanked New York-based investment bank Moelis & Company for its help in running the process.Photo by Kelly Sikkema on UnsplashFTX controversyThe sale should allow the firm to move on from a difficult situation which saw it implicated in the activities of convicted fraudster and former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). The fallout from the collapse of the FTX exchange in November of last year included the revelation that The Block had relied on undisclosed loans from SBF to sustain its operations.Michael McCaffrey, the former CEO of The Block, resigned last December after it was disclosed that he had borrowed $43 million from SBF’s Alameda Research, a crypto trading company. This financial arrangement was allegedly aimed at supporting the media company and facilitating property acquisitions.Following the conviction of SBF on charges of fraud and money laundering in New York earlier this month, The Block faced challenges and turned its focus towards building a more robust institutional customer base. The media group has been actively engaged in compiling industry deals and offering subscription-based news services.McCaffrey had taken loans totaling $27 million to buy out shareholders and support the media group, with an additional $16 million used for property acquisition in the Bahamas. The financial arrangement with Alameda was undisclosed to the broader team at The Block, as revealed by Bobby Moran, the company’s chief revenue officer at the time.It’s still unclear if McCaffrey has repaid these loans to the FTX Debtor that is currently managing the FTX business. FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2022 and with that, it is in the process of being restructured.$56 million investmentAs part of the deal, Foresight Ventures will invest $56 million, securing an 80 percent stake in The Block, according to a source cited by the Financial Times (FT). The investment is a strategic move, especially considering the recent slowdown in venture capital investment in the crypto market.While investors injected approximately $30 billion into crypto projects in both 2021 and 2022, the figure plummeted to $7 billion by the end of September of this year, according to PitchBook.Foresight Ventures CEO Forest Bai confirmed to the FT that The Block will continue to operate as an independent business. Bai stated: “We think The Block is one of the crown assets in the crypto media space. Our view is that the media aspect will continue to drive education and adoption in the space.”

Incheon Joins Hands with The Sandbox to Promote City in the MetaverseIncheon Metropolitan City is partnering with global metaverse platform The Sandbox to create innovative marketing content aimed at promoting its urban landscape within the virtual realm and establishing an overseas promotional network. This move makes it the first South Korean public institution to work with a metaverse platform.Photo by Jiho Choi on UnsplashThe Sandbox’s virtual worldBuilt on the Ethereum blockchain, The Sandbox enables users to employ non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for creating play-to-earn (P2E) games that can be monetized. The ecosystem’s utility token, SAND, facilitates this mechanism as it is used for in-game purchases. Currently, the platform boasts one of the highest cumulative NFT collection volumes among virtual world projects on the world’s largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea. It has also formed partnerships with over 400 entities around the world.City marketing strategyThrough this collaboration, Incheon plans to develop and introduce engaging content for users to experience the city virtually, such as a variety of events. Furthermore, the city also intends to utilize its intellectual property (IP) for activities such as NFT donation campaigns and metaverse creator training programs to implement extensive NFT content within The Sandbox’s virtual world.“We plan to continually develop content that enables people around the world to experience Incheon through our collaboration with the global metaverse platform,” said Lee Se-woong, Head of Incheon’s City Branding Division.

CJ ONE to Sell 3,000 NFTs for New Membership ServiceCJ ONE, a lifestyle membership service operated by digital service company CJ OliveNetworks of South Korean conglomerate CJ Group, announced on Tuesday that it will sell 3,000 digital membership NFTs for its new lifestyle service, PRISM ONE. This comes as part of efforts to enhance brand value and boost customer benefits.Photo by Choong Deng Xiang on Unsplash“The PRISM ONE Membership NFT is an important milestone that reflects changes within CJ ONE. As a lifestyle membership, our brand will strive to provide unique experiences in all aspects of our members’ lives,” said Ha Jae-young, Head of Data Marketing at CJ OliveNetworks.Tier benefitsThe NFTs are categorized into four tiers — Basic, Special, Premium, and Prestige — with higher tiers offering more benefits. Depending on the tier, which will be decided randomly, customers can receive up to 10,000 CJ ONE membership points per month and eight times the number of points that they accumulated the previous month over a period of half a year.CJ ONE points can be used like cash at various CJ Group subsidiaries that offer services in culture, dining, shopping, and entertainment, as well as over 30 brand partners such as cafe Mega MGC Coffee, convenience store CU, and refinery company Hyundai Oilbank.10 customers with the Prestige NFT will also be chosen to receive benefits worth KRW 1 million, including welcome packages from CJ The Market, CJ Group’s online grocery shopping mall, and accommodation vouchers to use at Starville, a luxury “glamping” — a portmanteau of “glam” and “camping” — site.Limited sales and resell opportunitiesMinted with a new brand identity design, the NFTs will be sold for KRW 45,000 each on the NFT trading platform Pala starting from 7 PM (Korea Standard Time) on September 13. Customers who participate in an event until September 3 can win a chance to purchase them at a discounted price of KRW 42,000 prior to the public sale. Payments can be made with Polygon tokens (MATIC) or Korean won, and digital wallets Klip and MetaMask are also supported, the company said. In particular, the NFTs can be resold on trading platforms like Pala.