A former member of the Tongan Parliament is behind a proposal to make Bitcoin (BTC) legal tender in the tiny Pacific nation of Tonga, following in the footsteps of El Salvador. It’s due for a vote in Parliament in May and the early signs are encouraging. Mataʻiʻulua ʻi Fonuamotu, Lord Fusitu’a told Cointelegraph that plans are in motion to use state-run volcano mining facilities to create wealth in Tonga. Tonga has 21 volcanoes. “That means one volcano for every 5,000 people.” He owns one volcano himself through his family’s hereditary land rights. The proposed Bitcoin mining operations would use the …

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is reportedly seeking to ban all cryptocurrency transactions in Pakistan. Pakistan’s Sindh High Court reportedly held a hearing related to the legal status of cryptocurrencies in the country, in which several Pakistani authorities including the SBP submitted a document to the court, arguing that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) are illegal and cannot be used for trade. According to local news channel Samaa TV, the document cited at least eleven countries including China and Saudi Arabia that have opted to ban cryptocurrencies. The Pakistani central bank reportedly urged the court to not only ban cryptocurrency …

Former Twitter CEO and founder Jack Dorsey has announced plans to create a “Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund” with Chaincode Labs co-founder Alex Morcos and Martin White, who appears to be an academic at the University of Sussex. The announcement was sent on a mailing list for Bitcoin developers, bitcoin-dev, at 00:13:45 UTC on Jan. 12 from an email address appearing to belong to Dorsey. Cointelegraph reached out to the board members to confirm the email’s legitimacy but did not immediately receive a response. The announcement stated the fund will help provide a legal defense for Bitcoin developers, who are “currently …

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has claimed officials will be able to use geothermal energy from one of the country’s inactive volcanoes to power its Bitcoin City project. In a Sunday notice, Bukele said there was a 90% probability of using the Conchagua volcano to supply 42 megawatts — “enough to provide energy to the entire Bitcoin City,” according to the president. The El Salvadoran leader said the state-owned electrical company LaGeo was continuing to increase its production of geothermal power from different volcanoes in the country, with one of the sites believed capable of producing 95 MW. Conchagua, located …

As Alex Tapscott put it, 2021 was the year when many governments and lawmakers began to finally wake up to the transformational potential of blockchain technology. Indeed, crypto’s global mainstreaming and growing market capitalization have made it difficult for the agents of power to ignore it and have rendered it a salient economic, social and political issue across many key jurisdictions. By all appearances, we are in for a busy year in crypto regulation and policymaking. Stablecoins, an asset class that attracted a fair amount of regulatory attention in 2021, will surely remain in the hot seat this year. For …

Deputy for the Spanish Ciudadanos political party María Muñoz has proposed a bill to make Spain a Bitcoin mining hotspot following the internet shutdown that caused a mining outage in Kazakhstan. The lawyer and economist Muñoz was steadfast in her support of Spain as a Bitcoin (BTC) destination, in a tweet on Friday: “The protests in Kazakhstan have repercussions all around the world but also for Bitcoin. We propose that Spain positions itself as a safe destination for investments in cryptocurrencies to develop a flexible, efficient and safe sector.” A two-page open letter accompanied the tweet directed at the Spanish …

Based in Vancouver, Dapper Labs offers a variety of NFT based products and dapps. These include games like CryptoKitties, where players can breed and raise NFT kittens, and Cheeze Wizards, a tournament series where collectible characters can duel each other. Additionally, Dapper Labs is partnered with the NBA and is responsible for Top Shot, an NFT marketplace that sells highlights from basketball games. The UFC has also partnered with Dapper Labs to offer a similar service in the near future. According to the announcement, Dapper Labs has recruited Crossroads Strategies as their lobbying firm. The company reported that it would …

Before June 2021, news regarding Nayib Bukele was likely not even a blip on many crypto users’ radar screens. The Salvadoran president instead made headlines for allegations of corruption and dictator-like behavior after his party’s congressional majority sacked five members of the country’s Supreme Court and its attorney general. During the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, however, Bukele stunned many participants and garnered international attention by announcing he planned to have El Salvador adopt Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender. Within a week, a supermajority of the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly — most members of Bukele’s own party — had passed the …

As 2022 is kicking off, America nears the first anniversary of Joe Biden’s presidency. Following the tenure’s ambitious start, the last few months witnessed some serious tumult around the overall health of the United States economy, the administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the tense debate around Biden’s opus magnum — the $1.7 trillion Build Back Better infrastructure legislation plan. But even as the Democrats’ ability to maintain undivided power after the 2022 midterm elections can raise doubts, the party’s prevailing view of crypto has become more consolidated than ever. The incumbent president’s party will be setting the tone …

As digital asset prices had been hitting new historical highs in 2021, many jurisdictions were increasingly adopting cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and other crypto-based instruments. In addition to Bitcoin crossing $68,000 for the first time since inception, the year of 2021 will be remembered for Bitcoin’s historical adoption as legal tender in El Salvador. The world’s first-ever Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) was also inaugurated in 2021, alongside many other benign regulatory developments around the world. As we glance back at notable global regulatory moments in 2021, Cointelegraph has picked some of the most memorable instances of friendly crypto regulation. 1. …

Indian entrepreneur and the CEO of crypto exchange WazirX Nischal Shetty envisions a race between countries to launch their local versions of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) in the coming year. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Shetty said that the year 2022 would be an extension of the ongoing discussions around crypto regulations, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the emergence of the metaverse: “We’re optimistic that we’ll get regulatory clarity, see institutional participation fuel retail adoption. We also expect to see more metaverse projects making an entrance.” Shetty pointed out that the crypto industry today — directly or indirectly — employs about 50,000 …

It is that time of the year: Singular events must be abandoned in favor of end-of-year, big-picture narratives and yearly lessons learned. As many governments across the globe finally had to face the rapidly mainstreaming realm of digital finance, the year is packed with developments in crypto policy and regulation that are impossible to fit into a neat little summary. However, it is possible to try and distill several major trends that have come to the fore during the past 12 months, and that will keep shaping the relationship among societies, state power and the crypto space as we roll …