Our weekly roundup of East Asia news selects the most important developments in the industry.
Huawei moves to register its NFTs
According to a January 28 report Per Sina News, Chinese telecom giant Huawei has recently applied for eight trademarks related to its Huawei “YunYunBao” series of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Trademarks include digital collectibles in the scientific instrument, furniture, education, jewelry, advertising, and telecommunications sectors. Last April, Huawei sleepless their NFTs YunYunBao, with characters inspired by their namesake cloud service. Huawei’s NFTs are minted on its proprietary Huawei Petal Chain, which the telecom giant claims has more than 1,000 nodes and can handle more than 50,000 transactions per second.
Toyota sponsors blockchain hackathon
In a Medium post on February 1, Sota Watanabe, the founder of the Japanese blockchain Astar Network, Announced that Astar had received a sponsorship from Japanese automaker Toyota for its latest Web3 hackathon. Astar is currently a parachain built on the Polkadot blockchain.
According to Watanabe, more than $100,000 in prizes will be distributed to projects that develop “DAO within the enterprise.” [Decentralized Autonomous Organization] support tools for this hackathon that Toyota employees can use in the future.” The hackathon will take place from February 14 to March 25.
“It goes without saying that Toyota is the largest company in Japan and one of the world’s leading international companies,” Watanabe wrote. “We are very excited to host the Web3 Hackathon at Astar with Toyota. During the event, our goal is to develop the first PoC DAO tool for Toyota employees. If a good tool is produced, Toyota employees will interact with the products on Astar Network on a daily basis.”
North Korea takes cryptocurrency by storm
On February 2, blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis revealed that North Korean hackers stole an estimated $1.65 billion of the $3.8 billion of funds siphoned off decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols in 2022. For context, North Korean-related entities only stole $299.5 million in 2020 and $428.8 million in 2021. The firm also warned that despite the US Treasury Department imposing sanctions on cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash on Aug. 8, North Korean hackers have resorted every to other digital asset mixers, such as Sinbad, to launder stolen funds. Chainalysis said:
“North Korea-linked hackers tend to send a lot of what they steal to other DeFi protocols, not because these protocols are effective for money laundering, they are actually pretty bad for money laundering given their greater transparency in compared to centralized services, but because DeFi hacks often result in cybercriminals acquiring large amounts of illiquid tokens that are not listed on centralized exchanges. Therefore, hackers must turn to other DeFi protocols, usually DEXs, to trade more liquid assets.”
On January 29, decentralized finance analyst Zachxbt reclaimed had tracked another 17,278 Ether (ETH), worth around $27.18 million, laundered by North Korean hackers after the $100 million Harmony Bridge hack last June. According to Zachxbt, the funds were then moved to 14 wallet addresses spread across four exchanges. On January 24, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed that North Korea’s Lazarus Group masterminded the attack.
No Binance metaverse for now
In an ask me anything session on Jan. 14, Changpeng Zhao, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, said the company “is more open to just investing in other VR or metaverse games,” as the company doesn’t it’s a game. builder and does not have a game creation team.
“No one really knows what metaverse means. Everyone has a different concept about it,” the crypto executive said, according to a transcript. published it’s january 27
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Instead, Zhao says that Binance will focus its “next big product” on launching multiple proofs of reserves and proofs of solvency to increase its transparency. The exchange has set a goal of 1 billion users passing Know Your Customer verification by the new year.
Huobi denies data sharing allegations
Digital asset entrepreneur Justin Sun has responded to accusations that its Huobi exchange provided customer information to the Chinese tax authorities. The TRON founder tweeted that Huobi “does not share any customer information with tax authorities unless it follows the international legal assistance procedure.”
Previously, Sun hailed the introduction of a new 20% Chinese cryptocurrency income tax as “a clear indication that the Chinese government views cryptocurrency as a legitimate form of wealth and wants to ensure its proper taxation.”
Though headquartered in the Seychelles, Huobi has a sizable number of staff working in mainland China, which reportedly rebelled against the company’s strict new labor policies earlier this month.
Huobi founder’s startups
After selling his entire stake in Huobi to Sun’s About Capital last October, Chinese entrepreneur Lin Li has devoted his time to managing Hong Kong blockchain investment firm New Huo Technology. On January 30, New Huo thrown out a staking support service, dubbed “Sinohope Staking,” which will first serve the Cosmos community before expanding to Ethereum, EOS, and ChainLink.
According to the developers, Sinohope Staking will provide “multi-node implementation, real-time monitoring of node operation process, 24/7 online support, 3-layer wallet structure, and multiple signature technologies.” ” for users interested in staking their assets on public blockchains. New Huo says it will help clients set up their staking nodes and monitor their trades “without handling or holding any customer’s assets,” claiming that customers will retain “100%” of their staking cryptocurrencies during the process.
Bitzlato reportedly defiant despite sanctions
Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange co-founder Bitzlato says the platform will reopen after it was shut down by US authorities last month.
In a January 31 YouTube interview, Russian citizen Anton Shurenko saying that the exchange would open later at an unspecified time and stated that up to 50% of the funds held in seized hot wallets would be available for withdrawal at that time. Furthermore, the alleged founder claimed that he had no idea why the company was singled out for him.
On Jan. 18, Bitzlato was shut down after an investigation by law enforcement officials, including the US Department of Justice, revealed that the exchange imposed lax Know Your Customer rules and allegedly laundered more of $700 million in illicit funds through crypto transactions. Shurenko’s co-founder, Anatoly Legkodymov, was arrested in Miami on about the same day. Following the revelations that Binance was one of Bitzlato’s main counterparties, the exchange froze several accounts related to the entity.
According to recent reports, the Spanish police have arrested three executives of the firm, namely the CEO, a sales executive and the marketing director.
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