While Bitcoin (BTC) has failed in countering this year's rampant global inflation, it should still be considered as an inflation hedge, says Steven Lubka, the managing director of private consumers at Swan Bitcoin. According to Lubka, Bitcoin works well as a hedge against rising prices when inflation is caused by monetary expansion. It is less effective when inflation is caused by supply disruption of food and energy, which he sees as the leading cause of this year's rampant inflation. "In a world where the price of goods is going up because there's been a radical loss of abundance, Bitcoin isn't …

Amid the rising cryptocurrency adoption in the Philippines, the country’s central bank is seeking measures to better protect investors through elevating local crypto awareness. The Philippine central bank, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), wants to promote crypto education as the authority sees a lot of benefits associated with crypto and blockchain, a BSP representative said in an interview with Cointelegraph. “The BSP’s focus is on virtual assets’ capacity to improve the delivery of financial services, particularly payments and remittances services, as it has potential to provide faster and economical transfer of funds, both for domestic and international setting,” the BSP …

Which countries are banning Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies? Banning a global technology and economic paradigm like BTC is not the best approach for governments to protect their citizens from the risks of this asset class. It is by hand holding them through the journey, educating and setting the right controls in place that safeguarding retail customers can be achieved. There have been several bans on BTC, other cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency mining across the world. China banned cryptocurrencies in 2021 in light of its central bank digital currency, and it also affected Bitcoin mining. As a result, the BTC hash rate …

The Bank of Russia continues working towards the upcoming adoption of the central bank digital currency (CBDC), planning an official digital ruble rollout in a few years. According to the Bank of Russia’s latest monetary policy update, the authority will begin to connect all banks and credit institutions to the digital ruble platform in 2024. That would be an important year for Russia as the country is expected to hold presidential elections in March 2024 and incumbent President Vladimir Putin has the constitutional right to get re-elected. By that time, the central bank expects to complete “real money” customer-to-customer transaction …

While many believe that the Philippines can become a new crypto hub, that dream may be shattered in the meantime as the country’s central bank announced a 3-year hiatus from accepting new virtual asset service provider (VASP) applications. According to a memorandum signed by Chuchi Fonacier, a financial supervision official at the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), they aim to balance the promotion of innovation in finance and managing the risks associated with virtual assets (VAs). She wrote: “The Bangko Sentral recognizes that as VAs offer opportunities to promote greater access to financial services at reduced costs, they also pose …

When the United States Office of Government Ethics (OGE) released its Legal Advisory 22-04 on July 5, most attention was given to its conclusion that federal employees who own any amount of cryptocurrency or stablecoins whatsoever may not participate in regulation and policymaking that concerns crypto. The legal advisory (LA) raised some eyebrows, as de minimis exemptions, threshold amounts below which assets holdings are permissible, are common in the government. The LA is more comprehensible when seen in a larger context. What they were thinking The OGE does not grant interviews, so it was fortunate that a video of OGE …

Binance, the cryptocurrency exchange, has recently acquired a virtual asset service provider (VASP) license from the Bank of Spain in order to operate in the country. In its ambitious expansion plans that the cryptocurrency exchange is persisting despite the global jump and market slump in the cryptoverse, there is another country that Binance is looking toward — the Philippines. In June, the CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, stated in a press briefing in Manila that the exchange is looking to obtain a VASP license in the Philippines. In addition to the VASP, Binance wants to get an e-money issuer license …

Amid economic and political turmoil, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, or CBSL, has warned the public against crypto purchases due to the lack of regulatory oversight. In a Tuesday notice, the CBSL said it has not authorized or licensed any company in Sri Lanka to offer crypto-related services, including exchanges, initial coin offerings and mining. The central bank said the warning was in response to “recent developments in relation to virtual currency usage,” likely referring to the market downturn and significant volatility in the prices of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC). Virtual currencies “... are considered as unregulated financial instruments …

Stablecoins were supposed to be the boring uncle of the crypto world — safe, sensible and dull. They’re probably not what Satoshi Nakamoto had in mind, but they’re supposed to be a reassuring haven of calm and utility away from the turbulence of pure-play cryptocurrencies. With values pegged to fiat currencies, stablecoins were intended to be useful rather than to offer get-rich-quick schemes. They play an important role in the cryptocurrency ecosystem by providing a safer place to store capital without having to cash out entirely, and allowing assets to be denominated in fiat currencies rather than volatile tokens. However, …

Crypto exchange Binance is now registered as a virtual asset service provider (VASP) by the Bank of Spain, allowing the exchange to offer custody and crypto exchange services in the country. In an announcement on Friday, Binance said that its Spanish subsidiary, Moon Tech Spain, was registered as a VASP by Spain’s central bank on Thursday. It applied for registration in January. Binance can now provide fiat currency exchange to digital assets and wallet custody services while complying with the country’s Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing rules. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said the development in Spain is a result of …

A note published by the United States Federal Reserve at a recently held conference found a majority of exports believe a U.S. dollar central bank digital currency (CBDC) would not drastically change the global currency ecosystem. Panelists at the conference also agreed that CBDC development outside of the U.S. doesn’t threaten the status of the dollar, but the development of cryptocurrencies could alter the role of the dollar globally, with some saying stablecoins could even boost the U.S. dollar's role as the global dominant reserve currency. The assessments came from expert panelists at a June 16 and 17 conference hosted …

The Bank of England has called for “enhanced” regulations of crypto to address potential risk to the country’s financial stability amid the market capitalization dropping more than $2 billion. In the BoE’s Financial Policy Committee "Financial Stability Report — July 2022," the central bank said factors including the growth of the crypto market and climate change did not pose an “immediate threat” to the United Kingdom’s financial system but had the potential to do so in the future. The committee noted that recent events in the space including extreme price volatility among cryptocurrencies, "liquidity mismatches,” weakening investor confidence in stablecoins …