The vast majority of China’s $1.5 million digital yuan lottery winners have received and spent their “red envelopes” of digital yuan. As of Sunday, a total of 47,573 out of 50,000 lottery winners in China have received their prizes, Shenzhen authorities officially announced. According to the announcement, the winners conducted a total of 62,788 transactions accounting for 8.8 million yuan ($1.3 million). This amount represents about 88% of the total 10 million yuan ($1.5 million) that was to be distributed in the giveaway pilot in Shenzhen. Some winners have not only spent their “red envelopes” but also topped up their …

“Fiat lux”, said God, having created heaven and earth, which was filled with darkness. And then, there was light. At least, that’s what the Holy Bible tells us. Translated to English, this Latin phrase means “let light be made.” For Christians, who much of the global population, these words mark the beginning of time and everything else. Eventually, there came a time when audacious, power-hungry, control-freak governments took the word “fiat” (literally meaning “it shall be” or “let it be done”) and used it to disguise one of the biggest shams ever — fiat currencies. Eons later, in 2009 A.D., …

Editor’s note Blockchain technology has attracted regulatory attention since its inception. The security of the Bitcoin network despite the value of BTC in play has consistently proved the resilience of blockchain technology in maintaining records across a vast range of parties. However, many countries have determined that Bitcoin doesn’t behave as a currency at all, or at least not a replacement for their own. The nations behind the world’s most-used fiat currencies have in many cases pointed to Bitcoin’s volatility as a critical flaw. They have decided that the rise of stablecoins, especially over the past two years, poses a …

Distributed energy resources, or DERs, have the potential to disrupt traditional electricity markets. Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that innovative countries are looking toward emerging technologies that will allow DERs to transform entire energy economies. Germany in particular is interested in using DERs to drive its digital energy economy while also complying with the European Green Deal. As such, the Deutsche Energie-Agentur, also known as DENA — the main governmental group responsible for energy innovation in Germany — announced plans to trial a blockchain-based solution to construct a digital registry for DERs. Sara Mamel, senior export in digitalization …

The Central Bank of The Bahamas, or CBOB, is planning to make its central bank digital currency project interoperable on an international level. Bobby Chen, the CBOB’s assistant manager of electronic solutions, claimed that The Bahamas’ digital currency — dubbed the “Sand Dollar” — should eventually be interoperable with other global currencies, local news agency the Nassau Guardian reported on Oct. 15. Chen said, “At the moment, it is currently only used in a domestic setting, but eventually we are working on a solution that will make it interoperable with other global currencies.” Cleopatra Davis, head of banking at the …

The central bank of Russia proposed to set limits on annual cryptocurrency investments by non-professional investors. The Bank of Russia suggested that unqualified investors in Russia should not be allowed to invest more than 600,000 Russian rubles ($7,800) in digital assets per year. The authority laid out the new proposal in an explanatory note referring to Russia’s newly passed crypto law, “On Digital Financial Assets,” or DFA. The official statement stipulates that the new regulatory restriction will involve not only digital financial assets but also “other digital rights”: “Individuals representing unqualified investors will have a limit on the amount of …

Awaiting parliamentary approval in Spain, a fresh bill draft intends to cut out illegal tax dealings, as first reported by Cointelegraph’s Spanish branch. This could mean smaller business transactions as well as mandatory crypto-asset reporting, even for assets held or transacted internationally. The "Draft Law on Measures to Prevent and Combat Tax Fraud" recently received the green light from the Spanish Council of Ministers, Spain’s central governing entity, according to an Oct. 13 briefing from the country’s minister of finance, María Jesús Montero. When cryptocurrency began to take more of a global spotlight in 2017, some countries began to step …

Russian financial authorities have confirmed the government’s purported plans to issue the central bank digital currency, or CBDC. On Oct. 13, the Bank of Russia released a consultation paper on the development of the digital Russian ruble. In the statement, the central bank said that the digital ruble can become an “additional form of money alongside cash and non-cash.” The establishment of Russia’s CBDC project will require the creation of additional payment infrastructure, the bank said. The bank also said that the digital ruble will have “all the necessary properties to perform the functions of money.” The project’s timing will …

LocalBitcoins, a major peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange, is no longer available in Russia without using additional tools like a VPN. LocalBitcoins.net is officially blacklisted in Russia as local telecom regulator Roskomnadzor placed the URL on a register of platforms disseminating prohibited information. According to official data, the website was blacklisted on July 21, following an order of the Onezhsky City Court of the Arkhangelsk region. It’s not immediately clear when exactly Roskomnadzor limited the access to LocalBitcoins’ website. Some local reports claim that LocalBitcoins users in Russia began to experience difficulties in accessing the website in late September 2020. LocalBitcoins has …

Antivirus software pioneer John McAfee, the founder of McAfee Associates — the company that released the first commercial antivirus software, McAfee VirusScan, in the late 1980s, contributing to the birth of multibillion-dollar industry — was indicted on five counts of tax evasion and five counts of willful failure to file a tax return, which could result in a maximum sentence of 30 years if convicted. He could also expect to pay U.S. taxes and penalties, according to the United States Department of Justice. The DOJ’s charges were announced shortly after the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission revealed it had brought civil …

Speaking at the online launch event for the Global Digital Asset & Cryptocurrency Association on Friday — a Chicago-based group focused on regulatory clarity and industry security — U.S. Representative Bill Foster explained the importance of a "secure digital identity." "You can have the most rock-solid cryptographic guarantees of a blockchain or equivalent and it doesn't do you any good if people are fraudulently participating on it under anonymous names," Foster said during his brief speech at the event. He mentioned trading as an example, noting some less-than-honest characters in the industry could conduct illegal trading activities using fake names. …

The central bank of Kyrgyzstan has disabled cross-border transactions on the SWIFT financial network amid widespread unrest over the country’s disputed parliamentary elections. Aida Karabaeva, an official representative of the National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic, announced a temporary suspension of SWIFT in Kyrgyzstan in a statement on Oct. 7. According to Karabaeva, the bank decided to suspend SWIFT transactions in order to prevent capital outflows from the country and ensure the safety of assets. The executive claimed that the bank is planning to resume SWIFT transactions as soon as the situation in the country stabilizes: “The measures taken are …