The Ukrainian government is moving forward with its central bank digital currency (CBDC) plans, as the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) is now officially authorized to issue a digital currency. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed the law titled “On Payment Services,” officially enabling the country’s central bank to issue a CBDC, the digital hryvnia,
Regulation
Michele Korver, the first-ever chief digital currency advisor for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s (FinCEN), believes crypto assets are just another way of transferring value. Speaking to Law360 on July 29, the newly appointed Korver said cryptocurrency was “just another means of payment or value transfer that’s developed over time, just like any financial technology.”
Cryptocurrency exchange Okcoin may soon be opening its doors wider to crypto traders in Malta and the Netherlands following approval from key regulators. In a Thursday announcement, Okcoin said it had secured formal registration from the central bank in the Netherlands and secured “in principle” approval for a virtual financial assets license from the Malta
Hass McCook is a respected Sydney-based civil engineer who has worked on some of the most spectacular buildings in the world, from Munich’s Allianz Arena to Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands. He also considers Bitcoin to be his religion. Better known on Twitter as Friar Hass, the 35-year-old had a religious epiphany about Bitcoin in 2017.
An ongoing lawsuit involving crypto project Nano has taken another turn this week when the developers sought a sanction after the plaintiff dropped the case. The Nano team is after $701,000 in attorney fees and costs as a sanction after a token buyer dropped his proposed class action. On July 27, its legal team told
Tuesday’s crypto hearing before the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs also included a call for stricter regulations on cryptocurrency miners. Addressing the committee, professor Angela Walch claimed that miners held “meaningful power” over the way blockchain networks operate. According to Walch, miners can exploit their role of transaction ordering, which
Senator and former United States presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren believes that the digital asset industry may be a tool to tackle some challenges in the traditional financial system. A known skeptic of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Warren appeared to have softened her stance on the crypto industry in a CNBC Squawk Box interview on Wednesday,
The firm behind the world’s leading stablecoin, Tether, is facing more regulatory pressure this week with U.S. financial watchdogs scrutinizing the composition of its reserves. According to a July 27 Bloomberg report the Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu said regulators are looking into Tether’s stockpile of commercial paper to see whether each USDT
Powers On… is a monthly opinion column from Marc Powers, who spent much of his 40-year legal career working with complex securities-related cases in the United States after a stint with the SEC. He is now an adjunct professor at Florida International University College of Law, where he teaches a course on “Blockchain, Crypto and
A bill to establish a crypto task force in Pennsylvania has been introduced in the state’s General Assembly. According to the details of HB1724 published by LegiScan, the proposed crypto task force will be mandated to examine the potential impact of widespread crypto and digital currency adoption in the state. A moderately partisan bill introduced
William Cai, co-founder of investment firm Wilshire Phoenix, is the latest person to cast doubts on the possibility of a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval in the United States in 2021. Speaking to Business Insider, Cai remarked that a Bitcoin ETF in 2021 is unlikely as he offered 2022 and 2023 as the earliest
The International Monetary Fund is warning that some of the consequences of a country adopting Bitcoin as a national currency “could be dire.” According to IMF marketing department financial counsellor and director Tobias Adrian and legal department general counsel and director Rhoda Weeks-Brown, a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin (BTC) may catch on in countries without stable
In the 1988 “Crypto Anarchist Manifesto,” engineer, author and cypherpunk Timothy C. May predicted a social and economic revolution enabled by technological developments, including high-speed networks, personal computers and satellites. Today, former Bitcoin core developer Jeff Garzik — now with SpaceChain — and others are making this vision a reality. Private crypto companies including SpaceChain,
Crypto derivatives exchange FTX has decided to curb risky trading by limiting the leverage available to its users. The exchange, founded by crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), has reducedthe maximum leverage available on the platform down to 20x, a significant reduction from its previous limit of 101x. In a July 25 tweet announcing the updated
The quest to understand the opportunities and challenges of a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, is underway in 81 countries, with five nations fully implementing a digital version of their currency, according to a new tracker from the Atlantic Council. The Caribbean region is home to all five CBDCs that are currently in use,
For much of 2021, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been in the headlines for its anti-cryptocurrency measures. Yet, the institution has this week redoubled its investment and research into crypto’s underlying technology, blockchain, and has set a clear date for the pilot scheme of its blockchain-powered central bank digital currency (CBDC). On October