The Japanese messaging giant Line has decided to shut down its cryptocurrency exchange business amid the ongoing crypto winter. Line-owned crypto exchange Bitfront officially announced on Nov. 27 a plan to completely close down the platform by March 2023. According to the statement, the closure was driven by the continued cryptocurrency bear market and other issues in the crypto industry. Despite the exchange’s closure, Line will still continue to run its other blockchain ventures, including the Line blockchain ecosystem and Link (LN) token, the announcement notes, stating: “Despite our efforts to overcome the challenges in this rapidly-evolving industry, we have …

Japan’s largest social media app, Line has officially launched its own non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace called LINE NFT. Partnering with Yoshimoto Kogyo, a major Japanese entertainment conglomerate — the LVC Corporation, Line’s crypto and blockchain manager — will offer approximately 40,000 different NFTs to its 90 million users. The first wave of soon-to-be-released NFTs will include videos from the company’s in-house, Yoshimoto NFT Theatre, as well depictions of characters from well-known anime series, Patlabor the Mobile Police, with more to come on offer in the coming months. Also NFTs from the iconic anime series Patlabor the Mobile Police, and NFTs …

Users of Japanese messaging giant LINE will soon be able to use the app’s native token for payments at select online merchants in a limited trial. In a Tuesday announcement, the LINE Corporation said that starting on March 16, users would have the option of paying with native LINK token (LN) — not to be confused with Chainlink (LINK) — at any of LINE Pay’s online merchants. The trial period, which will run until Dec. 26, is aimed at testing real-life use cases for the tokens in addition to increasing the convenience and number of payment options for users. LINE …

Major Japanese internet company Yahoo Japan has partnered with messaging giant Line to launch nonfungible token (NFT) trading. Line officially announced on Tuesday that its cryptocurrency-focused subsidiary, LVC Corporation, would collaborate with Yahoo Japan to enable the secondary trading of NFTs issued on Line’s proprietary blockchain. As part of the partnership, Yahoo! Japan would place Line blockchain-based NFTs on its online auction service Yahoo! Auctions, a service set up by the company back in 1998 to compete with the e-commerce giant eBay. To enable NFT trading on the platform, the two partners would integrate Yahoo Auctions with the Line Bitmax …

Line, a Tokyo-based subsidiary of the South Korean internet search engine company Naver, is building a platform for developing central bank digital currencies, South Korean news agency the Chosun Ilbo reported on Oct. 19. Sources familiar with the matter reportedly told Chosun Ilbo that Line aims to support the development of a so-called “customized CBDC.” The messaging company is discussing the application of its blockchain-based CBDC platform with several central banks in major Asian countries, according to the report. Line executives said that they cannot disclose the exact countries that are considering the platform’s application. A Line spokesperson told Cointelegraph …

Japanese messaging company LINE has launched a blockchain development platform called LINE Blockchain Developers for decentralized applications and services. The company has also launched a digital asset wallet named BITMAX that will allow users to centrally manage all the fungible and non-fungible digital assets they obtain from various blockchain services on the LINE Blockchain. LINE’s blockchain and crypto subsidiary LVC Corporation and Line Tech Plus announced the launch of the two products to LINE’s blockchain and crypto portfolio on Aug. 26. Through the web-based blockchain development platform, the company aims to help developers cut costs and complexities of developing and …

LVC Corporation, the crypto subsidiary of messaging giant Line, will launch trading of its proprietary cryptocurrency Link in Japan in April. According to a press release on Jan. 30, LVC is also developing a system meant for Link’s debut in Japan on its local cryptocurrency exchange BitMax. Line already began Link trading on its international BitBox cryptocurrency exchange in mid-October 2018. Due to stricter national cryptocurrency regulations in Japan, LVC had to wait to obtain a license from local financial regulators in September 2019 before launching its BitMax cryptocurrency exchange in the country. According to its official website, Link allows …

BitBox, the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange operated by internet messaging giant Line, announced that it will delist XRP on Jan. 16. Cointelegraph Japan reported BitBox’s decision earlier today. The announcement published on the exchange’s website on Jan. 6 read: “We keep a constant watch on all coins that are being traded on BITBOX. If a coin does not meet our standards based on its performance, reliability, liquidity, or law and regulatory requirements, it will be delisted from our exchange. To protect your assets and interests, we provide sufficient notice before delisting.” The crypto asset in question will be delisted at midnight …

Japanese messaging app Line has entered into a final agreement with financial giant Nomura Holdings to form a blockchain alliance. Focus on blockchain technology On Oct. 4, Line, together with Line Group company LVC Corporation and Nomura Holdings, announced that the three companies have signed the final capital alliance agreement, which is based on the collective intent to explore business opportunities in the blockchain industry. Cointelegraph previously reported that the three partners had signed a memorandum of understanding at the end of January 2019, with the intention to sign a formal contract by the end of March. According to the …

Update [2:27pm UTC]: This article has been changed to reflect that Chainlink (LINK) is different from LINK, the native cryptocurrency of Japanese messaging giant LINE’s service-oriented blockchain. Researchers have published evidence of what they claim is a coordinated pump and dump manipulation involving the Chainlink (LINK) token. A blog post published on Sept. 11 by AnChain.Ai researchers contains an analysis of apparently suspicious LINK token transactions between April 1, 2019, and July 26, 2019. Pump and dump: an overview Pump and dump is the name given to a type of microcap fraud, in which the price of an asset — …

LVC Corporation, the digital asset- and blockchain-focused arm of Japanese messaging giant LINE, has obtained a crypto exchange operating license from Japan’s financial regulator. The news was reported by Cointelegraph Japan on Sept 6. Trading for 5 major cryptocurrencies As previously reported, LVC Corp.’s trading platform, to be dubbed BITMAX, will enable Line’s 80 million users in Japan to buy and sell multiple major cryptocurrencies. According to CT Japan, the FSA has authorized the trading of Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC) and XRP on the platform. Per a press release recently shared with Cointelegraph, LINE counts …

LVC Corporation, the digital asset- and blockchain-focused arm of Japanese messaging giant Line, is allegedly close to obtaining a crypto exchange operating license from Japan’s financial regulator. The news was reported by Cointelegraph Japan on June 20. According to the report, Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) could issue the company with an exchange license as early as this month. The trading service, to be dubbed BitMax, would enable Line’s 80 million users in Japan to buy and sell multiple major cryptocurrencies, as well as Line’s native token Link, CT Japan notes. Per a press release recently shared with Cointelegraph, Line …