Savannah Fortis
The Japan Virtual and Crypto Assets Exchange Association, the governing body that deals with crypto assets in Japan, released documents of plans to further ease crypto laws in the country.
According to a Bloomberg report, as early as December of this year, the association wants to implement a looser screening process for already authorized exchanges to list virtual coins. However, this would apply to tokens that are not new to the Japanese market.
The regulators could abolish the lengthy pre-screening process altogether, even for coins new to the market, by March 2024. This scenario could also include tokens issued through initial coin or exchange offerings, according to comments by Genki Oda, the association's vice president.
Oda said of the association's latest announcement:
“We hope the latest measure will help revitalize Japan’s crypto assets market.”
These new steps from Japanese regulators come in the hopes of revamping the local crypto scene and making it easier for startups to get a foot in the door.
The Japanese government passed a cabinet decision to revise laws related to money laundering on Oct. 14. This means that businesses that facilitate the exchange of crypto assets must provide user information and notify the business operators.
Recently, Japan has been considering the growing crypto scene as the government revises laws and regulations. In August, officials said they will consider implementing tax reforms to prevent crypto startups from leaving.
This came shortly after Japanese crypto groups called on regulators to end taxing paper gains.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the government will be making an effort to promote the use of new Web3 technologies in a speech on Oct. 3. Specifically, he mentioned the usage of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and the Metaverse.
In September of this year, the government of Japan issued NFTs as rewards for good work to local authorities.
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Sam Bourgi
ShapeShift, a noncustodial crypto exchange and decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), has taken additional steps toward complete decentralization by migrating users to a new open-source application — a move the organization said would enhance user mobility.
The organization announced that as of Oct. 19, all native web users of the ShapeShift platform have migrated to a decentralized version of the application. The announcement also coincided with the release of a new mobile app that the organization said would provide an “authentic DeFi universe” experience. The new mobile app is said to provide users with additional flexibility, mobility and features when connecting their wallets and trading crypto.
Willy Orgorzaly, who heads decentralization for the Fox Foundation said the mobile app is “fully open source” and that “the only backend is blockchain data,” which is also in the process of being decentralized.
As part of its decentralization efforts, ShapeShift has expanded user options for investing and managing digital assets. It has also pledged to permanently erase users’ data once the company’s centralized infrastructure is fully wound down.
As reported by Cointelegraph, ShapeShift announced its plans to decentralize its entire operations in July 2021. The decentralization pledge also included a massive airdrop of FOX tokens, the native asset of the ShapeShift platform, to over 1 million users. In the following months, the organization issued multiple airdrops and fully open-sourced its v2 platform code.
While decentralization has been at the heart of the Bitcoin revolution, the crypto industry does not uniformly accept the concept or apply it effectively. New efforts to promote decentralization have emerged within Web3, a broad concept that refers to some future iteration of the internet.
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Judith BannermanQuist
Layer-1 blockchain company Aptos Foundation announced on Oct 18 that it had rewarded its early network participants with free APT tokens.
1/ The Aptos Foundation has provided early network participants with APT tokens. If you are eligible to claim, you will receive an email from airdrop@aptosfoundation.org in the next few hours. October 18, 2022
The foundation shared that it had allocated an estimated 20 million APT tokens, representing 2% of its initial total supply of 1 billion APT, to about 110,235 eligible participants. The airdropped tokens had an estimated value of about $200–$260 million USD based on the token's market price at the time the drop took place.
According to the blockchain company, eligibility for the airdropped tokens was based on two categories: “Users who completed an application for an Aptos Incentivized Testnet” and users who minted “an APTOS: ZERO testnet [nonfungible token, or] NFT.” Only the original minters of these NFTs were eligible, not the current or secondary owners of the NFTs.
The company shared that Aptos tokens could only be claimed via the official Aptos Community page with additional information provided in the eligibility email sent out by the company. They cautioned users to exercise extreme caution and only trust official sources and channels to avoid being defrauded.
Aptos Foundation’s first airdrop to its community members comes at a time when the project has been under much scrutiny by members of the crypto community on Twitter.
Solana Blockchain developer Paul Fidika, who had allegedly worked on Aptos staking, claimed in a series of tweets that the project had “Dodgey tokenomics” and “Fake POS."
1. Dodgey tokenomics. The FTX / Coinbase / Binance tokens going on sale tomorrow are already owned by the exchanges and are already staked (I think???) However these exchanges are marketing as if these tokens are being sold by the community (which is impossible—there was no ICO) October 18, 2022
Aptos was created by former Meta employees Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, both of whom were involved in Mark Zuckerberg's failed Diem blockchain project. Diem wound down in February of this year, with Meta selling its intellectual property and other assets.
In July, Aptos closed a $150 million funding round co-led by venture studios FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto, with additional participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Apollo, Franklin Templeton and Circle Ventures. According to Bloomberg, the funding round more than doubled the startup’s valuation, which was over $1 billion as of March.
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This Daily Dose was brought to you by Cointelegraph.
