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On Thursday, South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Committee (PIPC) launched an investigation into Worldcoin’s personal data collection, processing and potential overseas transfer of sensitive personal data, the PIPC announced today via its official website. This comes after a number of complaints were filed against Worldcoin for its data collection practices.  Sam Altman’s crypto project Worldcoin gathers people’s personal data who signed up to have their irises scanned by “orbs” devices, which are currently installed in about 10 locations in Korea, including Yeouido, Pangyo and Apgujeong. The project started with the aim of distributing universal basic income to people whose jobs will be potentially replaced by artificial general intelligence (AGI) in the future. Photo by Colin Lloyd on UnsplashThe PIPC said the regulators will examine if any local privacy law has been violated by Worldcoin, and take further action in line with the Personal Information Protection Act. Following the launch of the investigation on Feb. 29, Worldcoin has withdrawn six orbs devices in Korea and stopped accepting new members. It has also suspended the distribution of the Worldcoin token (WLD) to members who have already signed up, media outlet Chosun Biz reported.  Free crypto tokens in exchange for personal data For individuals who have their irises scanned, Worldcoin rewards three WLD tokens every two weeks, which are worth approximately $22.5 (KRW 30,000) at the time of writing. The price of WLD has soared by nearly ten-fold from about KRW 1,300 last year to over KRW 13,000 today, according to the data from the local crypto exchange Bithumb. This price surge followed OpenAI’s launch of a text-to-video AI tool, Sora. The current circulating supply of WLD stands at around 100 million tokens. According to Worldcoin’s white paper, the WLD’s total supply cap will remain fixed at 10 billion tokens during the first 15 years following its launch.  The data collected from the eyeball scanning is shared on the Worldcoin blockchain, which is protected by the zero-knowledge proof technology that prevents the data from being tracked or shared with other applications. The personal data remaining in the orbs devices is deleted.  Ongoing overseas investigation on Worldcoin South Korea is not the only country that is examining Worldcoin’s personal data collection practices. The project’s processing of information has raised concerns in other jurisdictions as well, including the U.K., France, Argentina and Kenya. In the U.S., the issuance of WLD tokens has been banned by the country’s authority. 

XPLA-Kado Partnership allows fiat-to-crypto transactions for XPLA usersXPLA, the layer 1 blockchain project operated by South Korean gaming company Com2uS Group, announced on Friday (local time) its partnership with Kado, a fiat-to-crypto on/off ramp platform, enabling XPLA users to move between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies seamlessly.Photo by Ibrahim Boran on UnsplashXPLA available via Visa, MastercardKado simplifies the process of converting between fiat and crypto. Usually, Web3 users have to deal with the inconvenience of using centralized exchanges to make such conversions. But Kado makes this much easier, allowing users to make purchases with either fiat currencies or cryptocurrencies. The platform accommodates an array of more than 20 fiat currencies and supports well-established payment options, including Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay, ACH Transfer and Wire Transfer. Moreover, Kado’s services extend across over 150 countries that support Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols.Paul Kim, CEO of XPLA, acknowledged Kado’s contributions to establishing a base for the growth of the Web3 economy. He pointed out that this collaboration will make it simpler and more intuitive for XPLA users to engage with the Web3 economy. Thanks to Kado’s services, XPLA users will now be able to transact with their tokens with greater ease.Vince Dowdle, co-founder of Kado, underscored the importance of this partnership, noting that Kado has recognized XPLA as a frontrunner in shaping the future of Web3 gaming. This recognition comes from XPLA’s proactive stance in acquiring the intellectual properties (IPs) of multiple major games, reflecting a firm belief in the potential of the Web3 content space.Meanwhile, XPLA boasts a diverse roster of validators such as Oasys, Animoca Brands, YGG, Blockdaemon, Cosmostation and LayerZero. It has also onboarded popular games like Summoners War: Chronicles, Minigame Party, Ace Fishing: Crew, Idle Ninja Online and The Walking Dead: All-Stars. With these titles, XPLA is actively working to establish itself as a major hub for Web3 content on a global scale.

China Launches National Blockchain Center to Develop TalentHaving initially been announced in February, China’s National Blockchain Technology Innovation Center was formally launched on Wednesday. The center is based in China’s capital city of Beijing, and plans to collaborate with existing crypto and blockchain businesses, think tanks that concern themselves with blockchain and digital assets, and local universities in an effort to further advance blockchain technology within China’s borders.Photo by Hanson Lu on UnsplashEnterprise blockchain developmentEncompassed within the National Blockchain Technology Innovation Center lies the Beijing Academy of Blockchain and Edge Computing. The academy’s leading achievement to date has been its development of the ChainMaker blockchain. The state-sponsored blockchain incorporates clusters of high performance servers of 1,000 units or more, and it claims to achieve a throughput of 240 million transactions per second.The blockchain is being geared towards enterprise use, and the sharing of information between businesses. The ChainMaker project team has also developed an immutable storage mechanism called “Hong”. It’s understood that the team plans to open-source that technology in due course. The storage system is being used by around 80 government departments in Beijing to collect and store data.ChainMaker is collaborating with fifty corporations, with most of them being state-owned entities.Linking up separate networksIn these efforts to advance China’s blockchain sector, the Center is being backed by China’s Ministry of Science and Technology. One of its key objectives is to ensure that the research center enables a comprehensive, nation-wide network to link together disparate blockchain systems, including those already built, within China. Furthermore, the Chinese authorities want the Center to support existing industries, serving them by bringing blockchain technology to their operations, and in that way advancing businesses with that added competitive edge.Zheng Zhiming, a leading academic at the Chinese Academy of Sciences said that existing blockchain projects are isolated from each other. Zhiming believes that this is holding them back, impeding their growth. This latest approach through the National Blockchain Technology Center is geared to address that shortcoming.It’s interesting to note that while the Chinese authorities have taken a very hard line in relation to cryptocurrencies, they are very much trying to advance their blockchain sector. Likewise, they are pulling out the stops for China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) project, the digital yuan or e-CNY.It emerged last week that the Bank of China has partnered with French international banking group BNP Paribas, in an effort to promote further use of the digital yuan among the bank’s corporate clients.A dual strategyMeanwhile in China’s autonomous territory of Hong Kong, the city has been given an implicit mandate from the Chinese central government to open its doors to cryptocurrency-related businesses. Cleverly, the Chinese are covering both eventualities. While they don’t want citizens within mainland China to have access to decentralized cryptocurrencies and dApps, they still don’t want to miss out on any upside that the technology and its innovation may bring.On that basis, Hong Kong has been given the space and freedom to compete for crypto business on a global basis, competing in that respect with other emerging centers such as Singapore and Dubai.