Monday June 6, 2022
◾ Russian state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec has introduced a blockchain-based alternative to SWIFT “providing high speed, secure and irrevocable transactions.” (News.bitcoin)
◾ The Federal Trade Commission reports that more than 46,000 people have reported losing over $1 billion in crypto to scams since the beginning of 2021. (FTC)
◾ Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller believes crypt regulation is needed “not to protect high-net-worth investors but to protect society from the often-irresistible pressure to socialize the losses of investors with limited resources, and to limit the spread of financial stress.” (Federalreserve.gov)
Government & NGO Actions
◾ The Central African Republic is looking to tokenize its natural resources. (Twitter)
◾ The government of Lithuania is developing its own crypto licensing regime rather than wait for the EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation which may not be fully implemented until 2025. (Coindesk)
◾ Government agencies have asked the Central Bank of Armenia to establish a regulatory framework for digital assets. (News.bitcoin)
◾ The Bank of Uganda told the Blockchain Association of Uganda that it would welcome their involvement and the possibility of testing use cases in their Regulatory Sandbox. (Twitter)
◾ The Reserve Bank of India’s deputy governor believes “CBDCs could actually be able to kill whatever little case [there] could be for private cryptocurrencies.” (Finbold)
◾ Bermuda is looking to attract more digital currency projects and become a crypto hub. (WSJ)
◾ Nigeria’s blockchain and crypto advocacy group, the Stakeholders in Blockchain Technology Association in Nigeria (SIBAN) has introduced a code of conduct for virtual asset service providers. (News.bitcoin)
Public Company Releases
◾ Greenidge Generation (GREE) provided an update to the New York State Senate’s passing of a moratorium on proof-of-work mining stating the “the legislation will not apply to Greenidge's operations.” (Greenidge)
◾ Hive Blockchain (HIVE) produced 273.4 bitcoin from a month ending 2.18 EH/s and 2,694 ether from 6.26 TH/s of capacity in May. (HIVE)
◾ Hut 8 Mining (HUT) mined 309 bitcoin, 14% which was derived by the mining and sales of ether, during May. (Cision)
Protocols, Applications & Business News
◾ Ant Group has opened a wholesale digital bank focusing on the SME sector in Singapore. (Businesswire)
◾ Middle East-based Rain Financial is the latest crypto exchange to announce layoffs. (Bloomberg)
◾ Warner Bros. is planning to Looney Tunes’ characters into NFTs. (Hollywoodreporter)
Market Data
◾ Research from Accenture (ACN) finds that 52% of affluent investors in Asia hold digital assets with the number expected to increase and possibly reaching 73% by the end of 2022. (Reuters)
Exchange, Custody and Product Updates
◾India’s largest crypto investing app CoinSwitch has launched the first first benchmark index to measure the performance of the Indian Rupee-based crypto market. (Economictimes)