South Korea
South Korean prosecutors apply to revoke Do Kwon and other Terra employees’ passports
According to local news outlet gynews.kr, the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office’s Joint Financial Securities Crime Investigation Team says it will be contacting the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to nullify the passports of Terra Luna co-founder Do Kwon and five other project developers. Prosecutors also plan to contact Interpol and escalate the South Korean arrest warrant issued the day prior into an international arrest warrant. All Terra Luna members named in the warrant reside in Singapore, a country that does not have an extradition treaty with South Korea. Targeted individuals on the warrant include Mo Han and Mo Yu, both of whom are Terra Luna employees staying with Do Kwon in Singapore. Another named individual is Greek national Nicholas Pla...
Elon Musk-crypto video played on S. Korean govt’s hacked YouTube channel
A YouTube channel owned by the government of South Korea was reportedly hacked and renamed SpaceX Invest, following which the channel uploaded fabricated videos of Elon Musk discussing cryptocurrencies. On Sept 3, the South Korean government’s YouTube channel was momentarily hacked and renamed for sharing live broadcasts of crypto-related videos. However, the account was soon restored within four hours following a proactive intervention, confirmed a local report from Yonhap News Agency (YNA). The above screenshot was provided to YNA by a locale that shows the compromised channel being renamed to SpaceX Invest and streaming videos depicting SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. The compromised ID and password of the YouTube channel were identified as the root cause of the hack. Google, too, reportedl...
Australian regulators rattle their saber as adoption takes a major leap: Law Decoded, Aug. 22–29
Australia’s financial regulator, the Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), has pledged to put crypto assets and decentralized finance (DeFi) firmly in its sights over the next four years. The regulator intends to focus on “digitally enabled misconducts” and to protect investors “from harms posed by crypto-assets.” Given the ASIC’s history of anti-crypto sentiments, such an announcement could be perceived as hostile, but at least it contains a promise to implement some regulatory framework that is still absent. And it is hardly a coincidence that the announcement came only days after Australia’s new ruling government announced plans to move forward with regulation of the crypto sector by conducting a “token mapping” exercise by the end of the year. At the same time, Australia’...
The lasting agony of 3AC: Law Decoded, July 18-25
The late spring and summer months of 2022 would be remembered not only for their extreme temperatures across the globe but also for a crushing streak of large crypto companies falling apart. Terra Lab in May, Celsius in June and now, the lasting agony of a Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). Technically, 3AC was ordered for liquidation by a court in the British Virgin Islands on June 27, but it was last week, which has seen some further developments around the firm. The liquidators of 3AC are brutally demanding access to the company’s Singapore headquarters due to the “virtual radio silence from the management/directors of the Company.” They believe the office may contain cold wallets or information on how to access 3AC trading accounts, which the liquidator...
Super Junior Break Down Every Song on ‘The Road : Keep on Going’ Album
After more than 15 years in the K-pop game, Super Junior is here to reassure fans the boy band has no intention of leaving. In fact, their new music is coming in multiple chapters to prove the point. The latest volume of new music, The Road : Keep on Going The 11th Album Vol. 1, unveiled on July 12, is packed with messages meant to raise listeners’ spirits during the summer and uplift their longtime fans, affectionately called E.L.F. for Ever Lasting Friends. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “The album title The Road : Keep on Going is about Super Junior’s path and how we will keep on going,” member Siwon tells Billboard. “It’s an album that tells the story of Super Junior’s present, includes a message of Super Junior’s now, as well as t...
BTS’ Label Recruits ARMY to Protect the Band From ‘Personal Attacks and Defamation’
BigHit Music, the South Korean record label, says it is going after “malicious postings” related to K-pop supergroup BTS – and is looking to fans to supply intel to aid in the crackdown. On June 29, BigHit released a note on social networking platform Weverse warning that the company had recently filed “additional criminal complaints against postings with personal attacks and defamation,” using new information provided by fans and collected through its own monitoring activities. The Weverse note came two weeks after BTS shook up the pop music world by revealing that the seven-member boy band was taking an indefinite break to pursue solo projects. The group’s fan group, known as ARMY, has lashed out on Twitter against journalists in the U.S. for their portrayals of the group’s break, which ...
Will BTS’ Label Take a Big Hit From Band’s ‘Hiatus’?
HYBE will miss BTS — but not as much as it would have before acquiring Ithaca Holdings in 2021. On Tuesday (June 14), the band announced it was “going on a hiatus” to allow each member to focus on their solo projects. What that might mean for the label that launched BTS in 2013 is unclear. Companywide, BTS accounted for 27% of HYBE’s U.S. album sales and streams in 2021, according to the company’s fourth quarter 2021 investor presentation. In Japan — the world’s second-biggest music market — BTS accounted for about half of HYBE’s album sales, according to the company’s 2021 earnings. On top of that, BTS likely accounted for nearly all HYBE’s touring income that amounted to 191.1 billion ($148 million) in 2019 and 45.6 billion KRW ($36 million) 2021. HYBE’s acquisition of Ithica Projects in...
Solana price just one breakdown away from a 40% slide in June — here’s why
Solana (SOL) is nearing a decisive breakdown moment as it inches towards the apex of its prevailing “descending triangle” pattern. SOL’s 40% price decline setup Notably, SOL’s price has been consolidating inside a range defined by a falling trendline resistance and horizontal trendline support, which appears like a descending triangle—a trend continuation pattern. Therefore, since SOL has been trending lower, down about 85% from its November 2021 peak of $267, its likelihood of breaking below the triangle range is higher. As a rule of technical analysis, a breakdown move followed by the formation of a descending triangle could last until the price has fallen by as much as the triangle’s maximum height. This puts SOL’s bearish price target at $22.50 ...
South Korea ramps up crypto investigations and regulations
On Friday, June 3, South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) began an investigation into payment gateway services that work with digital assets. The FSS is South Korea’s financial regulator that operates under the Financial Services Commission (FSC), both of which are government institutions. As reported by local news outlet Money Today Co., the FSS had recently demanded reports from 157 payment gateways about any service related to crypto, their plans for the future, and disclosure of digital assets. But an FSS report stated that only 6 held any digital assets. Related: How Terra’s collapse will impact future stablecoin regulations Although the FSS is currently the primary financial regulator, on May 31st, 2022, South Korea announced the upcoming launch of the Digital Assets Commi...
South Korean government becomes an early investor in metaverse
South Korea, a nation known for its strict crypto regulatory stance, is betting big on the metaverse. The government will invest over 223.7 billion won ($177.1 million) directly in various metaverse projects. The decision to invest in the nascent metaverse tech makes South Korea one of the first national governments to do so. The investment came under the ‘Digital New Deal’ program set up to invest in emerging technologies. The program is headed by the country’s science and information and communication technologies ministry led by Lim Hyesook. Hyesook called the metaverse “an uncharted digital continent with indefinite potential,” indicating the government’s interest in taking lead in the metaverse tech. The national fund would be first utilized to build a metropolitan level metaverse pla...
Seoul authorities launch an official investigation on the TerraUSD crash
Terraform Labs employees have been summoned by South Korean prosecutors in a bid to establish the exact cause of the collapse of Terra assets The investigators have also tightened up scrutiny on exchanges to make sure investors are protected from the same fate that befell Terra and its native tokens South Korean authorities have reportedly launched a full-scale investigation to find the exact reason for the collapse of algorithmic stable coin UST and its sister token LUNA. The investigation is being conducted by the joint financial and securities crime investigation team from the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors Office. Investigators probing to determine if there was price manipulation The investigation team seeks to find from the Terra lab employees if the project’s founder, Do Kwon, i...
Law Decoded: The long waves in the aftermath of UST’s crash, May 16-23
It’s been two weeks since the shock of the TerraUSD (UST) depegging, but the long waves of this event are still coming in. The Congressional Research Service described the UST crash as a “run-like” scenario and claimed that the crypto industry has not reached the same level of “adequate regulating” as the traditional finance market. Michael Barr, former advisory board member of Ripple Labs and United States President Joe Biden’s pick for a vice chair for supervision at the Federal Reserve, definitely agrees with that. During the confirmation hearing, he mentioned “some significant risks” that innovative technologies and cryptocurrencies, in particular, bring along. It’s not only in the U.S. where the regulators got concerned about stablecoins. The executive director of markets ...
