Taiwan considers Bitcoin reserve, Sony’s Ethereum L2 tremendous app: Asia Specific

Taiwan’s central financial institution to mull Bitcoin for strategic reserves

Taiwan’s authorities will full a listing by year-end detailing how a lot Bitcoin it at present holds by way of confiscations, Premier Cho Jung-tai stated Tuesday throughout a finance committee. 

The central financial institution will even ship a proper evaluation on whether or not Bitcoin needs to be thought of as a part of Taiwan’s nationwide reserves.

The transfer comes as lawmakers press the federal government to make clear how seized crypto is dealt with and whether or not Taiwan ought to observe a rising world development of treating Bitcoin as a strategic reserve.

Taiwan’s judiciary has confiscated massive volumes of digital belongings however lacks a supporting mechanism for managing them, stated legislator Ko Ju-chun, pointing to the current seizure of $146 million in illicit belongings allegedly tied to Cambodia’s Prince Group.

Ko argued that the federal government ought to maintain confiscated Bitcoin quite than instantly liquidate it, resulting from its long-term potential and the potential of integrating it into nationwide reserves. Cho agreed to a full evaluate and pledged to reveal the quantity of Bitcoin held by authorities businesses earlier than the tip of the yr.

Central financial institution governor Yang Chin-long additionally confronted questions over the establishment’s stance on Bitcoin reserves. Ko criticized a March central financial institution report on Bitcoin, calling it outdated, and warned that Taiwan’s international alternate reserves are overly concentrated in US Treasuries and weak to forex fluctuations.

Yang stated the outlook to 2030 stays unsure however agreed, together with the premier, to submit a year-end report presenting each the dangers and potential advantages of including Bitcoin to nationwide holdings.

Sony will get in on the tremendous app craze

Startale Group and Sony Block Options Labs have unveiled Startale App, a so-called “SuperApp” for the Soneium blockchain that hyperlinks customers to Ethereum’s wider DeFi ecosystem.

Constructed as a shopper layer for Soneium, the Startale App serves as a first-access portal for token technology occasions, ecosystem rewards and different functions operating on Sony’s Ethereum layer-2 community.

Sony’s transfer is a part of a broader development as corporations search to consolidate wallets, funds, content material, and loyalty methods into single platforms referred to as tremendous apps —a mannequin now spreading throughout Web3 and mainstream finance.

In Web3, KAIA blockchain and Japanese messaging app LINE introduced their very own tremendous app undertaking, whereas Coinbase within the US consolidated person exercise into its Base app. Exterior of crypto, corporations like Walmart are constructing tremendous apps to mix buying with monetary companies and AI. 

Soneium has over 11 million complete addresses and had 1.8 million in day by day transactions on Thursday, in keeping with Blockscout’s explorer. It acts because the onchain layer for Sony, the Japanese electronics and gaming conglomerate.

China’s state investor predicts blockchain increase

China’s blockchain business is anticipated to develop to greater than 10 billion yuan (about $1.4 billion) by 2027, in keeping with Wu Hai, chairman of the state-owned China Web Funding Fund, cited by native media. The nation’s blockchain market was measured at 5.81 billion yuan in 2024.

Talking on the 2025 World Web Convention on Sunday, Wu reportedly said that the native market is shifting towards deeper integration with the actual financial system, supported by state funding and rising enterprise adoption.

In China, the variety of blockchain firm registrations and financing peaked between 2017 and 2019. Nevertheless, the Folks’s Financial institution of China expanded its cryptocurrency crackdown in 2021 to buying and selling and mining, successfully pushing native merchants to backdoor channels whereas crypto companies rushed offshore.

Beijing’s technique prioritizes blockchain expertise for industrial and monetary infrastructure that doesn’t rely on open cryptocurrency markets. The 14th 5-Yr Plan, China’s highest-level industrial roadmap accepted by its congress, explicitly highlights blockchain as a nationwide strategic expertise.

Wu added that as AI deployment accelerates throughout authorities, finance and industrial methods, demand for trusted information alternate, automated compliance, and interoperable platforms will develop. This makes room for blockchain to stay a precedence in nationwide coverage planning, at the same time as cryptocurrency stays restricted.

South Korea dangers a fourth delay to crypto taxation

South Korea’s long-awaited plan to tax crypto private revenue could face one other delay after a brand new report warned that regulators have made nearly no progress in addressing the authorized and technical gaps that led to 3 earlier postponements.

The Korea Capital Market Institute revealed an evaluation by senior analysis fellow Kim Kap-lae, who argued that the federal government’s September revenue tax modification proposal retained nearly all the unresolved points that had derailed earlier makes an attempt to introduce crypto taxation in 2022, 2023, and 2025. He wrote that implementing a crypto tax system in 2027 may set off widespread resistance from buyers.

South Korea has 10.77 million customers who’ve accomplished KYC verification on exchanges within the first half of 2025, which is roughly a fifth of the nation’s inhabitants.

Nevertheless, the nation has but to construct a framework for taxing the various types of crypto revenue that fall outdoors primary spot buying and selling, Kim stated. Earnings from lending, airdrops, mining and staking nonetheless lacks clear definitions, guidelines and reporting requirements.

The report warns that these gaps may trigger vital confusion as a result of South Korea’s Supreme Court docket applies strict requirements in tax instances.

Subscribe

Probably the most participating reads in blockchain. Delivered as soon as a
week.

Yohan Yun

Yohan Yun is a multimedia journalist masking blockchain since 2017. He has contributed to crypto media outlet Forkast as an editor and has coated Asian tech tales as an assistant reporter for Bloomberg BNA and Forbes. He spends his free time cooking, and experimenting with new recipes.