Home Blog Page 7

According to BBVA, Colombians Constitute 20% of Users of New Generation Crypto-Powered Accounts.

0
Image Credit: Freepik.com

Latam users are very interested in BBVA’s crypto-powered solutions, according to a recent article published by the private bank with headquarters in Spain. According to the institution, nearly 20% of the users of their New Gen accounts, which are accessible from Switzerland, are Colombians drawn to the crypto services these accounts provide.

Due to the features of their economies, users in Latam are embracing cryptocurrency solutions and the related services more and more. Latam users make up a sizable portion of the customers drawn to the company’s cryptocurrency solutions, claims BBVA, a Spanish bank with global service offerings. According to BBVA, Colombians make up nearly 20% of the users of its New Gen accounts, which let customers invest in cryptocurrencies straight from their bank accounts.

The ability to trade in bitcoin and ethereum along with the option of converting these currencies to other fiat currencies using a digital wallet makes this type of account particularly appealing to citizens of this nation. According to data offered by BBVA, 37% of the Colombians that visit the account web page are interested in the services.

The services are Switzerland-based due to the clear cryptocurrency legal framework that is available in the country. In an interview offered to The Banker in June, BBVA CEO for Switzerland, Alfonso Gomez, referred to what prompted the company offer crypto services from the country. He declared:

Switzerland is proactive. Finma, for example, is always willing to help. And the regulators are quite comfortable when traditional banks such as BBVA approach them and say that we are thinking about this kind of technology.

A number of exchanges have opened their platforms to Colombians in response to the steadily increasing interest that users in Colombia have in cryptocurrency-based solutions. This year, Latam-based cryptocurrency trading firms Bitso and Ripio both grew to offer their services in the country.

The country’s Financial Superintendence has proposed establishing regulations to control the interaction between virtual asset service providers (VASPs) and banks as part of the country’s move to begin regulating cryptocurrency assets and exchanges.

In the same vein, during its initial discussion in June, the Colombian Congress approved a bill intended to control the activities of cryptocurrency exchanges.

Asian Universities Will Receive $20 Million From the Korean Blockchain Project Klaytn for Blockchain Research.

0

South Korea’s SEOUL Blockchain protocol Klaytn has committed $20 million over four years to support blockchain development and funding at the National University of Singapore and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Seoul (NUS).
In Coindesk’s 2021 University Rankings for Blockchain, NUS took first place overall, while KAIST came in at number 26. According to QS World University Rankings, both are among the top 50 technology schools in the world and are well-known in Asia for their robust STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) programs.
Ground X, the blockchain division of messaging app Kakao, introduced Klaytn, which went live in 2019 and now has “millions of users in Korea,” according to the company. According to CoinGecko data, the market cap of its KLAY token, which is the 66th largest cryptocurrency, is over $880 million. Its governing body at launch included electronics giant LG, with crypto exchange Binance and South Korea’s Shinhan Bank joining later.

This month, the blockchain is the second to announce a program for funding higher education. The Algorand Foundation announced the recipients of its $50M blockchain research and education program earlier in August. These universities included Yale, the University of Cape Town, and Monash University in Australia.
At Korea Blockchain Week in Seoul on Monday, Sangmin Seo, director of the Klaytn Foundation, announced the funding, known as the Blockchain Research Center (BRC) Program. According to Seo, in terms of funding grants, the commitment is one of the biggest blockchain research programs.

Daily operations will be managed by a global team led by researchers from KAIST and NUS. The BRC will function in an open-source manner, with all research published as open-source software or in the form of academic papers.

External researchers will also be able to participate in existing research projects or submit their own proposals.

Seo said KAIST and NUS were selected from a pool of participating research institutes that submitted a proposal. Seven proposals were received from 62 research institutes in 11 countries, Seo said. The KAIST and NUS research group was selected by the Klaytn Governance Council.

Brazilian Congress’s attempt to vote on a cryptocurrency bill fails, with a September discussion date set.

0

A proposed cryptocurrency bill was not discussed by the Brazilian Congress this week. Although the proposed public policy was on the agenda, the deputy chamber’s discussion of the bills tended to other issues, such as health and issues with digital education. In September, there will be another discussion of the bill pertaining to digital currency.

The Brazilian Congress postponed the discussion and potential vote on a proposed cryptocurrency bill that was scheduled for this week in order to deal with other legislative matters. The deputy chamber, who had just returned from a vocational period, discussed additional bills that dealt with prisoner issues, health plans, and digital education.

Due to the proximity of the general legislative and presidential elections, the deputy chamber won’t be able to discuss this bill until September. Deputies will therefore only have these windows of time to develop their legislative responsibilities as they will be preoccupied with their individual campaigns in each of their states. Concentrated effort windows are the names for these times.

Some parts of the crypto-focused bill have already been cut, including the tax exemptions for green mining companies, as the rapporteur of the law, Expedito Netto, stated that these matters should be addressed in subsequent laws that deal with clean energy issues.

While Congress is preoccupied with election-related issues, members of Brazil’s cryptocurrency community have expressed dissatisfaction with the circumstance. Critics pointed out that this would postpone the passage of such a bill and any positive effects it might have on the environment.

The deputy chamber was urged to set aside some time during the following period of concentrated effort to discuss the referred bill by Julien Dutra, director of regulatory affairs at 2TM, the holding company for Mercado Bitcoin, one of the largest exchanges in Brazil. He stated:

With each postponement of the vote, investments and the development of solutions with high potential to change people’s lives are postponed, in addition to the fact that we lose the opportunity to turn off the tap of some serious systemic risks such as fraud prevention, money laundering, and unfair competition.

If the bill gets sidelined again during the next concentrated effort window in September, it is likely that its discussion and approval will be pushed off until after the general ballot that takes place next October.

Recently, the director of the Central Bank of Brazil praised bitcoin (BTC) as the precursor of Web3 technology and talked about giving smart traits to the digital real, the proposed Brazilian central bank digital currency.

 

3 US bills have been introduced to make the CFTC the primary regulator of cryptocurrency spot markets.

0

In order to give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) more authority to act as the primary regulator of the cryptocurrency spot markets, three different bills have been introduced in the U.S. this year.

In order to make the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) the primary regulator for cryptocurrency spot markets, three bills have already been introduced in Congress this year.

Noting that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) should be the primary regulators of the cryptocurrency spot markets, The Blockchain Association’s executive director, Kristin Smith, said on Thursday to CNBC:

We now have three different bills — the one this week, the Lummis Gillibrand bill, and also the House bill, the Digital Commodity Exchange Act — that all say the CFTC is the place to go.

The “Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act of 2022” was introduced by U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), John Boozman (R-AR), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and John Thune (R-SD) last week. “Our bill will empower the CFTC with exclusive jurisdiction over the digital commodities spot market, which will lead to more safeguards for consumers, market integrity and innovation in the digital commodities space,” Senator Boozman commented.

The “Responsible Financial Innovation Act,” introduced in June by U.S. Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY), gives the CFTC regulatory control over the spot markets for digital assets. “Digital assets that meet the definition of a commodity, such as bitcoin and ether, which comprise more than half of the market capitalization of digital assets, will be regulated by the CFTC,” the lawmakers said.

The “Digital Commodity Exchange Act of 2022” was the third piece of legislation, and it was introduced in April by Representatives Ro Khanna (D-CA), Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA), Tom Emmer (R-MN), and Darren Soto (D-FL). Rep. Khanna said, “Congress must establish a clear process for generating and trading digital commodities that prioritizes consumer protections, transparency, and accountability in order to foster American innovation and tech job growth.

“We are very excited that we have bipartisan, bicameral members of Congress that are wanting to think about and tackle these [crypto regulatory] issues,” Smith described.

Noting that the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry has jurisdiction over the CFTC, and Senator Stabenow is the chairwoman of the committee while Senator Boozman is the ranking member, Smith opined:

The fact that we have this level of senator who is thinking about this is incredibly encouraging.

Nigeria is the most crypto-obsessed English-speaking nation worldwide, according to a study.

0

Following the April cryptocurrency market crash, a new study identified Nigeria as the nation with the greatest interest in cryptocurrencies. According to the same study’s findings, Kenya is the second-best-ranked African nation. The top-ranked nations appear more interested in buying the dip, which emphasizes “their long-term outlook for cryptocurrencies,” according to Bobby Ong, co-founder of Coingecko.

After the cryptocurrency market crashed in April, a new study found Nigeria as the number one ranked country among English-speaking countries that are most interested in cryptocurrency. According to the findings of a study undertaken by Coingecko, Nigeria’s score of 371 surpasses that of second-ranked United Arab Emirates (UAE) by 101, and that of third-placed Singapore by 110.

Elaborating on Nigeria — whose central bank directed financial institutions to block crypto entities from the banking ecosystem — a report released by the crypto price tracker Coingecko states:

Nigeria topped the list for its population having the highest search levels for the phrases ‘cryptocurrency’, ‘invest in crypto’ and ‘buy crypto’ worldwide. Additionally, the population of Nigeria search for the cryptocurrency ‘Solana’ the third most worldwide.

Kenya, with a score of 143, is the next-highest English-speaking country in Africa after the West African country. Kenya is ranked 15th overall. According to the study, BTC, ETH, and polygon are the top three trending cryptocurrencies in the sixth-ranked United Kingdom (198). The United States, one of the largest cryptocurrency markets in the world, is ranked twelfth with a score of 157.

Co-founder and COO of Coingecko, Bobby Ong, commented on the study’s findings as follows:

“This year, we are witnessing a significant correction from previous bull cycle highs, which has led to substantial price declines in a harsh macroeconomic environment. This study offers intriguing information about which nations continue to show the greatest interest in cryptocurrencies despite market declines.

Imran Khan, a Pakistani politician, Instagram promoted used a crypto giveaway scam.

0

Former Pakistani prime minister and current head of one of the biggest political parties in the nation, Imran Khan, has acknowledged that hackers gained access to his Instagram account and used it to spread a cryptocurrency giveaway scam.

Imran Khan, a former prime minister of Pakistan and the present-day leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), one of the biggest political parties in the nation, is said to have confirmed that his Instagram account was compromised on Monday.

He told Dawn magazine that Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, helped him quickly recover his account. He mentioned that the hackers posted a cryptocurrency link and a screenshot of a tweet from Tesla CEO Elon Musk to the account, which has 7.4 million followers, and said that he himself keeps an eye on it.

The politician’s account posted a cryptocurrency giveaway link that takes users to a website where Elon Musk and his company Spacex are featured. Scammers assert to be giving away litecoin, ether, dogecoin, and bitcoin (BTC) (LTC).

Scams involving cryptocurrency giveaways are very prevalent on well-known social media sites like Twitter and YouTube. Numerous them include well-known individuals and organizations, including Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, Apple, Tim Cook, Steve Wozniak, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates. They occasionally include executives from cryptocurrency businesses, such as Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase.

Wozniak filed a lawsuit against YouTube and Google in July 2020 for using his likeness and name to promote bitcoin giveaway hoaxes. He ultimately lost the lawsuit though. The federal law that exempts internet platforms from liability for user-posted content is in effect for YouTube and its parent company, Google LLC, the judge in the case ruled.

Hackers similarly used the British Army’s official Twitter and YouTube accounts to promote their cryptocurrency giveaway when they were compromised in July.

In an effort to fight scams, several crypto firms, including Binance and Circle, launched a crypto scam reporting platform in May to allow “anyone in the crypto economy to warn others about scams, hacks, or other fraudulent activity as they encounter it.”

Iran modifies rules to make it easier for cryptocurrency miners to access renewable energy

0

In order to facilitate the crypto mining industry’s access to green power, Iranian authorities have revised a few regulations. Licensed miners will now have access to discounted electricity produced nationwide from renewable sources.

The Iranian Ministry of Energy has altered some crypto mining rules to make it easier for organizations licensed to print digital currency in the Islamic Republic to access renewable energy.

According to Bargqnews, a recently issued decree exempts miners from the requirement to use on-site power generation capabilities and allows them to purchase electricity produced using renewable sources both domestically and through the national grid.

Until recently, Mohammad Khodadadi, a representative of the Iran Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution Company, noted that mining companies could only enter into agreements with renewable power plants that were situated in the same province (Tavanir).

According to the Financial Tribune, an English-language business news publication, Iranian companies engaged in legal clean energy mining will not be required to pay the standard transmission fees in order to use the nation’s electricity network.

The mining industry has seen improvements since the Iranian government announced its decision to permit green energy power plants to supply authorized miners in December. The energy ministry in Tehran took the initiative to make that change.

The energy-intensive bitcoin mining has been partially blamed for Iran’s power shortages during the sweltering summers and chilly winters. Registered crypto farms were given multiple orders to turn off their power-hungry machinery in 2021.

Tavanir once more instructed miners to halt operations until the end of the summer, citing anticipated electricity shortages amid rising demand due to an increase in cooling-related consumption. The nation’s crypto community reacted negatively to the restrictions.

Additionally, the state-owned utility promised to take harsh action against unregistered cryptocurrency miners by increasing fines for such activities by 400%. Almost 7,000 facilities minting virtual currency in violation of the law were found and shut down by the Iranian government, according to official data made public in May.

These improvised crypto farms are now a common source of income for many Iranians and are frequently powered by free or cheap household electricity. Tavanir employees have so far seized hundreds of thousands of mining devices during numerous raids.

IMF Issues Warning About Additional Crypto Selloffs and Failing Coins

0

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) director has issued a warning about further selloffs in both stocks and crypto assets. He added that more cryptocurrency tokens might fail.

Tobias Adrian, director of Monetary and Capital Markets for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), warned about further selling pressure in the crypto market and more crypto token failures in an interview with Yahoo Finance Wednesday.

He said:

We could see further selloffs, both in crypto assets and in risky asset markets, like equities.

“There could be further failures of some of the coin offerings — in particular, some of the algorithmic stablecoins that have been hit most hard, and there are others that could fail,” he detailed. The IMF director also expects crypto to drop even further amid a recession.

The collapse of the cryptocurrencies Terra (LUNA) and Terrausd (UST) in May led SEC Chairman Gary Gensler to issue a cautionary statement about the likelihood of many other crypto tokens failing.

Adrian also expressed concern about the possibility of runs on fiat-backed stablecoins, which the Federal Reserve and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have also expressed concern about.

The IMF executive emphasized that there is a vulnerability with tether (USDT) in particular because they are not backed one to one. It is undoubtedly a vulnerability that some stablecoins are only partially backed by cash-like assets, he said, pointing out that some stablecoins “are backed by somewhat risky assets.”

Nonetheless, Adrian does not see an immediate threat on par with the 2008 financial crisis, stating:

What was very worrisome in the 2008 crisis was that the banks were highly exposed to the shadow banks, and we don’t see this exposure of banks to shadow banks through crypto at the moment.

Moreover, the IMF director noted that regulations are needed to protect investors and the financial system. Noting the sheer number of cryptocurrencies in existence, Adrian opined:

Regulating the coins themselves is going to be difficult, but regulating the entry points such as exchanges and wallet providers to invest in those coins, that’s something that is very concrete and very feasible.

The IMF also published a report Tuesday stating: “Crypto assets have experienced a dramatic sell-off that has led to large losses in crypto investment vehicles and caused the failure of algorithmic stablecoins and crypto hedge funds, but spillovers to the broader financial system have been limited so far.”

Bloomberg’s Hong Kong partner is being sued for defamation by Binance CEO.

0
Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, filed defamation lawsuit against Modern Media CL., the publisher of Bloomberg Businessweek in Hong Kong, on Monday. The lawsuit stemmed from title of translated article in Chinese that claimed Zhao was the head of “ponzi scheme.”
The lawsuit is related to Zhao’s profile in Bloomberg Businessweek’s article “Can Crypto’s Richest Man Stand the Cold?” from June 23. 
But in Hong Kong, Businessweek’s local publisher Modern Media CL used different headline with the intention of inciting “hatred, contempt, and ridicule” for Zhao Changpeng, the world’s richest crypto billionaire: “Zhao Changpeng’s Ponzi Scheme,” according to Zhao’s representative.
Zhao demanded a retraction, a restraining order to prevent the defendants from spreading the portrayal further, and the removal of the edition from newsstands; Modern Media has already partially complied with Zhao’s demands. With regard to “defamatory allegations” in the profile article, he separately filed a motion for discovery against Bloomberg L.P. and Bloomberg Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Zhao objected to the article’s description of Binance as “sketchy” and an unnamed trader’s characterization of Binance as a “massive shitcoin casino.” According to the motion, these assertions “were obviously designed to mislead readers into believing that Zhao was breaking the law.”

The dual legal actions continue Zhao’s aggressive image protection strategy for Binance. Binance sued Forbes in 2020 over allegedly defamatory statements but dropped the suit last year. (It later made a strategic investment in Forbes that was tied to a flopped SPAC deal). Zhao sued venture capital firm Sequoia on defamation claims in 2019.

The U.S. court filings underscore the extent to which Binance closely protects its perception. It recounts a back-and-forth between legal teams that resulted in Modern Media scrubbing the Ponzi headline and pulling the physical copy from print earlier this month. But “various online websites” were still selling the print edition, the filing states, prompting Zhao to go to court.


Governor of the Philippine Central Bank Justifies Crypto Policy: “I Don’t Want It Banned”

0

The governor of the Philippine central bank has disclosed his stance on regulating cryptocurrencies. He cautioned investors against investing in cryptocurrency with money they cannot afford to lose, saying, “I don’t want it banned.

Felipe Medalla, the governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the country’s central bank, shared his policy on cryptocurrency in an interview with Forkast, published Friday.

Medalla was asked: “What’s your take on cryptocurrency?” He replied:

I don’t want it banned, but I don’t want to call it cryptocurrency.

The central bank governor explained that in his opinion cryptocurrency “has really very little use for actual payments, especially when the price is so volatile.” Emphasizing that currency cannot be very volatile, he suggested calling it “crypto assets.”

The environmental impact of bitcoin was then criticized by Medalla, who claimed that the cryptocurrency is “bad for the environment because the amount of electricity that the miners use is bigger than the electric consumption of some countries.”

He did admit, however, that cryptocurrency “is a good thing” because “it’s an alternative to government” in nations “with so much financial and economic repression.” The central banker stated, “The other thing that it’s useful for is evading government monitoring, but the question is what social good does that achieve?”

Emphasizing that “In most countries where the government is not perfect but is largely contributing to the common good, you don’t necessarily want to weaken the government,” Medalla opined:

So my view is its valuation may be too high because of all the things I said.

The Philippine central banker proceeded to talk about the crypto market downturn. “It’s already happened that the bubble has collapsed. Right? Some of the crypto assets have fallen by almost two-thirds in a very, very short period,” Medalla detailed, elaborating:

So my advice always is if you go to buy this, don’t put in money that you cannot afford to lose.

Regarding the Philippine central bank’s crypto policy, Medalla stressed: “Our policy standpoint, it must not be used for evading anti-money laundering and know your customer rules.”

He concluded that for exchanges, “where you exchange crypto assets for bank deposits or physical currency,” it’s the central bank’s policy to enforce “all the rules that are needed to prevent money laundering, especially to finance crimes.”