Tag: Korea

South Korea seizes $104M from Terra’s co-founder on unjust earnings.

by Blockchain News

South Korean authorities are continuing their efforts to bring closure to the victims of the year’s first crypto crash, which involved Terraform Labs. While the crypto exchange FTX has taken the spotlight away from other collapsed ecosystems, South Korean authorities are still working to help Terraform Labs’ victims.

Nearly six months after the Terra (LUNA) blockchain was formally shut down, officials in South Korea froze around $104.4 million (140 billion won) belonging to co-founder Shin Hyun-seong on the grounds that he may have made unlawful gains.

The assets of Shin, which are estimated to be worth more than 104 million dollars, have been placed under a temporary freeze after the Seoul Southern District Court gave its approval to a request made by the prosecutors.

The allegation concerned Shin’s alleged participation in the sale of pre-issued Terra tokens to unsuspecting investors.

According to reports from a local news outlet, the district court has placed a hold on the allegedly stolen monies until additional investigations can be conducted. This decision was made on the basis of the suspicion of benefitting from unauthorised LUNA sales.

Reports that Shin Hyun-seong, CEO of Luna, sold the company at a high point and realised gains or that he generated riches via other illicit techniques are not accurate, according to the company. The counsel for Shin was originally cited by Cointelegraph.

The preindictment preservation of the funds is a method for stopping criminals from getting rid of stolen money and forcing investors to suffer further financial harm or losses.

Shin is currently the subject of an investigation by the authorities in South Korea on two charges: making unfair profits from the issuance of in-house tokens LUNA and TerraUSD (UST); and leaking customer transaction information of Chai, a Korean payment app linked to Terra, to Terraform Labs. The first charge relates to the alleged making of profits from the issuance of in-house tokens LUNA and TerraUSD (UST).

As part of their investigation into the dissolution of the company, the prosecutors in South Korea issued a summons to the alleged co-founder on November 14 requesting that he appear in court.

The prosecution levelled the charge of price manipulation against Do Kwon, one of the co-founders of Terra, during the first week of November.

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South Korean Movie Industry Embraces NFTs by Offering Merchandise and Collectible Tickets

by Blockchain News

To attract more viewers, the movie industry in South Korea has gone a notch higher by incorporating non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as a marketing tool. 

With NFTs taking the world by storm, the Korean movie sector has not been left out of this bandwagon since December 2021 by offering NFT merchandise and collectable tickets to a limited number of moviegoers. 

For instance, Lotte Cinema and Warner Bros. gave out NFT merchandise to the first 30,000 people who purchased tickets during the release of “The Matrix Resurrections.” 

A Lotte Cultureworks spokesperson said:

“All of the 30,000 NFT products were given out to the audiences. NFTs are trendy these days, so there is no reason not to do an event like this again.”

The spokesperson added that the NFT merchandise, which includes exclusive scenes of the movie and two signed posters, was sparking curiosity, thus attracting a larger audience. 

NFTs are seen as a game-changer

According to Director Cho, NFTs are expected to be a stepping stone towards more revenue in the Korean movie business in the post-pandemic era. He stated:

“We anticipate NFTs to open up new possibilities in the film market, which has been stagnant due to the COVID-19.”

NEW, a film distributor, is eyeing to propel NFTs to an advanced stage, given that it announced the sale of 3,000 generative art NFTs developed using the IP address of upcoming film titled Special Delivery found on the leading NFT platform OpenSea. 

With NFTs taking the form of digital images where the buyer owns the link of the image as proof of ownership, a University of Sussex expert recently opined that NFTs would be “everywhere in the future because anything requiring evidence of ownership will be an NFT”. 

Image source: Shutterstock

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South Korean presidential candidate to use NFTs to raise funds for campaign

by Cointelegraph

Democratic Party (DP) presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung prepares to use nonfungible tokens to raise funds for his campaign. 

The party will issue NFTs to those who donate money for the campaign for the upcoming presidential elections. The NFTs will contain images of the candidate and his pledges.

In an interview with Yonhap News, campaign official Kim Nam-kook said the party is doing this to appeal to the younger generation.

“As the young generation in their 20s and 30s are interested in emerging technologies, including virtual assets, NFTs and the metaverse, this type of fundraising could appeal to them,” said Nam-kook.

The DP also points out that it is exploring new ways to utilize new technologies, including using NFTs in campaigns and accepting crypto donations.

Just recently, another member of the DP also announced that he would be accepting donations in crypto. Representative Lee Kwang-jae mentioned that he would take crypto donations in mid-January.

“It is high time that we undertake innovative experiments to enhance our understanding of these future technologies and change perceptions of digital currencies and NFTs,” wrote Lee.

Aside from this, Lee underscored that politicians should be leaders in embracing digital transformation. He noted that policies and laws fail to catch up to digital developments.

Related: Korean government tells Apple and Google stores to take down P2E games

Meanwhile, the South Korean Financial Services Commission announced back in early November that NFTs would not be regulated. However, a few weeks later, the FSC backpedaled by announcing that NFTs would be taxable in January 2022.

The law amendment will require a 20% tax payment on digital asset income that goes above 2.5 million won ($2,100). However, the implementation of the tax was delayed for one year due to flaws pointed out by the DP.