Unathi Kamlana, the commissioner of South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority has reportedly said the government’s rollout of a crypto framework would be aimed at mitigating any potential risks. According to a Friday report from Bloomberg, Kamlana said the financial regulator planned to present a regulatory framework early in 2022 intended to protect investors from “potentially highly risky” crypto assets. The commissioner said any framework on crypto would be created in coordination with the Prudential Authority and Financial Surveillance Board of the South African Reserve Bank. “What we want to be able to do is to intervene when we think …

Kazakhstan, one of the world’s largest countries in terms of Bitcoin (BTC) mining hash power, is continuing to explore a potential central bank digital currency (CBDC). The National Bank of Kazakhstan has completed a prototype of a digital tenge platform, governor Erbolat Dossayev announced, according to a report by local news agency Kazinform. The central bank is now preparing to publish preliminary results of digital currency testing and a pilot CBDC project on Dec. 15, Dossayev said. He noted that the pilot involved local financial companies and some international partners. Despite actively moving forward with CBDC testing, Kazakhstan is yet …

On Wednesday, the Banque de France (BdF), the BIS Innovation Hub (BISIH), and the Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced the success of a pilot run of a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC), titled Project Jura. The project aimed to investigate cross‑border settlement with euro and Swiss franc wCBDCs, and launched on a third‑party distributed ledger technology platform. The experimental technology explored in Project Jura first consisted of a decentralized peer‑to‑peer network of computer nodes (Corda) to validate transactions while simultaneously ensuring that all legal, regulatory, and business rules of governing nations are satisfied. Then, there was the tokenization of …

The Bank of Thailand has stated that it does not want commercial banks to be directly involved in the trading of crypto assets. The edict came from central bank senior director Chayawadee Chai-Anant on Dec. 7 who cited risks associated with high price volatility. "We don't want banks to be directly involved in digital asset trading because banks are (responsible) for customer deposits and the public and there is risk." The latest round of central bank suppression of digital assets comes at a time when commercial banks have been making investments in local cryptocurrency exchanges, according to a Bangkok Post …

There’s no denying that the Indian government shares a contentious relationship with cryptocurrencies, as was made clear recently when the government indicated that it plans on banning all private cryptocurrencies — a list that could potentially include just about every digital asset in the market today — after it had previously lifted all such restrictions back in 2019. To elaborate, it is expected that as the government reconvenes for its Winter Session, it will discuss the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021, which as the name suggests, seeks to create a legislative framework wherein all private cryptocurrencies …

According to The Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei), one of the world's largest financial newspapers and the entity behind the Nikkei 225 stock index, Japan's Financial Services Agency, or FSA, will propose legislation next year restricting stablecoin issuance to only bank and wire transfer companies. Theoretically, this would prevent entities such as Tether (USDT), which does not operate as a bank and is only regulated in the British Virgin Islands, from conducting business with Japanese customers. However, the new proposed rules would only affect some stablecoin issuers. For example, USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle plans to become a crypto bank chartered …

On Monday, the Bank of International Settlement, or BIS, a financial institution owned by central banks worldwide, published a report scrutinizing the development of the decentralized finance, or DeFi, industry. The article opened by saying, "There is a "decentralization illusion" in DeFi since the need for governance makes some level of centralization inevitable, and structural aspects of the system lead to a concentration of power." It continued: If DeFi were to become widespread, its vulnerabilities might undermine financial stability. These can be severe because of high leverage, liquidity mismatches, built-in interconnectedness and the lack of shock absorbers such as banks.' …

Republican senator for Wyoming Cynthia Lummis has argued that the Federal Reserve is “violating the law” by delaying the processing of applications from crypto-native banks to receive accounts at the central bank. In a Nov. 30 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Lummis claimed that the Fed was treating the Special Purpose Depository Institutions (SPDIs), also known as ‘blockchain banks’, in her home state unfairly. She called on her Republican colleagues to withhold support for Fed chair Jay Powell who was reappointed by President Biden on Nov. 23. In Feb. 2019, Wyoming state legislature approved SPDIs to serve businesses unable …

Central bank digital currencies (CBDC), digital versions of national currencies introduced in response to growing cryptocurrency adoption, would be an essential tool for combating crypto, according to the Bank of Indonesia. The central bank of Indonesia is considering launching a digital rupiah to “fight” against cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Bank of Indonesia’s assistant governor Juda Agung said at a recent parliamentary meeting. “A CBDC would be one of the tools to fight crypto. We assume that people would find CBDC more credible than crypto. CBDC would be part of an effort to address the use of crypto in financial transactions,” …

The Bank of Tanzania is reportedly planning to introduce a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, for the African nation after neighboring countries announced similar initiatives. According to a Friday Bloomberg report, Bank of Tanzania Governor Florens Luoga said on Nov. 25 that Tanzania was planning to follow Nigeria’s example in rolling out its own CBDC. Luoga reportedly said that the central bank had “already begun preparations” for a digital shilling, Tanzania’s currency since 1966. In preparing to launch a CBDC, the governor said Tanzania is also planning to expand research into digital currencies and strengthen the capacity of central …

Russian people are among the world’s most active participants of the cryptocurrency market, according to the country’s central bank. The Bank of Russia published a fresh review on financial stability on Nov. 25, pointing out the country’s growing role in the $2.8 trillion market. Citing estimations reported by major local banks in July 2021, the Bank of Russia suggested that the total annual volumes of crypto transactions of the Russian population amount to 350 billion rubles, or $5 billion USD. It appears to be unclear whether the Bank of Russia has converted these estimations as the price of Bitcoin (BTC) …

Blockchain innovation is surging throughout Southeast Asia, as the region is home to a number of fintech firms and global crypto companies. In particular, Singapore has become one of the world’s most crypto-friendly countries. This was recently highlighted in a report conducted by crypto exchange Gemini, which found that 67% of 4,348 respondents currently own crypto. The report further noted that Ether (ETH) is the most popular cryptocurrency in the region, with 78% of surveyors claiming to own the digital asset. Interestingly enough, the Ethereum blockchain may also be the network of choice for financial institutions based in Southeast Asia. …