With the rise of the Taliban last year in August, Afghanistan faced global sanctions that led to many international organizations and money transaction services halting operations in the country. This made room for digital currencies and stablecoins to be widely used, at least to send or receive remittances. However, the Taliban government has recently banned cryptocurrencies and arrested 16 local exchangers in the Northwestern city of Herat in the past week, according to the provincial news website ATN-News. According to the report, the exchanges were initially given a grace period to comply with the government’s regulations but were ultimately shut …

Across the globe, citizens in many countries still face high costs of money transfers both domestically and internationally. That's why digital assets have become the logical solution to answer this challenge — as a decentralized store of value that could enable everyday transactions, regardless of borders. Unfortunately, despite its positioning to level the playing field, many users face high fees when they're trying to use digital assets. Addressing these concerns head-on is Zen.com, a digital money transfer service licensed to operate in the European Union by the Bank of Lithuania. The platform has made it its aim to provide users …

South Korean banks are being investigated for their role in facilitating $6.5 billion in suspicious overseas remittances which have been tied to companies arbitraging cryptocurrency. According to an Aug. 15 report from Asia Times, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) ordered an investigation into South Korean banks last month after identifying a significant amount of overseas remittance transactions at the end of June. The investigation found that a majority of the $6.5 billion remitted overseas between Jan 2021 and Jun 2022 came from crypto exchange accounts before being sent out of the country, suggesting some Korean companies are exploiting the "Kimchi …

Bitcoin (BTC) is a tool for freedom and economic empowerment. For one young Zimbabwean, Ovidy, it turned his life around when he returned to his home country at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. An entrepreneur who first learned of Bitcoin while living in the United States, Ovidy has since built a business with Bitcoin at its core. Below, Ovidy (center) is pictured with Paco the Bitcoin traveler (left): Day 276 Obidy imports cars in Zimbabwe using #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/Y2TmZZX6Bv — Paco de la India⚡ (@RunwithBitcoin) June 20, 2022 Ovidy imports cars using Bitcoin. “I really like to import BMWs,” he …

Cross-border transfer service MoneyGram officially launched its stablecoin-powered payment channel on Friday, giving users the ability to send USD Coin (USDC) payments worldwide that can be withdrawn as cash by recipients. The service is being rolled out across several key remittance markets, including Canada, the United States, Kenya and the Philippines, Circle and MoneyGram announced Friday. Global cash-out functionality will be available by the end of June. To encourage adoption, the USDC transfer service will carry zero fees for the first 12 months. As Cointelegraph reported, MoneyGram’s new transfer service was built on the Stellar (XLM) blockchain and allows Stellar …

Digital cash systems built on the blockchain must retain the qualities of physical money in order to attract more users in developing countries — and must be able to do so without regulatory constraints — according to Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire. In a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting, titled "Remittances for Recovery: A New Era of Digital Money," Allaire discussed all the features that make physical cash an ideal medium for exchange. There’s a reason why “cash is king,” he said, referring to physical money’s portability, privacy and role in securing individual sovereignty. “Cash is a …

Where I grew up, on the southern border in Texas, a tremendous number of people have come to the United States to work and send money back home. They don’t make much money, but they pay considerable fees on their transfers. Their focus is not on getting rich, but on supporting those back home in their native country. They support their families as they do hard labor day in and day out. It costs them too much to do so. Truth be told, my father was a migrant worker. He picked fruit in the fields. We sent money back to …

Cryptocurrency adoption in Africa is on the march, despite socioeconomic factors and headwinds. A positive report by cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin shows that crypto transactions increased by up to 2,670% in 2022. An astonishing growth trend, the steep influx relates to the low values that have been observed during previous periods. The number of crypto transactions in Africa constitutes roughly 2.8% of global volumes. Johnny Lyu, CEO of KuCoin, told Cointelegraph that “the adoption of digital assets in Africa will continue to grow exponentially,” adding that “African countries have the highest crypto adoption rate in the world, outperforming even the biggest …

After the Taliban took full control of Afghanistan in August last year, many international non-governmental organizations and services stopped operating in the country. Among them were payment services like Western Union and Swift. Many Afghans subsequently began to learn about cryptocurrencies and the underlying blockchain technology to — at the very least — receive remittances from abroad. As electronic payment services like PayPal and Venmo have never been available in the 5,000-year-old country, Afghans have lost many opportunities in the online business world. “We lost many opportunities like blogging, affiliate marketing and online dropshipping because most of them pay with …

Jimmy Chambrade and Aurore Galves Orjol, co-founders of Bitcoin-lyon, first heard about Bitcoin (BTC) in 2014. Around that time, their close friend and now business partner, Bruce, mined Bitcoin using his laptop. However, it took three years and a face-melting bull run before the pair could set aside the time to engage with the technology. Fast forward to 2017, and Chambrade and Galves Orjol had just returned from an around-the-world trip. Although ready to return to the world of work, they would rather avoid the traditional “nine-to-five” fiat lifestyle, or the “métro, boulot, dodo” (subway, work, sleep) routine as it’s …

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 …

Another domino is lined up to fall down the route to Bitcoinization. Yesterday, the Pacific island nation of Tonga shared a play-by-play approach to adopting Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender. In a series of Tweets, Lord Fusitu’a, a former Member of Parliament for Tonga, released an ETA for Bitcoin becoming legal tender in Tonga. Copying the El Salvadorean playbook, the move could onboard more than 100,000 Tongans onto the Bitcoin network. In his five-point plan, the Chairman of the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC) describes the adoption path: 1. Sept/Oct Bill goes to Parliament. Passed. 2. Sent to …