Tag: Enterprise

Japanese Entertainment Conglomerate Konami Enters Metaverse by Offering Web3 Jobs

by Blockchain News

Japanese video game and entertainment company Konami has posted job listings for Web3-related positions in bids to leverage its products and services in the metaverse and web3 landscape.

Konami said the hiring exercise is designed to create a new team that will allow the company to incorporate Web3 and metaverse technologies into its future gaming titles. The firm announced 13 different job openings for three departments that will be tasked with developing future programs to jumpstart its latest business strategy.

Konami Digital Entertainment said it will be hiring a diverse range of talent made up of system engineers, programmers, project managers, business development producers, designers, and other positions. The new team will be in charge of “system construction” and “service development” in order to develop new perspectives into Web3 and Metaverse.

Besides this, Konami said it is carrying out research and development to integrate cutting-edge technology into games and content. The firm further hinted at using NFTs and digital assets to launch in-game items to expand players’ experience and community events through blockchain technology.

The Japanese gaming giant is the latest traditional player that is betting big on Web 3 and Metaverse. Early this month, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that the country will expand the use of Web3 services that utilize the Metaverse and NFT. Such a friendly environment seems to attract local firms to exploit the Web 3.0 and metaverse space which is generating lots of hype and excitement in the world of business technology right now.

 Web3 brings the high potential for firms and brands to create virtual experiences and engagements not possible before. The world is still early in the technology trend, but in the first half of 2022, more than $120 billion have been invested in the development of metaverse technologies and infrastructure. That is more than double the $57 billion invested in all of 2021.

Everything from immersive social interactions, to NFT VR experiences, companies like Google, Facebook (now Meta), and Microsoft, among others, are racing to develop ecosystems and aggressively courting developers to build into their metaverse.

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One-third of Staff Laid Off in Digital Investment Group NYDIG: WSJ

by Blockchain News

New York-based digital investment group NYDIG laid off nearly a third of its workforce, about 110 people in total, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing sources with the matter on Thursday.

The layoffs have been conducted for about “a few weeks,” according to three people familiar with the matter, with company executives issuing formal notices of layoffs on September 22.

Bitcoin trading and banking firm NYDIG said the layoffs were part of a quest to cut spending and narrow its focus to more promising businesses.

NYDIG is a full-service, vertically integrated Bitcoin-only financial services company.

On October 3, NYDIG announced that CEO Robert Gutman and President Zhao Yan had stepped down, and NYDIG executives Tejas Shah and Nate Conrad took over as CEO and President, respectively.

Retiring Robert Gutman and Zhao Yan will return to Stone Ridge Holdings Group, the parent company of NYDIG.

Stone Ridge was founded in 2012 by current CEO Ross Stevens. In 2017, the founder launched the Bitcoin-driven New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG), where he serves as executive chairman.

“The firm’s balance sheet is the strongest it’s ever been, and now we’re investing aggressively into a capital-starved market,” said Stevens.

On September 13, Stone Ridge Asset Management, a global asset management firm based in New York, announced plans to liquidate and dissolve its Stone Ridge Bitcoin Strategy Fund with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

As of October 3, New York-based digital investment group NYDIG said it had raised $720 million for its institutional bitcoin fund, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

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CoinShares Launches Twitter Bot for NFT Investors

by Blockchain News

Crypto asset manager CoinShares has launched a helpful Twitter bot for NFT investors.

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On Thursday, CoinShares announced the launch of a Twitter bot called the ‘CoinSharesNFTAI.’ According to the functionality of the Twitter bot, CoinSharesNFTAI would help NFT investors predict a ‘fair price’ for any NFT listed on Opensea.

The Twitter bot would assist NFT investors on Twitter to filter the uncertainties in the NFT space and know how much an NFT might be worth with just a single tweet. To activate the bot, users would have to make a tweet with an Opensea link of the NFT they would like to check and then mention the bot (@CoinSharesNFTAI) in the tweet.

In the announcement, CoinShares stated that Pricing NFTs could be a difficult task, especially as their value is volatile and millions of them are available on the market. 

“Building on our crypto and quantitative expertise, we came up with an experimental project to price NFTs, whether you own them already or not. This model relies on tested mathematical concepts to predict a fair price for any NFT currently listed on @opensea,” said CoinShares in the announcement.

The bot predictions are based on identified factors such as hype, rarity, utilities, content, and products, as well as transaction volume and history of an NFT project.

CEO Jean-Marie Mognetti said in a release, noting: NFTs are one of the newly discovered digital assets in the crypto industry today, and it’s essential that everyone should feel comfortable while buying and selling them. He added, “To this end, we made our proprietary NFT pricing algorithm available to the public through our CoinSharesNFTAI Twitter bot.”

CoinShares is a Europe-based digital asset investment and trading group pioneered in innovative financial products and services for the crypto industry.

In the firm’s recent news, CoinShares announced its intention to launch an algorithmic trading platform, HAL, for retail traders. The platform will provide retail traders access to a range of algorithmic trading strategies for $20 per month.

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BNY Mellon Launches Crypto Custody Service – Report

by Blockchain News

Bank of New York (BNY) Mellon has announced that its digital assets custody service is now live as it seeks to deepen its foothold in the emerging cryptocurrency ecosystem. 

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Ranked amongst the oldest and most capitalized banks in the United States, BNY Mellon said the digital assets custody solution will aid its role as a major bridge between the emerging crypto world and the broader traditional financial ecosystem.  

“Touching more than 20% of the world’s investable assets, BNY Mellon has the scale to reimagine financial markets through blockchain technology and digital assets,” said Robin Vince, Chief Executive Officer and President at BNY Mellon. “We are excited to help drive the financial industry forward as we begin the next chapter in our innovation journey.”

The bank said it launched the crypto custody service by integrating the technologies of both Fireblocks and Chainalysis, noting that these firms will help it maintain the adequate security and compliance necessary to stay relevant in the highly competitive industry now and in the future. 

Arguably, BNY Mellon is positioning itself for a future that digital currencies may soon dominate. The banking giant said it commissioned a survey in which 91% of respondents who are institutional investors said they would be interested in injecting funds into tokenized products. As many as 41% of these respondents are currently holding crypto on their balance sheet, and 15% plan to acquire these assets in the near future.

With this realization, the bank said it is looking to float new products and solutions that can help it converge the needs of its traditional clients as well as those who consider crypto to be the future.

“As the world’s largest custodian, BNY Mellon is the natural provider to create a safe and secure Digital Asset Custody Platform for institutional clients,” said Caroline Butler, CEO of Custody Services at BNY Mellon. “We will continue to innovate, embrace new technology and work closely with clients to address their evolving needs.”

Besides BNY Mellon, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan, amongst others, are also heavily invested in the space with their own tailored products and services hitting the market.

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BNB Chain Begins Innovation Incubator Program To Boost European Web3 Startups

by Blockchain News

BNB Chain, the blockchain of the Binance crypto exchange, announced on October 10, accepting applications for its latest development-focused initiative – the web3 European Innovation incubator program, which aims to uplift European developers building and scaling decentralized applications (DApps) on the BNB blockchain. 

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The innovation incubator program will provide long-term support to web3 startups in Europe by offering outstanding web3 resources as well as training through reputable partners and community professionals.

“We are determined to provide the finest infrastructure to enable European Web3 projects to grow and scale,” said Zoe Wei, Senior Business Director at BNB Chain.

Zoe added, “Our objective is to guide European builders in making early commitments to these fundamentals in order to grow large user bases in the long term.”

The European Innovation Incubator is a three-week virtual program deliberated for innovative web3 startups across Europe to build and scale dApps, moving towards a decentralized future.

Those accepted in the program will be given hands-on sessions and mentorship on technology, marketing strategies, and tokenomics from BNB Chain’s specialists and incubator partners.

Winners can get a 100% gas fee incentive for a month and a guaranteed referral to BNB Chain’s Most Valuable Builder (MVB) – a long-running global accelerator program built for the purpose of supporting builders.

Additionally, the program consists of exclusive meet-ups scheduled offline. The meet-ups will take place in countries across the continent, such as Lisbon, Paris, London, Barcelona, Warsaw, and Berlin.

As of October 10th, applications to the program opened, and it is said to end by October 23rd, 2022. The Incubation period is slated from November 21st to December 11th, 2022.

18 organizations, including Pancake Swap, CoinMarketCap, and Binance Labs, are involved in the program. Each of them must be present in the region for the incubator to support the developers.

Speaking of BNB Chain, the smart contract platform collaborated with Google Clouds last month to allow decentralized applications and smart contracts hosted on the protocol to access the cloud service provider’s infrastructures. In addition, BNB Chain partnered with the University of Zurich in June to boost Blockchain Education.

While this may sound like a lot of partnership for a firm in one year, it shouldn’t be surprising, especially since Binance has an additional $7 billion fund specifically for investing in deals, and even Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, has estimated that the firm may spend more than $1 billion on deals by the end of this year.

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Coinbase Enters Singapore after Gaining Licence

by Blockchain News

Coinbase has entered the Singaporean market as it has gained approval from the central bank to offer its crypto services in the city-state.

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The largest crypto exchange in the United States has gained a so-called in-principle approval, which the central bank rolled out last year for crypto firms.

The approval will allow crypto exchanges such as Coinbase to offer services that individuals and institutions can use. Still, the central bank will regulate them under its Payment Services Act.

Coinbase has said that this has been a “significant milestone”. It further added that the company currently has nearly 100 employees and has been building a robust presence in the Southeast Asian state. The largest volume of hires from Singapore is product engineers, according to Coinbase.

“We see Singapore as a strategic market and a global hub for Web3 innovation,” said Hassan Ahmed, Coinbase’s regional director for Southeast Asia.

Coinbase is among the only 17 crypto firms to receive in-principle approvals and licences from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) after an elaborate due diligence process that is still ongoing. There were about 180 crypto companies that applied for a crypto payments licence to the MAS in 2020 under a new regime.

Competitors Crypto.com and DBS Vickers – the brokerage run by Singapore’s largest bank, DBS – have also established their business in Singapore besides Coinbase.

Although Singapore has become welcoming to outside digital asset services-related firms, its local crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), began liquidation in June after it was unable to meet hundreds of millions of dollars in obligations.

Nevertheless, Singapore’s positive step towards opening up to crypto firms has been attracting firms from China, India and elsewhere in the last few years, making it a major centre in Asia.

In its recent developments, Coinbase announced expanding its services in Australia to make accessing the crypto economy easier and safer, introducing three services to their Aussie clients, Blockchain.News reported.

The digital currency exchange, which first entered the Australian market in 2016, said it would be introducing a PayID feature to its Australian users. 

The announcement was disclosed in a published blog post, “First, we are introducing PayID as a way for Australians to top up their Coinbase accounts using direct Australian Dollar transfers.” Said Coinbase in the announcement.”

The crypto exchange’s cloud protocol has also partnered with decentralized oracle network Chainlink Labs to launch an NFT floor price feed service.

The partnership will introduce the NFT lowest pricing source in the Coinbase cloud service, allowing developers to access real-time NFT prices to build applications such as NFT lending marketplaces, such as NFT indices.

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Abrdn Joins Hedera Governing Council after Archax Investment

by Blockchain News

Legacy investment management firm, Abrdn has joined the Hedera Governing Council as it looks to deepen its foothold in the digital currency and blockchain ecosystem.

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According to Duncan Moir, senior investment manager at Abrdn, who spoke in an interview with the Block, the firm is focused on tokenization as it wants to explore new trading capabilities for its investors. 

As a member of the Hedera Governing Council, Abrdn will join the likes of DBS, Google, IBM and Standard Chartered, amongst others, to run nodes for the Hedera protocol and shape the future of the protocol by being a part of its decision-making process. Abrdn was integrated as a governing council member based on its significant interest and belief that blockchain is the next frontier in tech.

“We’re really long-term investors,” Moir, senior investment manager at Abrdn, said in the interview. “We see this as being a very long-term story for us and for the industry.” 

Blockchain technology is most renowned as a revolutionary tool to revamp the investment world. Moir is confident in the enterprise’s capabilities of the Hedera protocol and is ready to explore its capabilities to meet its long-term goals.

“I don’t think anybody is really, let’s say, full service. They’re very much focused on specific things, and they’ve been dipping their toes in,” Moir said of the capabilities of the blockchain-linked solution. “We want to go about it a bit more comprehensively.”

The choice of Hedera as the base protocol to advance its push is hinged on the sustainability of the protocol. Notably, Hedera Hashgraph was rated as the most sustainable protocol ahead of Algorand, Cardano, and Ethereum by researchers at the University College London (UCL).

While Hedera has made a name for itself in the enterprise world, it will need much more integrations like that being offered by Abrdn.

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Coinbase Introduces PayID and Premium Services for Aussie Retail Customers

by Blockchain News

Coinbase announced expanding its services in Australia to make accessing the crypto economy easier and safer, introducing three services to their Aussie clients.

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The digital currency exchange, which first entered the Australian market in 2016, said it would be introducing a PayID feature to its Australian users. 

The announcement was disclosed in a published blog post, “First, we are introducing PayID as a way for Australians to top up their Coinbase accounts using direct Australian Dollar transfers.” Said Coinbase in the announcement.”

PayID is a payment feature developed by the Australian financial services sector and the Reserve Bank of Australia, which permits individuals to link a mobile number or an email address to a bank account to receive payments.

Additionally, Coinbase also stated it would be releasing a Retail Advanced Trading feature. A tool that will allow Australian customers to access low, volume-based pricing and powerful trading tools with one harmonious balance. The firm also added that it would provide 24/7 chat support to customers in Australia.

Speaking about how Australians were some of the world’s earliest adopters of digital currencies and that they are savvy investors. The firm further called Australia a “hotbed of fintech innovation.” And it’s looking to elevate Australians’ experience using Coinbase.

Vice President of International and Business Development Nana Murugesan commented on the latest products in Australia. The post reads:

“Aussies were some of the world’s earliest adopters of digital currencies, and they are savvy investors. We know this because Coinbase was one of the first platforms Australians trusted with their crypto investments. Now, we want to elevate their experience using Coinbase. What’s more, Australia is a hotbed of fintech innovation – we looked hard across this space to better understand the market, and recently hired John O’Loghlen (Australia Country Director) to lead our local team.”

Furthermore, to push its Australian affair, Coinbase stated it has incorporated a local entity (Coinbase Australia Pty Ltd) and has obtained registration and enrolment with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) to provide digital currency exchange services.

Coinbase has now collaborated with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology on research about Web3 and the future of finance in Australia. The crypto exchange firm was also recently welcomed as a member of Blockchain Australia, the country’s peak industry network for businesses implementing or evaluating blockchain technology.

Notably, last month, Coinbase announced its official registration as a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) with the Dutch Central Bank (De Nederlandsche Bank — DNB). According to Coinbase, the license will enable it to offer its full suite of crypto products that will make it serve both its retail and institutional clients in the country.

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Hamilton Lane Tokenizes Funds to Offer Individual Investors Access Private Markets

by Blockchain News

Hamilton Lane, a global private markets investment firm, formed a partnership deal with digital asset securities firm Securitize to tokenize three of its investment funds on Wednesday. 

Through the partnership, funds to be tokenized include unlisted equities, private credit, and secondary transactions.

Hamilton Lane, which has $835 billion in assets under management, plans to give qualified U.S.-based investors access to funds through providing exposure to direct equities, private credit, and secondary transactions, which will be tokenized via Securitize’s blockchain-based digital transfer agency.

Hamilton’s tokenized funds are expected to be available by the fourth quarter, enabling a broader investor base to access the funds. Customers will still need to be accredited, which means those with a net worth of more than $1 million or income above $200,000.

Victor Jung, Head of Digital Assets at Hamilton Lane, commented about the development: “This collaboration with Securitize is our latest step toward enabling access to the strong returns and performance opportunities generated within the private markets space for a newer set of investors while increasing usability and transparency through the use of blockchain technology.”

The new tokenized funds highlight Hamilton’s commitment to expanding ease of access to the private markets through the use of blockchain technology. Private-equity investments are generally accessible only to institutional investors or ultra-high-net-worth investors. But blockchain has opened up the access of private-market strategies to retail investors.

Therefore, converting funds into security tokens enables individual investors to place money in assets previously only accessible to institutions. It reduces issuance and administration costs and enables fractional ownership.

Hamilton Lane’s move follows the announcement last month when KKR tapped blockchain technology further to open its private equity strategy to individual investors. The developments signal a series of asset management firms using intermediaries to expand access to funds to high net-worth individuals and accredited investors.

Other asset managers, like Partners Group, Investcorp, and Temasek-backed Mapletree, also tokenized their funds recently, as they know that individual investors will increasingly drive their growth investments.

 

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Crypto Bank Anchorage Digital To Make Entry into Asia

by Blockchain News

Anchorage Digital is making an entry into Asia with five new partnerships in the region.

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The institutional crypto platform has partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Bitkub, asset management firm Dream Trade, blockchain investment firm FBG Capital, venture firm IOSG Ventures and digital assets financial services provider Antalpha.

The company has previously partnered with internet infrastructure provider GMO-z.com Trust Company in Asia.

Anchorage has a record of becoming the first crypto bank to receive a federal charter in the US after its establishment in 2017. Diogo Mónica – Anchorage’s co-founder and president – told The Block that this is the highest order charter that banks can get in the US.

He added that obtaining a charter isn’t all sunshine and paradise. Instead, it is also a burden as it requires a level of transparency and maturity to meet the charter’s requirements.

The company said several Asian clients have selected Anchorage because of its strong regulatory status in the US.

“We appreciate Anchorage’s attention to regulatory compliance and vetting of the digital assets they support,” said Will Chiu, Antalpha’s chief investment officer, in a statement. 

“Through their combination of crypto-native fluency and understanding of traditional finance needs, they continue to support us in expanding the adoption of digital assets,” he added.

The company’s business model involves providing institutions with integrated financial services and infrastructure solutions. They could include solutions such as custody, staking and trading services.

Recently, the startup successfully raised $350 million in a Series D funding round led by investment firm KKR. Other participants included traditional players such as Goldman Sachs and Thoma Bravo, along with crypto-native firms such as Alameda Research and Blockchain Capital.

“We work with institutions and what we see is that institutions have very long-term horizons; they are not stopping these partnerships,” Mónica said. 

In another major development, Anchorage will become the preferred custodian for buzzy new layer one blockchain Aptos.

In a recent interview with CoinDesk, Mónica said, “by partnering with Aptos, we are actually helping make sure that the next generation of layer 1 blockchains are taking these proper [security] considerations, and that will only spur future growth in the industry.” 

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