LensLinks: Issue 48

Today in LensLinks:

• South Korea's "Wild Plan to Dominate the Metaverse"

• Metaverse: Who Qualifies? The U.S. Army Does.

• Howie Mandel gets a digital twin from DeepBrain AI (check it out)

• Are major game studios still not sold on NFTs?

• Crypto lender Genesis struggles to enable withdrawals for users

• Gensler Restates SEC's Crypto Authority

• EU to 'Level Playing Field' for Crypto Firms With Uniform Tax Rules

• And Much, Much, More...

If you had to pick the one country that’s most primed to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the metaverse, South Korea would be high on the list.

It’s a technology-obsessed country that eagerly adopts new products, where 98% of people own a smart device and more than 10% of the population own at least some cryptocurrency. Despite being the 13th-largest economy in the world by GDP — and the 27th by population — it’s the fourth-largest gaming market in the world, with its 33 million gamers generating $8.3 billion in revenue for the sector in 2021.

The fall of Sam Bankman-Fried didn’t just topple a $32 billion cryptocurrency exchange in FTX—it also threatened to undo the fabric of decentralized finance on the crypto wunderkind’s blockchain of choice, Solana.

Serum, founded in August 2020 by a consortium that included the Solana Foundation and Bankman-Fried’s FTX and trading desk Alameda Research, was a core decentralized exchange platform and liquidity provider for the burgeoning Solana DeFi ecosystem. Its order book was crucial for DeFi on Solana, integrated into virtually all of the biggest DeFi projects on the network, like Jupiter and Raydium.

Genesis, a US-based crypto lender informed users that withdrawal freeze won’t be resolved for weeks to come.

FTX exchange collapse and contagion fear has spread in the crypto ecosystem, the derivatives business of Genesis lost $175 million.

Analysts believe Genesis’ collapse could land a major blow to parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG).

Metaverse & Gaming - A Little More...

Blockchain, Tokens & Defi - A Little More...

Crypto Trading - A Little More...

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