The director of the Science and Technology Supervision Bureau of China’s Securities Regulatory Commission Yao Qian has called for a special focus on Web3, deeming it to be the future of the internet. Yao published an article titled "Web 3.0: A New Generation of Internet that is Approaching," talking about the significance of the evolving tech and how the world is at a crucial transition from Web2 to Web3. The article talked about the significance of forward-looking research and strategic infrastructure development. Yao predicted that Web3 will reconstruct the organizational form and business model of the Internet economy and is …

Jake Chervinsky, head of policy at crypto advocacy group the Blockchain Association, said the United States should be careful to avoid a “totalitarian nightmare” in its potential launch of a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. Speaking at Austin’s SXSW festival on Tuesday in a panel on ‘Financial Surveillance in a Cashless Society’, Chervinsky said though U.S. President Joe Biden had issued an executive order establishing a national strategy for cryptocurrencies in the United States, there were potential privacy concerns over the country launching a CBDC. Empowering a government to surveil its citizens using a CBDC, “sounds like the kind …

Nine Republican senators have backed legislation aimed at directing policy at U.S. government agencies around concerns China’s digital yuan may be used to circumvent sanctions and compromise users' personal information. In a Wednesday announcement, Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy and Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, backed by seven other Republican senators, proposed the ‘Say No To the Silk Road Act’ — a bill that would require certain government agencies to report on China’s central bank digital currency, or CBDC. The two senators said they had concerns over digital surveillance and privacy in China’s rolling out its CBDC, both for its citizens and …

The United States Federal Reserve is moving forward with its real-time payment project FedNow Service by starting experimenting with the blockchain infrastructure. On Tuesday, the Fed officially launched the FedNow Service Provider Showcase, aiming to provide financial institutions and users with a range of services to help them implement FedNow Service, which launches in 2023. At launch, the showcase includes more than 70 profiles and service providers that support instant payments, including a New York-based blockchain company, focused on instant payment solutions, blockchain interoperability and central bank digital currencies (CBDC). The platform is known for being involved in Chinese blockchain …

The Guangdong province’s Development and Reform Commission has reportedly busted an illegal crypto mining farm secretly operating in an electric vehicle charging station. The secret crypto mining farm was busted in the city of Guangzhou, where law enforcement agencies have constantly been making inspections around cities to enforce and eradicate any form of mining operations in the region, reported a local publication. The covert mining operation used over 190 crypto mining machines estimated to be worth 5 million yuan ($7,91,450), which were seized on the spot. The authorities claimed that even though mining operations consume a lot of energy, they …

People’s Bank of China, the central bank of the country, claimed in a recent note that China's share in the global Bitcoin (BTC) transactions has rapidly dropped from over 90% to 10%. The Financial Stability Bureau of the Chinese central bank released a comprehensive note on Wednesday discussing the impact of the crypto crackdown on the financial markets. The official notice claimed that all peer-to-peer exchanges in the country had been eradicated, which eventually curbed the hype around digital currency transactions. A Google translated version of the note read: “The global proportion of Bitcoin transactions in China dropped rapidly from …

Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent has filed for a virtual concerts patent with the Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) according to business data-tracker Qichacha. The application comes as Chinese companies race to secure Metaverse trademarks. Even though the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) took a strong stance against the Metaverse and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in November, stating that it would track them with Anti-Money Laundering tools, more than a thousand Chinese companies have submitted over 16,000 metaverse-related trademark applications according to a report from Chinese news outlet, The Paper. Despite the warnings, the Chinese multinational technology and video-game colossus Tencent, …

Bitcoin (BTC) pulled off an impressive double-digit rally this year, but the digital asset has been struggling to break the $45,000 resistance lately. This level does not hold any historical importance because it has been easily breached multiple times. The same can be said for Bitcoin's $850 billion capitalization, which isn't anywhere close to silver's $1.4 trillion, or the Amazon and Google's $1.7 trillion market value. Bitcoin's market cap is often compared to gold, which has a $12.3 trillion total value and is currently the leading global store of value solution. Therefore, the answer to the $45,000 resistance might lay …

It's been a wild ride for Neo (dubbed "Ethereum of China") investors in the past few years, especially as China began to incrementally introduce harsher crypto regulations. But despite the odds, the community appears to be resilient, with a dedicated society of developers worldwide and a bourgeoning decentralized finance, or DeFi, hub that came into prominence via the launch of Neo N3 mainnet last year. As told by Neo investors Lucas and Jiří, who spoke to Cointelegraph, they were not expecting such a "huge drop in price" for Neo. Still, they nevertheless decided to hold their Neo tokens through all …

Bitcoin network’s proof-of-work mining consensus has been a topic of evironmental, social and governance (ESG) debates for a long time and a new study may only add to the growing controversy around BTC's carbon footprint. A new research report titled “Revisiting Bitcoin’s carbon footprint” published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Joules has highlighted that the Chinese crypto mining ban might not have contributed to the reduction in the carbon footprint of the Bitcoin network as propagated by many Bitcoiners, on the contrary, it has increased by 17%. China was the primary hub for Bitcoin miners before May 2021 and accounted …

Bitcoin (BTC) price traded down 23% in the 8 days following its failure to break the $45,000 resistance on Feb. 16. The $34,300 bottom on Feb. 24 happened right after the Russian-Ukraine conflict escalated, triggering a sharp sell-off in risk assets. While Bitcoin reached its lowest level in 30 days, Asian stocks were also adjusting to the worsening conditions, a fact evidenced by Hong Kong's Hang Seng index dropping 3.5% and the Nikkei also reached a 15-month low. The first question one needs to answer is whether cryptocurrencies are overreacting compared to other risk assets. Sure enough, Bitcoin's volatility is …

China’s hardline policy on crypto took another turn on Thursday as the Supreme Court of the country revised its judicial interpretation for illegal fundraising to include digital currency transactions. The Chinese Supreme Court issued a revised version of its "Decision on Amending the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Specific Application of Law in the Trial of Criminal Cases of Illegal Fund Raising". Just In: For the first time, the Supreme Court of China has included virtual currency transactions in the judicial interpretation of illegal fundraising, which is mainly to punish the behavior of absorbing …