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Chinese Zhejiang province aims to build a $28.7 billion metaverse industry by 2025

A Chinese province, Zhenjiang, recently unveiled its metaverse development strategy on December 15 with the goal of becoming one of the greatest metaverse hubs in the country. The plan, which contemplates the integration of several active companies into the metaverse, aims to produce a $28.7 billion metaverse industry by 2025.

In the document, the province outlines the actions that it will need to reach its goal, starting in 2023. One of these includes the incubation of 10 industry leaders and 50 companies involved in several of the key technologies related to the metaverse, like AI (artificial intelligence), VR (virtual reality), and even blockchain.

These technologies will be applied to several processes to integrate companies dedicated to product production, industrial design, medicine, and even the government to this metaverse push.

The strategy is a reflection of plans already developed and put forth by other Chinese local governments with a similar interest in the metaverse as a development tool. In June, Shanghai presented its own roadmap to becoming a $52 million metaverse cluster.

China is becoming a hotbed for metaverse projects, as several companies in the country have shown interest in developing related tech. On September 5, local sources reported that the metaverse industry in the country had raised $780 million, with the expectation of this number to grow to $5.8 trillion by 2030.

Even the Chinese Government is also interested in the development of metaverse-related tech. In November, the Chinese government presented a plan to research virtual reality (VR), in order to advance the technologies to build a more immersive experience. The same plan contemplates the construction of a virtual social world that would allow users to socialize and communicate online.

Chinese software behemoth Tencent has already jumped on the metaverse van, creating its own division dedicated to this area and aiming to employ more than 300 workers in different tasks and projects.
However, the Government has criticized the euphoria that is brewing when it comes to metaverse-related investments. State-run newspaper Economic Daily published an article that warns about this, stating that the metaverse industry sounds promising, but it may not fit every region.

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Nigeria set to pass a bill recognizing cryptocurrencies

According to a report, the Nigerian government will soon approve a bill that will acknowledge the use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a way to keep pace with global practices.

The news was reported recently following an interview with House of Representatives Committee on Capital Markets Chairman, Babangida Ibrahim.

According to the report, if the Investments and Securities Act 2007 (Amendment) Bill is signed into law it would allow the local Securities and Exchange Commission to recognize cryptocurrency and other digital funds as capital for investment.

Furthermore, Ibrahim stressed the need for Nigeria to keep up to date with trends and developments in capital markets.

He stated, “As I said earlier during the second reading, we need an efficient and vibrant capital market in Nigeria. For us to do that, we have to be up to date [with] global practices.”

The report comes almost 24 months after Nigeria banned crypto activity in February 2021, with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) ordering Nigerian crypto exchanges and service providers to cease activity and mandating banks to shutter the accounts of any individuals or entities found to be engaging in trading activities.

However, Ibrahim who served as Nigeria’s president between 1985 and 1993 insists that the passing of the law isn’t a 180-degree turn on the ban but rather a secondary review of what is within the scope of the CBN’s powers.

“It is not about the lifting of the ban, we are looking at the legality: what is legal and what is within the framework of our operations in Nigeria,” he noted.

He further explained, “When cryptocurrency was initially banned in Nigeria, the CBN discovered that most of these investors don’t even use local accounts. So, they are not within the jurisdiction of the CBN. Because they are not using local accounts, there is no way the CBN can check them.” 

If the law passes, amendments will be made to Nigeria’s Investments and Securities Act 2007.

The report also further stated that in addition to the assignment of legal recognition to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the law will outline the regulatory roles of the Central Bank of Nigeria and Nigeria’s Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) on matters relating to digital currencies.

The law also comes as Nigerians have also shown little to no interest in Nigeria’s central bank digital currency, the eNaira, which had only obtained a 0.5% adoption rate in October, 12 months after its launch.

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Sam Bankman-Fried Extradited To The United States

Bloomberg recently reported that FTX founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, is expected to be extradited to the United States. The former CEO of the platform had previously contested extradition but is now reversing that decision.

Bankman-Fried has already been indicted on eight charges by United States’ prosecution. Moreover, facing charges of fraud and conspiratorial actions, he was expected to be extradited as early as Monday.

The Sam Bankman-Fried saga has been one of the most interesting and tragic tales in the youthful cryptocurrency industry. A former wunderkind, Bankman-Fried had built up one of the most prominent cryptocurrency exchange platforms in the world. Ultimately, it crumbled under the uncovering of a multi-year fraud scheme implemented by the 30-year-old.

Following an indictment by the US prosecution, Bankman-Fried was brought into custody by Bahamian officials last week. Bankman-Fried is currently detained at the notorious Fox Hill Prison and was predicted to remain there after he resisted extradition to the US.

That contestment is now being reversed, according to the new report by Bloomberg. Bloomberg has also noted that Bankman-Fried is expected to disclose that he won’t fight extradition in a court appearance in Nassau.

Following reports of Bankman-Fried’s fraudulent activity within FTX, just before his arrest, the former CEO went on a press tour declaring his innocence. He was proclaiming his ignorance as the premier evidence of his non-compliance in criminality that occurred at the exchange. Those interviews peaked into the very public arrest last week and the profuse charges filed in just one month of reports.

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Onecoin Co-Founder Pleads Guilty To Fraud Charges

Co-founder of Onecoin, Karl Sebastian Greenwood pled guilty recently in a Manhattan federal court to wire fraud and money laundering charges. As a result of misrepresentations made by him under the Ponzi scheme’s mastermind, Cryptoqueen.

According to sources, Ruja Ignatova, and others, victims from around the world, invested billions of dollars into the fraudulent platform.

In a statement, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York noted that Greenwood, Ignatova, and their accomplices were in charge of Onecoin and asserted that the alleged cryptocurrency bearing the same name would be the “Bitcoin killer.” In reality, it was worthless, was never mined or based on blockchain, and its price was not determined by the market but set manually.

Greenwood, a citizen of Sweden and the United Kingdom, and Bulgarian-born German national Ignatova founded Onecoin in 2014. It operated as a global multi-level-marketing (MLM) network, the members of which were paid commissions for recruiting others. According to Onecoin’s promotional materials and records, over 3 million people invested more than $4 billion by the end of 2016.

According to Reuters, Gnatova, who disappeared from the public eye in late 2017, is still at large and is wanted by Interpol, Europol, and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which offers a $100,000 reward for information leading to her arrest. Her brother, Konstantin, was detained in Los Angeles in 2019, pleaded guilty, and sought witness protection.

Christopher Hamilton, a British national charged with money laundering in connection with the Onecoin scam, was turned over to American authorities in August, according to media sources. Hamilton had lost his fight to escape extradition. Three Onecoin associates appeared in court in Germany in October to answer charges of fraud and other offenses.

Greenwood, who was Onecoin’s “global master distributor,” was credited by Ignatova for the idea of marketing and selling the crypto through an MLM structure. District Judge Edgardo Ramos accepted his guilty plea and the sentencing is scheduled for April 5, 2023. The 45-year-old co-founder of Onecoin faces up to 20 years in prison on each of the counts against him.

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Amber Group raises $300M in series C funding after FTX blowout

The collapse of FTX had impacted some of the trading firm’s products and customers, increasing the need to raise additional capital quickly. Crypto trading firm, Amber Group has recently raised $300 million in a series C funding round following the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX.

The round was led by Fenbushi Capital U.S., along with other Crypto investors and domestic family firms. According to sources, previously, Temasek, a large Singaporean investment group, Sequoia Capital China, and Coinbase Ventures have all made investments in Amber Group.

While less than 10% of Amber Group’s capital was exposed to FTX’s collapse, the company claims that certain assets would have suffered significantly as a result of the FTX saga, unless Amber Group could discover a better approach to protect clients.

The firm also noted that it decided to hold off on a series B strategy which was almost complete and would place its valuation at $3 Billion, in favor of a series C after the FTX collapse.

Amber Group recently laid off 40% of its staff, which comprised 300 employees, restricted employee benefits, and terminated a $25 million sponsorship deal with Chelsea Football Club following the FTX collapse.

Speaking about the layoffs, Amber Group admitted that it had to say goodbye to many colleagues as it decided to scale down mass consumer efforts and non-essential business lines.

Furthermore, the Series C investors came on board understanding that the firm would be laser-focused on planning better for the next year.

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Japan Announces Plans Exempt Firms Issuing Cryptocurrencies From A 30% Tax On Paper-Only Gains

A proposal to exempt crypto-issuers, or businesses creating cryptocurrency platforms and technology, from the 30% tax on unrealized cryptocurrency gains, was approved by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Thursday.

Currently, even if a company didn’t sell the tokens and ran the risk of seeing their value drop once more, it would still owe $30 on the $100 gain if it held tokens it had purchased for $100 that increased to $200 during the tax year.

The country has made it very difficult for corporate investors to hold tokens in the hopes that the projects will succeed by enforcing the capital gains tax on those paper-only profits, which in turn has made it very difficult to raise money by issuing cryptocurrencies.

“Japan is an impossible place to do business,” Sota Watanabe, CEO of DApp and smart contract firm Astar Network and Stake Technologies, told the Japan Times this summer. He moved his firm to Singapore, in large part because of the tax issues. “The global battle for a Web 3.0 hegemony is underway, and yet, Japan isn’t even at the start line,” he said.

Generally speaking, the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is attempting to court the cryptocurrency sector by reducing red tape and investing in the NFT and metaverse sectors.

In addition, a self-regulatory body for cryptocurrency exchanges called the Japan Virtual and Crypto Assets Exchange Association (JVCEA) declared plans in October to shorten the time-consuming screening procedure for listing tokens.

The action is taken in spite of the industry turmoil brought on by the demise of the FTX exchange, which is prompting elected officials and financial regulatory bodies worldwide to increase their support for cryptocurrency financial firms.

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Bank Of Ghana To Develop Framework To Regulate Cryptocurrency

The Bank of Ghana (BoG) is to develop a comprehensive framework to regulate the digital asset industry, Governor, Dr Ernest Addison, has said. The action, he claimed, was in keeping with the public’s growing interest in and use of digital and virtual assets, also known as cryptocurrencies.

Dr. Addison made this announcement at the Chartered Institute of Bankers Ghana 2022 Annual Bankers’ Dinner Day, also known as Governor’s Dinner Day, which was held in Accra last week. Dr. Addison gave the keynote address at the event and discussed the rise of crypto currencies on the African continent as well as recent headlines about innovation and disaster.

“Given the recent trends, the BoG initiated processes to active­ly study and monitor cryptocur­rency and related technologies and models such as blockchain, decentralised finance and stable­coins. The bank has subsequently gained institutional understand­ing of the concepts, monitored global market developments, and reviewed several regulatory and global standards setting bodies across various jurisdictions, includ­ing the Financial Action Taskforce, Financial Stability Board, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervi­sion,” the Governor stated.

The bank’s most important conclusion from all of this is that cryptocurrencies are digital assets, not money. Additionally, despite the fact that cryptocurrencies carry other significant risks like volatility, cyber-theft, loss of funds, and potential threats to financial stability, an outright ban on cryptocurrencies has not been successful, largely because of their decentralized and borderless nature.

“Consequently, the bank intends to continue to allow blockchain in the regulatory sandbox, as the first step while we continue to explore a comprehensive regulatory frame­work for the digital asset industry”, Dr Addison stated.

He claimed that despite the decision to create a framework for regulating cryptocurrency assets, the bank continued to stand by its prior warnings to the public about the risks involved with cryptocurrency transactions.

“Interested parties need to be wary about potential losses that could occur when trading in crypto currencies. The bank equally stands by its directive as per the Notice issued on March 9, 2022, that all licensed institutions includ­ing banks, specialised deposit-tak­ing institutions, dedicated elec­tronic money issuers and payment service providers should refrain from facilitating cryptocurrency­transactions via their platforms or agent outlets,” Dr Addison stated.

The Governor stated that as online business transactions increased, so did the frequency of cyberattacks, mobile money fraud, and automated teller machine fraud.

He claimed that in order to prevent these activities from becoming ingrained and undermining the drive toward digitisation, the bank established a Financial Industry Command Security Operations Center (FICSOC) in 2018.

“In this regard, the bank has worked closely with the industry to complete a state-of- the-art FICSOC infrastructure, which is expected to be fully operational in the first quarter of 2023,” Dr Addison stated.

The Governor stated that the FICSOC would help with identifying threats in the banking sector through proactive monitoring, strengthening the cybersecurity posture of member institutions, sharing cybersecurity threat intelligence to improve resilience and incident management, and conducting digital forensic investigations when necessary.

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Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Is Enabling Instant Fiat Transfers Between Europe And Africa

In a statement released on Monday, bitcoin app CoinCorner announced that it had made Send Globally available to its EU and U.K. users. This feature enables foreign users to send money to Africa quickly and affordably.

The achievement is made possible by a collaboration with the African Bitcoin app Bitnob, which follows a similar collaboration with the Lightning payments app Strike.

Last week, Strike enabled Send Globally for its American users, enabling them to send money instantly and cheaply to bank accounts in Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria.

With the help of the Lightning Network, a peer-to-peer currency’s overlay protocol for quick and inexpensive payments, Bitnob connects local residents with those in the U.S., EU, and U.K.

“For us at Bitnob, this is another leap forward in economic empowerment for Africans. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most expensive region to send money to, where sending $200 costs an average of 8.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020 according to the World Bank. Bitcoin is powering the future of money and this partnership highlights a strong use case of what the future will look like,” said Bernard Parah, CEO of Bitnob, in a statement.

The local Bitcoin apps are used by Send Globally as the on- and off-ramps for fiat. U.S. dollars, euros, or British pounds are first converted into bitcoin by Strike or CoinCorner. After that, Lightning is used to deliver the BTC to Bitnob. The African app then sends the corresponding sum in local currency to the receiving user. Despite all of these steps, Lightning’s efficiency and speed make the process affordable and nearly instantaneous.

“The borderless nature of Bitcoin has always made it a great tool for sending money around the world, but now with the Lightning Network, sending Bitcoin is instant and very low cost. By partnering with Bitnob to provide a seamless cross-border experience using Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, we hope to remove some of the friction and cost that customers experience when using traditional FX and money remittance companies,”said Danny Scott, CoinCorner CEO.

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Accounting Firm Mazars Pauses Work With Binance And Other Crypto Clients

Mazars, a French auditing firm, announced on Friday that it has halted all work for clients in the cryptocurrency industry. This announcement reflects a larger trend in the high-finance sector of the global economy as companies turn away from the troubled industry.

Binance, a major cryptocurrency exchange, hired Paris-based Mazars last month to carry out a “proof-of-reserves check” on its bitcoin holdings.

This month, the firm discovered that the exchange’s reserves were overcollateralized on a single day in late November. A report on the check that was published on December 7 was later removed from the website by Mazars.

“Mazars has paused its activity relating to the provision of Proof of Reserves Reports* for entities in the cryptocurrency sector due to concerns regarding the way these reports are understood by the public,” the company said.

Users of exchanges should be able to verify that their holdings are included in checks of blockchain data and that the reserves of the exchange match their assets through proof-of-reserves checks. They do not resemble a thorough financial audit.

The crypto market has lost nearly $2 trillion in value so far this year as a result of rising interest rates and intensifying concerns about an impending recession.  Crucial business players like Celsius Network, Voyager Digital, and Three Arrows Capital have all been eliminated by the downturn.

However, the bigger blow came after the bigger cryptocurrency exchange FTX declared bankruptcy last month. Due to its quick decline, major exchanges’ user fund holding practices are now under intense regulatory scrutiny.

Earlier this week, Binance experienced a sharp increase in outflows, which its CEO Changpeng Zhao referred to as “business as usual.”

On Monday, the cryptocurrency exchange temporarily suspended withdrawals of a significant stablecoin, blaming delays in the conventional banking system.

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PayPal Partners With Crypto Wallet MetaMask

Two of the industry’s top names are working to make buying cryptocurrencies that much easier. Coindesk recently reported that PayPal is working alongside the cryptocurrency wallet MetaMask to create a new and more efficient cryptocurrency buying experience. The two companies revealed this collaboration through a press release published on Thursday.

The announcement also relays that the two entities seek diverse options for users to transfer their digital assets. 

For people searching for a simpler way to buy bitcoins, the collaboration between PayPal and MetaMask is especially exciting news. Additionally, the partnership was created out of the intention to support a simpler and more mainstream approach for PayPal users who want to get into the industry.

The press release also revealed that the MetaMask developer, ConsenSys, is set to allow users to select PayPal as a payment option when buying Ethereum within the MetaMask platform. Moreover, this development integrates what is a seamless transfer of digital assets between the two platforms.

The development sports a similar functionality to features already available on popular platforms like Etsy and eBay. Additionally, this replicates the checkout feature that allows customers to purchase using their PayPal account. Conversely, the same will now apply when purchasing cryptocurrency via MetaMask.

According to Lorenzo Santos, product manager at MetaMask, this advancement will benefit customers by introducing them to Web3. “This integration with PayPal will allow our U.S. users to not just buy crypto seamlessly through MetaMask, but also to easily explore the Web3 ecosystem,” Santos stated.

The development represents PayPal’s yet another moment of embrace for crypto. The partnership continues the integration of digital assets that have been a focal point of the financial firm since 2020.