South Korea's prestigious university to launch philosophy major dedicated to Bitcoin

India’s WazirX Partners with TaxNodes to Simplify TaxesIndia’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, WazirX, has integrated with TaxNodes to enable platform users to calculate and file their crypto-taxes with greater ease.TaxNodes is a platform that provides users with the ability to calculate taxes on their cryptocurrency transactions. The start-up company has built a product for the retail crypto investor and trader that’s accessible on a global basis.Photo by Julian Yu on UnsplashEase of calculationThrough the partnership, TaxNodes will enable WazirXs expansive user base to calculate and file taxes on their crypto trades and crypto investments accurately. Furthermore, it will extend its service to provide updates on any developments in Indian taxation relative to the digital assets sector.Avinash Shekhar, Founder and CEO of TaxNodes, commented on the partnership: “We are looking forward to embarking on a journey with WazirX. We believe that our solutions will help WazirX’s customer base get clarity on the taxes levied on their investment. We think that our users will be able to leverage our plans to not only compute but also file their taxes, thereby, enabling us to simplify the taxation journey of crypto investors in the country.”From its perspective, Rajagopal Menon, Vice President at WazirX, said that the company has always prioritized compliance with regulations in the country to set an example of fair practice in the virtual digital asset industry. The partnership between WazirX and TaxNodes will be beneficial in enabling an ecosystem of regulatory abidance and mainstream adoption of crypto without the challenges of tax miscalculation or default.”High taxesIndia has chopped and changed its position on digital assets many times, and its tax treatment of cryptocurrencies has also undergone changes in tandem with that. Currently, Indian investors who trade digital assets, inclusive of NFTs, are under the obligation to declare their income if the assets are held as investments.Income tax return (ITR) forms for the 2022–2023 tax year have been amended to include a section dedicated to digital assets. A section called “Schedule — Virtual Digital Assets (VDA)” is now included. Income from the sale of virtual assets is currently taxed in India at a rate of 30%. One inequitable feature of the Indian crypto tax treatment is the fact that losses incurred from digital assets cannot be offset against other income.Additional taxes are to be applied in the form of tax deducted at source (TDS) of 1%, applicable on all sell transactions of digital assets and NFTs. That measure was first applied as of July 1, 2022. The world’s largest democracy has taken a very repressive stance in taxing digital assets, and added to that, non-compliance in the case of TDS can be sanctioned by way of a fine or jail time.With those high stakes, it’s appropriate that service providers like TaxNodes are collaborating with Indian crypto exchanges like WazirX. Crypto market participants can’t afford to miscalculate their taxes given the sanctions that could potentially be applied.

The Deutsche Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, has joined Project Guardian, a collaboration established in 2022 between the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the financial sector, with an emphasis on the use of asset tokenization to improve liquidity and efficiency within financial markets.Photo by Rachel Davis on UnsplashAssessing DLT technologyIn a press release published on Nov. 8, Bundesbank Executive Board member Burkhard Balz suggested that the central bank is aligned with MAS in that both central banks are interested in determining “how innovative technologies and concepts, such as distributed ledger technology (DLT) or blockchain, can be put to meaningful use in the financial sector.” In joining Project Guardian, the Bundesbank will take part in the Asset & Wealth Management workstream, testing an interoperable blockchain platform for tokenized and digital funds. While the German central bank has just announced details of its participation in Project Guardian, in a speech given at the Layer One Summit, an event which formed part of the Singapore Fintech Festival last week, MAS Deputy Director Leong Sing Chiong welcomed the Bundesbank, alongside the World Bank, to Project Guardian.  The MAS executive clarified that the Deutsche Bundesbank and the World Bank would join the project’s Policymaker Group. He outlined that the role of that group is to “help provide inputs on governance arrangements, guidance on how GL1 [Global Layer One] infrastructures can be developed in line with global standards, and advice on appropriate regulatory guardrails for tokenised asset transactions.” GL1 refers to an initiative that has been established to create the foundational digital infrastructure to facilitate tokenized assets. Cross-border collaborationThrough its involvement in Project Guardian, the German central bank hopes to strengthen cross-border collaboration, while at the same time, progressing matters related to the “standardisation and interoperability of digital assets.” In working towards the goal of standardization, MAS has published two comprehensive reports covering fixed income tokenization and fund tokenization. MAS believes that the use of too many individual private DLT networks is resulting in fragmentation, with a detrimental effect with regard to liquidity. Consequently, the Singaporean central bank is establishing the Guardian Wholesale Network to improve liquidity and achieve asset tokenization at scale. The network will consist of Citi, Schroders, Standard Chartered, UOB and HSBC. Additionally, it was recently announced that SBI Digital Markets, a Singapore-based affiliate company of Japan’s SBI Digital Asset Holdings (SBI DAH), intends to contribute towards greater liquidity through its involvement in a fixed income asset tokenization pilot. Meanwhile, Citi and Fidelity have developed a proof of concept for a digital foreign exchange (FX) swap, enabled within an on-chain money market fund (MMF).  Tokenization inflection pointLeong went on to claim that while nobody has succeeded yet in implementing tokenization at scale, an inflection point has been reached with regard to the use of tokenization. He added that many use cases are promising relative to tokenization but that there is a need for supporting infrastructure “to enable good use cases to scale beyond individual networks.” In the press release, Leong said that the Bundesbank’s expertise “will be invaluable as we work together to enhance liquidity and efficiency of financial markets through asset tokenisation.”

BS Universe to Leverage Burrito Wallet’s Multichain Capabilities for Global IP ProjectBS Universe, the Singapore-based company behind the globally popular intellectual properties (IPs) Pinkfong and Baby Shark, said Friday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Burrito Wallet — the digital wallet developed by Rotonda, a subsidiary of Korean crypto exchange Bithumb. Through this new partnership, BS Universe aims to make the user experience on its open-world ecosystem, Baby Shark Universe, more convenient by utilizing the multichain blockchain support capabilities of Burrito Wallet.Photo by Shubham Dhage on UnsplashThis is part of the company’s goal to introduce a new paradigm by merging global IPs with innovative technologies.Multichain tech meets Web3 ecosystemBurrito Wallet is a Web3.0 digital wallet that supports 11 mainnets including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Polygon, along with over 1,300 cryptocurrencies. It also incorporates an easy sign-up and wallet formation system while enabling users to send NFTs and virtual assets through chatting without the hassle of wallet addresses, thereby reducing the risk of faulty deposits.BS Universe’s Baby Shark Universe project is a joint venture between Baby Shark Games, a subsidiary of The Pinkfong Company’s gaming division, and Retro Future, a pixel game developer. This project aims to create a Web3-based open-world ecosystem. The company also joined the Polygon ecosystem in April and is consistently updating its products and services.Sneak peek of Baby Shark UniverseBS Universe plans to reveal the pre-alpha version of Baby Shark Universe at Next Block 2023 — a conference co-hosted by Rotonda and Bithumb META, Bithumb’s metaverse subsidiary, for accelerating joint Web3 projects — on September 4. Through efforts like this, the company intends to increase interactions with users.