CryptoKitties creators are preparing to leave Ethereum

South Korea adopts a law dedicated to crypto exchanges

On March 5, the National Assembly of South Korea approved a revised draft law on reporting and using special information on financial transactions, focusing on introducing a permit system for cryptocurrency exchanges.

Operators of virtual assets must report their operations to the Financial Information Unit (FIU) within the Financial Services Commission. Companies are required to identify users based on “nominal bank accounts”. Failure to comply with the provisions is punishable by up to five years in prison or a fine of 50 million won ($ 42,000).

The Financial Supervision Service and FIU will also strengthen the AML system for virtual assets. The bill will enter into force starting March next year.

To date, only four crypto exchanges in Korea – Upbit, Coinwon, Bithumb and Korbit – use nominal bank accounts. Most of the other platforms rely on transfers to the company’s corporate accounts to support customer transactions.

BitMEx receives warning from FCA UK

The BitMEX crypto derivative exchange is not “authorized” to operate in the UK, according to a notification issued by the FCA.

The FCA Financial Conduct Authority released the notification on Tuesday, saying that BitMEX has provided services in the UK without authorization.

“BitMEX is not authorized by us and is aimed at people in the UK. Based on the information we hold, we believe that it carries out regulated activities that require authorization ”,

FCA said.

A BitMEX spokesperson told The Block:

“We work closely with our advisors to evaluate the situation. We can’t add anything right now. “

The FCA issued a similar warning against Kraken, but was later eliminated. Kraken’s Crypto Units futures trading platform is regulated by the FCA, according to the authority’s website.

An unnamed source told The Block that the FCA could soon issue more such notifications against crypto exchanges Deribit, CoinFLEX and Bybit.

Last month, FCA became the UK’s oversight authority for crypto compliance. As a result, all existing and new crypto companies must register by January 2021.

BitGo launches its own subsidiary dedicated to crypto loans

Crypto custody provider BitGo has built its own lending business, as part of the growing DeFi service wave.

The new separate legal entity, called BitGo Prime LCC, will offer both custody services and cryptocurrency-based loans. For the moment, the budget allocated is $ 150 million, which is quite small compared to the approximately $ 500 million operated by providers such as Genesis Global Trading and BlockFi. The company will not operate in New York because it does not have a BitLicense.

As plans for the future, Nick Carmi, the head of financial services at BitGo, told TheBlock that the company intends to serve a small number of customers.

“We can build a very profitable business with 20 to 30 big customers”,

he said.

The new offer targets larger investors and traders, as loan values ​​are high, starting at $ 1 million to $ 8 million.

CryptoKitties creators are preparing to leave Ethereum

One of Ethereum’s first stars, the creators of CryptoKitties, has announced it is launching its own blockchain called Flow.

Dapper Labs has raised about $ 39 million from investors following the success of the CryptoKitties collectibles game at the end of 2017. The company released a simulator for its own blockchain on Thursday dedicated to developers who want to build their own applications.

“We built this blockchain because we wanted a different blockchain to host our games,”

said Dieter Shirley, co-founder of Dapper Labs and one of the creators of CryptoKitties.

Scaling limitations were not the only reason Dapper Labs decided to adopt another programming language. It’s called Cadence and it works differently than Ethereum’s Solidity.

Shirley said that Ethereum 2.0’s future sharding approach would “really limit what you can do with smart contracts.” His team wanted to use a more “consumer-oriented” platform that could manage the volume of games without blocking the network, as happened with CryptoKitties.

Dapper Labs has failed to gain sustainable traction with Ethereum-based games following the short-term success of its star game. This week CryptoKitties has attracted less than 200 users, according to DappRadar. This is a significant decrease from the 2017 record of 14,914 daily active users. Recent partnerships with sports leagues such as the UFC and NBA suggest high aspirations for the company, which has helped to popularize the NFT standard.