Watch: India Is Now Proposing To Ban Private Crypto (youtube.com)
Welcome to The Daily Forkast, 24th November, 2021, presented by Angie Lau. For the latest in blockchain & crypto news. On today's show:

00:00 Coming Up
01:21 Korean government to review harsher penalties for crypto crime.
02:06 India bill proposes ban on private cryptocurrencies.
04:16 Race for the metaverse heating up.

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Australia's Securities and Investments Commission has accused the owners of Gold Coast based business, "A One Multi" of scamming 92 people out of 25 million Australian dollars, that's US$18 million. The agency is now trying to gain access to a cold wallet believed to hold almost US$20 million worth of Bitcoin purchased with the defrauded funds. The case now raises concerns regarding the oversight capacity of Australian crypto exchange CoinSpot as it was unable to provide authorities with adequate know-your-customer documentation regarding the accounts of one of "A One Multi" owners.

South Korea is looking into increasing punishment to meet the crime when it comes to crypto. The country's Financial Services Commission submitting basic outlines for stronger laws for the crypto market to the National Assembly for review. The law aims to better protect investors from fraudulent or unfair trading practices, such as market price manipulation, with potential penalties of more than, get this five years in prison. It's part of increased scrutiny of market players. Speaking earlier this week, FSC chair Koh Seung Beom said policies should focus on strengthening supervision over virtual asset operators.

The government's stance on crypto is an even hotter topic in India, though a parliamentary meeting just last week reached a consensus that cryptocurrencies should be regulated instead of being banned. The government has now apparently done a 180 and listed a bill that seeks to ban all private crypto. However, while the draft bill has yet to be released to the public, it does say that certain exceptions could be made. The legislation, entitled The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021, says it seeks to create a facilitative framework for creation of the official digital currency. However, it also seeks to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India. Albeit, with some exceptions, to promote the underlying technology of blockchain and its uses. One investor said it's very unclear what that actually means. In a written statement, the crypto exchange WazirX said it will respectfully wait to find out more about the draft bill to be tabled, and CoinDCX had not responded to a request for comment by Wednesday afternoon Asia time. Several investors told us they are now looking to transfer assets to foreign exchanges or hard wallets. However, certain functions on major exchanges appeared to either be limited or halted altogether for several hours on Wednesday morning. A message on the WazirX app said there was a delay in processing Indian rupee deposits via its payment partner MobiKwik, while attempted transactions on CoinDCX showed as pending payment.

The metaverse is heating up, and to help us understand it and how it's defining decentralized pop culture, our NFT insider, Duc Luu, executive chairman of Sports Network, a cross-chain DeFi powered NFT marketplace, is back in the hot seat.

Angie: The Winklevoss twins are dropping a cool US$400 million dollars to build their vision of a decentralized metaverse. This shake things up a bit, doesn't it?

Duc: It means that the world of walled gardens like Facebook, et cetera, Web 2.0 companies want a piece of this, "The Metaverse", that Zuckerberg keeps talking about. And the Winklevoss twins are, of course, very much Web 3. And so they're saying, You know what? We're going to raise a treasure chest to fight for decentralization. So really, that's what it's going to be a fight between the walled gardens who want to say here there's only one metaverse in which we can exist. Whereas Gemini and and Web 3 companies are saying, actually, guys, sorry, but the metaverse is plural. Not singular.

Angie: The (South Korean) gaming authorities are trying to clamp down on NFT games, but the physical and virtual worlds are set to meet in the metaverse in South Korea. What's your perspective there?

Duc: Yeah, I mean, I think that that we've seen for the last one decade or so, Asia very much leapfrogging old technologies and adopting new technologies much faster than than than the West, right? I mean, we saw that with WeChat. South Korea has always been at the forefront of gaming, even even ed-tech. And so it's not surprising that they're wholeheartedly in in into web 3.

Angie: And that is the NFT insight from our NFT insider, Duc Luu. Thank you so much, Executive Chairman, Sports Network. Thanks again for joining us.
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