Web 3.0 TokenBytes - Third Edition
Syed Musheer Ahmed
FinTech Ballerina | ex-Regulator | Virtual Assets | FinTech | Web 3.0 |
Welcome to the third edition of the?FinStep Asia's Web 3.0 Newsletter covering Web 3.0, DeFi and FinTech in Asia, as we kick off a roaring start to Lunar New Year of the Tiger!
We begin with the latest?Finstep Tipping Point for Climate Fintech Series:
In conversation with Simon JD Schillebeeckx, the Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Handprint, about how FinTechs can increasingly contribute to make a positive impact on climate change. We discuss how Handprint can provide a platform for companies to take responsibility and offset their carbon footprint. Click here to view the video and read the summary.
I decided to go and explore the?#AO?Metaverse, the metaverse version of the Australian Open Grandslam on?Decentraland. I had chanced upon Decentraland a few years ago at the first?#ethereum?meetup in Shenzhen organised by?Jehan Chu. (This is also where I first heard Vitalik speak inperson, and in fluent Mandarin).
Decentraland has literally gone places since and you can view here some highlights on my visit with screenshots: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/syedmusheer_metaverse-experiences-activity-6891630870260797440-3B1t/
<>???????? INews on Metaverse, NFT and Web 3.0?(Click on the headline to view the detailed article)
Stellar believe that adding smart contracts to the network will empower the ecosystem with more room to innovate. The goal is for Stellar to remain one of the most accessible networks for developers so that they can deliver high quality and safe applications to their users, while allowing it to adapt and respond to the competitive blockchain landscape. Since the Stellar network was built for the future of payments, it’s critical that smart contracts on Stellar are secure for users and can scale without exorbitant network fees.?If done right, this could set smart contracts on Stellar apart from the rest. Smart contracts aren’t new, but the way we could execute them on Stellar, learning from what’s been tested in the broader industry, could bring new utility in a way that doesn't currently exist. That's why Stellar are pursuing them.
Apple is looking seriously into the metaverse and it is putting money into exploring its potential, CEO Tim Cook said during an analysts'?earnings call?late Thursday. Asked about the opportunities presented by the metaverse and what role Apple could play, Cook gave a glimpse of the tech giant's plans in the space. "Well, that's a big question. But we're a company in the business of innovation, so we're always exploring new and emerging technologies. And I — you've spoken at length about how this area is very interesting to us," he said. "Right now, we have over 14,000 ARKit apps in the App Store, which provide incredible AR experiences for millions of people today."
The Sandbox, a decentralised gaming metaverse and a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, has committed US$50 million to global venture accelerator Brinc for?The Sandbox Metaverse Accelerator Programme, which will target 100 startups to enhance the open metaverse.
With applications now open and the first cohort scheduled to start in Q2 2022, The Sandbox Metaverse Accelerator Programme is a dedicated track within?Launchpad Luna, the accelerator launched in mid-2021 as a partnership between Brinc and Animoca Brands. The new programme aims to accelerate 30 to 40 startups a year over a three-year period.
JPMorgan has dipped a toe into the metaverse, becoming the first bank to open a lounge in the?Decentraland?virtual world. The bank opened its Onyx lounge - complete with roaming tiger - in?#blockchain-based Decentraland to coincide with the publication of a paper on the opportunities presented by the?#metaverse. Here our MBA intern, Lewis Chen checks out the ONYX lounge. JPM have also released a report on "Opportunities in the Metaverse: how businesses can explore the metaverse and navigate the hype vs. reality"
Mastercard?announced that they are partnering with?Coinbase?to let people use their Mastercard cards to make purchase on Coinbase's?upcoming?#NFT?marketplace. For?#NFTs?specifically, many of these digital goods are created by musicians, artists and video game designers. Expanding the audience for NFTs allows this burgeoning market to support more creators and could spark the next evolution of digital commerce. They are also bringing to the table their?cybersecurity capabilities?to ensure Mastercard customers’ data is protected and the NFTs they buy are secure.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive of the company formerly known as Facebook, has upended his company ever since?he announced in October?that he was betting on the?so-called metaverse. Under this idea, his company — renamed Meta — would introduce people to shared virtual worlds and experiences across different software and hardware platforms.
Since then, Meta has pursued a sweeping transformation, current and former employees said. It has created thousands of new jobs in the labs that make hardware and software for the metaverse. Managers have urged employees who worked on social networking products to apply for those augmented reality and virtual reality roles. The company has poached metaverse engineers from rivals including?Microsoft?and?Apple. And it has officially rebranded some products, like its Oculus virtual-reality headsets, with the Meta name.
Interesting Startups Shaping the NFT Space:
Rarible is a multi-chain NFT marketplace with Ethereum, Flow and Tezos integrated. A platform for diverse creators and brands, including LIRONA, Pak, The Watcher, eBoy, Aavegotchi, Twitter, Lindsay Lohan and Floyd Mayweather Jr. A safe place to trade digital art, collectibles, music and video NFTs, domain names, metaverse lands and wearables, and more. On a mission to environmental sustainability, encouraging users to remove carbon footprint via partnership with Nori.
Dapper Labs is the company behind CryptoKitties, NBA Top Shot, and the new Flow blockchain. Formed in February 2018, Dapper Labs' mission is to bring about a more open and inclusive digital world starting with games and entertainment. Notable investors in Dapper Labs include Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, Venrock, Google Ventures, Samsung, and the founders of Dreamworks, Reddit, Coinbase, Zynga, and AngelList, among others.
OpenSea is one of the first and largest marketplace for digital collectibles, which include gaming items, digital art, and other virtual goods backed by a blockchain. On OpenSea, anyone can buy or sell these items using smart contracts. Not only are we passionate about our work, we enjoy the people we surround ourselves with. At OpenSea, we build trust, embrace feedback, grow rapidly, and love our work.
4. Autograph: an NFT agency co-founded by athlete Tom Brady with a particularly deep bench of star power, has banked new funding from crypto investors who hope the platform can bring a new generation of celebrities and their fans into the fold of crypto collectibles. Autograph has a handful of early partners largely in the sports world, but the names represent some of the most famous athletes in their respective sports, including Brady, Tiger Woods, Simone Biles, Derek Jeter, Naomi Osaka, Usain Bolt, Wayne Gretzky and Tony Hawk. Autograph’s aim seems to be in building out an onramp to the space where triple-A listers can dip their toes into crypto influencing in a more highly curated environment.
And if you want to purchase one of the most famous and early works, Sotheby has an auction for you>>>>
Sotheby’s announces the first dedicated live evening auction for NFTs on 23 February in New York, with the single-lot sale of 104 CryptoPunks. The live evening auction will also bring together the physical and digital in an unprecedented showcase for NFTs and digital art with a presentation on par with the most significant and high-profile sales for Contemporary and Modern art. CryptoPunks launched on the blockchain in June of 2017. Created by Canadian software developers Matt Hall and John Watkinson, CryptoPunks were originally free to acquire for any ETH wallet holder.
The finite and highly sought-after collection of CryptoPunks consists of 10,000 Punks, each with their own unique and distinct characteristics, in which no two are the same. Comprising of 9 Aliens, 24 Apes, 88 Zombies, 3840 Females and 6,039 Males, the Punks are further distinguished by a visual vocabulary of associated rarities and attributes. Every Punk has a unique set of attributes, with between 0 to 8 distinguishing characteristics. Notably, the 8 Punks devoid of any attributes all together have been dubbed as the ‘Genesis Punks.
<>????News on DeFi
Binance has amassed around $1 billion for an insurance fund, created as a buffer against the impact of a potential hack. The exchange has been earmarking money to protect users interests since 2018 and recently consolidated these to one place, according to a press release. When the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) was established, Binance committed 10% of all trading fees in order to grow it to a sizable level to safeguard users' interests, the release added.?
Fidelity International is listing its first bitcoin exchange-traded product (ETP) on the Deutsche B?rse in Frankfurt and SIX Swiss Exchange in Zurich. The Physical Bitcoin ETP tracks the price of the world's largest cryptocurrency by market value and is being made available to Fidelity International's professional and institutional clients in Europe. Fidelity Digital Assets will act as the product's custodian. The ETP lists on the Deutsche B?rse Xetra today and will become available on the SIX Swiss Exchange in the coming weeks, Fidelity International said in an email Tuesday.
Swiss-based FinTech company?CLST?led the successful transaction between Hong Kong based Amber Group and an undisclosed counterparty. The underlying asset, a USDC stablecoin issued on the Algorand Blockchain (commonly referred to USDCa), was settled Peer-to-Peer and is based on an electronic promissory note (eNote), a technology provided by FQX which is seamlessly integrated into CLST. The multi-million USDC stablecoin loan was borrowed by Amber Group at a Fixed Term and with a contract duration of less than a year.
An eNote? is an unconditional promise to pay a specific sum to another party at a specific future date and can be modularly structured to fit any financing purpose. The eNote? is based on blockchain technology and can be easily transferred to any third party (i.e., an investor). When compared to other financing tools, eNotes? excel through their modularity and global transferability, based on a standardized legal framework. Single eNotes? are stored as NFTs on a blockchain. By issuing multiple eNotes?, an issuer can obtain financing in a way comparable to commercial papers.
A group of major cryptocurrency firms including Coinbase, Circle, Anchorage Digital and Huobi Global are forming a new coalition aimed at cracking down on market manipulation in an effort to instill trust in the burgeoning digital asset industry. The Crypto Market Integrity Coalition, which was convened by risk-monitoring software company Solidus Labs, is also urging digital currency companies to sign a “market integrity” pledge that acknowledges the potential for fraud in the cryptocurrency space and the need for the industry to protect investors.
HashKey Group, a Hong Kong-based digital asset financial services group, announced that its asset management subsidiary has completed an initial closing of its new fund in December 2021 with commitments of US$360 million. The fund seeks to invest in companies and projects building products and services utilising blockchain technology that may include but are not limited to venture equity in Asia as well as early-stage tokens and major liquid tokens. It also aims to provide investors institutional-grade exposure to a full spectrum of blockchain technology and crypto assets. The group’s portfolio currently encompasses more than 110 companies in 14 countries and territories. Some of its higher profile investments include Polkadot, BlockFi, Terra, Animoca Brands, Mask, Cosmos, Harmony, Blockdaemon and Moonbeam.
Inline with the proposed regulations in Hong Kong, Singapore's Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)?has proposed Enhanced Regulation of Virtual Asset Service Providers for Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risks.
To mitigate the risk of regulatory arbitrage (where no single jurisdiction has sufficient regulatory hold over a specific VASP due to the internet and digital nature of its business), the enhanced FATF standards introduced in 2019 require VASPs to be at least licensed or registered in the jurisdictions(s) where they are created.?Most entities that carry on the business of providing VA services in Singapore are subject to current legislation, where the VA involved constitute digital payment tokens (“DPTs”10) or capital markets products.?To fully align with the enhanced FATF standards and mitigate the reputational and ML/TF risks, the FSM Bill will regulate all VASPs created in Singapore that provide virtual asset services outside of Singapore.
The speech looks at cryptocurrencies in depth, from crypto basics to looking at?(a) What precisely is a cryptocurrency, (b) What useful economic role does a cryptocurrency play, and (c) What, if any, are the risks it poses to the society and economy?.
The speech also takes a deep dive into the arguments for cryptocurrencies being permitted and regulated in India and how there are several questions with very uncomfortable implications that do not have satisfactory solutions.
领英推荐
The U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) has seized over 94,000 bitcoins that were allegedly stolen in the 2016 hack of crypto exchange Bitfinex and arrested a married couple suspected to have laundered the money. The couple — Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and Heather Morgan, 31 — faces charges of conspiring to launder money and to defraud the U.S. government. Facing up to 25 years in prison if convicted, they are set to make their initial appearance in federal court in Manhattan later today. The asset seizure, worth $3.6 billion at today’s bitcoin prices, is the largest in the Justice Department’s history, officials said. They did not recover the entire sum of funds lost in the 2016 hack, though — the 119,754 bitcoins allegedly stolen in total are now worth $4.5 billion.
Polygon has raised $450 million in a new venture financing round as the firm, with a market cap of about $13 billion, aggressively expands its portfolio of Ethereum scaling solutions and works to attract the larger developer ecosystem. Sequoia Capital India led?Polygon’s first major financing round. Tiger Global and SoftBank as well as Galaxy Digital, Republic Capital, Makers Fund, Alameda Research, Alan Howard, Dune Ventures, Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six, Steadview Capital, Unacademy, Elevation Capital, Animoca Brands, Spartan Fund, Dragonfly Capital, Variant Fund, Sino Global Capital and Kevin O’Leary also participated in the private token purchase.
Other Headlines in the Web 3.0/DeFi world
????<>News on FinTech
Apple Inc.,?is planning a new service that will let small businesses accept payments directly on their iPhones without any extra hardware, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The company has been working on the new feature since around 2020, when it paid about $100 million for a Canadian startup called Mobeewave that developed technology for smartphones to accept payments with the tap of a credit card. The system will likely use the iPhone’s near field communications, or NFC, chip that is currently used for Apple Pay.
In order to accept #payments on an iPhone today, merchants need to use payment terminals that plug in or communicate with the phone via Bluetooth. The upcoming feature will instead turn the iPhone into a payment terminal, letting users such as food trucks and hair stylists accept payments with the tap of a credit card or another iPhone onto the back of their device.
Revolut?India, the Indian registered entity of UK-based FinTech Revolut, announced the strategic acquisition of international money transfer company,?Arvog?Forex as part of its multi-million dollar investment into the country.?The financial details of the deals were not disclosed.
Paroma Chatterjee, Revolut India head, in a recent interaction with Business Standard had stated that the company will launch its services in the second half of this year and was also open to looking at acquisition in the Indian fintech segment as it eyes for digital banking license. “This is the first step towards our aspiration to be a significant part of the digital financial revolution in India. Our significant investment plans, this acquisition and the quality of the team we are putting together reflect our intention to rapidly roll out these innovative products and services. India is a key region in our global expansion plan and this acquisition is testament to the rapid strides we want to make here,” said Chatterjee on the acquisition. For the Indian market, the company has committed an initial investment of a little over $45 million (approx Rs 305 crore)."The $800-million funding was to fuel Revolut's global expansion strategy.?So pretty much the money is on-tap, and the $45 million is the initial round. We have the assurance that as we need money it will be available and Revolut is definitely committed to being in India for the long run," Chatterjee said
Pine Labs has raised $150 million in a mix of primary and secondary funding from Alpha Wave Global, in a deal that values the IPO-bound digital payments and financial services provider at over $5 billion, multiple people aware of the development said. The first tranche of $75 million from Alpha Wave has already been disbursed, regulatory filings by the company in Singapore show. In January, the fintech company filed for a ‘confidential’ initial public offering (IPO) worth $500 million with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and is seeking a valuation between $6 billion and $7 billion.
Tonik Financial Pte Ltd (“Tonik”), the parent company of Tonik Digital Bank in the Philippines, announced today that it closed a US$131M round of Series B equity funding. The round was led by Mizuho Bank, which is one of the largest Japanese banking groups and a Top 10 bank by assets in Asia Pacific region. Other significant new investors in the round included Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures), the co-founder of DST Partners Rahul Mehta, as well as a Singapore investment fund Sixteenth Street Capital and Indonesian family office Nuri Group. Launched in March 2021, Tonik has set new bank growth records in the Philippines by reaching US$20M and US$100M of consumer deposits within the first?and eighth months of operation respectively, thus achieving the status of one of the fastest growing neobanks globally
Tech giant Tencent is stepped up its participation in China’s ongoing trials of its new central bank digital currency (CBDC), commonly referred to as the digital renminbi. Tencent recently launched its WeBank (WeChat Pay) digital renminbi wallet, according to a report from?Caishelian.
The move comes following the launch of digital renminbi wallets by all of China’s big state-owned banks since the start of trials of the CBDC in early 2020, as well as the provision of a range of digital renminbi-related services by Tencent. Users can register for the digital renminbi apps via Tencent-backed digital lender WeBank, and then use either the app itself or WeChat to effect payments.
Funding Societies, a Southeast Asian SME digital financing platform which goes by Modalku in Indonesia, today announced that it has raised US$144 million in an oversubscribed Series C+ equity round. The round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 with new investors notably Vietnamese tech giant VNG Corporation, Rapyd Ventures, Asia-based global investor EDBI, Indies Capital, K3 Ventures, and Ascend Vietnam Ventures. The company also received US$150 million in debt lines from institutional lenders across Europe, the United States, and Asia, some of which have been drawn down since 2021. Funding Societies?is licensed and registered in four countries across the region – Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and operating in Vietnam.To date, it has disbursed over US$2 billion in business financing to MSMEs through more than 4.9 million loan transactions in Southeast Asia.
Akulaku Inc., an Indonesian online lender backed by Jack Ma’s?Ant Group Co., has pulled in $100 million from one of Thailand’s biggest lenders to expand its business in Southeast Asia. The capital raise from Siam Commercial Bank Plc. follows a $125 million funding in 2021 co-led by Hong Kong multi-asset investment firm Silverhorn Group, Akulaku said in a statement Tuesday. Akulaku, as part of its expansion efforts, is?weighing?a U.S. listing via a merger with a blank-check company that could value the combined entity at about $2 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said last month.The funding will enable the Jakarta-based company to “further expand the geographic reach” of its offerings across Southeast Asia, Chief Executive Officer William Li said in the statement.
Chinese fintech startup?PingPong?is considering an initial public offering in Hong Kong to raise as much as $1 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Hangzhou-based payment company is working with?Morgan Stanley,?Goldman Sachs Group Inc.?and?Citic Securities Co.?on a listing that could happen as soon as this year, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public. The firm had previously considered a listing in mainland China, one of the people said. PingPong is also seeking about $300 million in a pre-IPO private funding round, the people said. It is currently valued at about $5 billion. Details of the fundraising such as size and timing are preliminary and could change.
Other Headlines in the Web 3.0/DeFi world
Industry Reports we are reading>>>
Understanding CBDCs: A Guidebook for Regulators and Policymakers. Published by:?Stellar Development Foundation. View here>>
Stablecoins: Growth Potential and Impact on Banking: Published by:?Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. View here>>
Blockchain Consensus Mechanisms: A Primer for Supervisors: Published by:?International Monetary Fund. View here>>
The Race to the Super App: Published by:?Financial Technology Partners. View here>>
Virtual banking and beyond: Published by:?Bank for International Settlements – BIS. View here>>
Joint circular on intermediaries’ virtual asset-related activities: Published by:?Securities and Futures Commission and Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). View here>>
Real Estate in The Metaverse: Published by:?CFTE - Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship. View here>>
Gatekeeping the gatekeepers: when big techs and fintechs own banks – benefits, risks and policy options: Published by:?Bank for International Settlements – BIS. View here>>
Money and Payments: The U.S. Dollar in the Age of Digital Transformation: Published by:?Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. View here>>
Money markets, collateral and monetary policy: Published by:?Bank for International Settlements – BIS. View here>>
RegWatch: 2021 Global Cryptocurrency Regulatory Review: Published by Merkle Science. View here>>
?India Tech Start-up Report 2021 – "Year of the Titans": Published by NASSCOM View here>>
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Stay tuned for fortnightly updates on Web 3.0, FinTech and DeFi news impacting Asia. Don't forget to subscribe and recommend the newsletter to your network!
We are also featuring Web 3.0 firms on the newsletter. Reach out to [email protected] if you would like your company to be featured or have an interesting firm in Asia in Web 3.0 that you would like to recommend!
Musheer Ahmed's Profile: Musheer is the Founder & Managing Director of FinStep Asia, which is building Asia’s next generation of Businesses. FinStep Asia enables Fintech and Blockchain firms in their innovation journey through venture building, growth advisory, bespoke research and curated content creation.?
With over 16 years of experience in Trading and FinTech, Musheer has been one of the key contributors in building the Fintech ecosystem in Hong Kong as the cofounder and inaugural General Manager of the Fintech Association of Hong Kong. He has worked closely with several regulators and government bodies on fintech and digital economy policy, providing advisory and delivering workshops on a range of topics.
He is on several advisory boards and a mentor/advisor to several startups, while a regular guest lecturer at many universities in Hong Kong and Singapore. He is cofounder of IndiaTech HK, a platform bridging Indian & Chinese tech ecosystem via Hong Kong and is also Board Member & Co-lead Islamic Fintech, Global Impact Fintech Forum (GIFT), a leading global body created by global Fintech champions from 60+ countries. ?He is a regular contributor and author of articles on Fintech, Digital Banking, Islamic Fintech and Investment Banking and been quoted in various media channels, including on CNBC, Bloomberg, SCMP, Financial Times, S&P, Asian Investor, Economic Times, etc.,