A Colombian court recently hosted its first legal trial in the Metaverse, with the court magistrate saying it felt “more real than a video call,” according to a recent report. According to a Reuters report published on Feb. 24, Colombia’s Magdalena Administrative Court held a court case in the Metaverse on Feb. 15, involving participants in a traffic dispute. The case, which went on for two-hours, was brought by a regional transport union against the police, which will progress “partly” in the metaverse, with a potential for the verdict to also be given in the metaverse. The participants appeared as …

Inflation, cross-border payments, assets tokenization and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) were among the major drivers for crypto adoption across Latin America in 2022, sources in the region told Cointelegraph, with exciting examples of progress across many countries. Latin America made up 9.1% of the global crypto value received in 2022, reaching $562 billion between July 2021 and June 2022 — representing growth of 40% in the period. Four Latin American countries ranked among the top crypto adopters in the latest Chainalysis Global Adoption Index. Major developments have contributed to these results over the past 12 months. Authorities have been working on …

A state-owned electric utility provider in the Canadian province of British Columbia is set to halt all new electricity-connection requests from cryptocurrency miners for a period of 18 months. The British Columbia government made the announcement in a statement on Dec. 21 stating that the pause will allow the government and BC Hydro to develop a permanent framework that can better balance the needs of crypto miners and both its residents and businesses in the region. Josie Osborne, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation said that the move was made to preserve the clean energy it provides for …

A partnership between the Colombian government and Ripple Labs to put land titles on the blockchain appears to have stalled following the project being "deprioritized" by the new administration. The project was initially announced by the outgoing government’s Ministry of Information Technology and Communications just two weeks before the newly elected president Gustavo Petro was sworn into office. According to an Aug. 30 report from Forbes, the interim director of the National Lands Agency Juan Manuel Noruega Martínez said the project is not part of the agency’s strategic priorities for 2022, stating: “This isn’t one of the projects defined in …

Last week, the United States Federal Reserve Board turned its eye to banks and crypto, making (or promising to make) several clarifications, one of them pretty long-awaited. It announced that the final version of guidelines for reserve banks to access Reserve Bank master accounts and services is ready. For crypto, these guidelines hold a prospect of “the most stringent review,” to which non-federally insured institutions that do not have a holding company subject to Fed oversight would be exposed. It is still unclear whether the crypto banks will finally get access to master accounts under the new guidelines and how …

Amid Colombia’s economic growth beat expectations in the second quarter, an official at the country’s tax and customs agency has hinted at some national digital currency plans. Luis Carlos Reyes, the head of the Colombian Tax and Customs National Authority, claimed that the government of newly inaugurated Colombian President Gustavo Petro will seek to create a digital currency to prevent illicit financial activity like tax evasion. Colombia’s digital currency plans are part of the country’s new monetary policy measures aiming to increase transparency of financial transactions, the official said in an interview with the local magazine Semana. According to the …

BNB Chain, a blockchain network created by crypto exchange Binance, and Latin America-focused education platform Platzi announced that they will be launching a Web3 development course for the region. By the end of the year, the course aims to be accessible to 30,000 students. Gwendolyn Regina, investment director at BNB Chain, told Cointelegraph that this course focuses on growing the skills of developers. “This is going to be the major educational resource available in Spanish for Web2 developers to build on Web3 with BNB Chain.” This development is an effort to push wider adoption of blockchain technology and Web3 education …

Gustavo Petro, who recently won the 2022 Colombian presidential election, has previously made statements in favor of cryptocurrencies. Petro will replace Iván Duque Márquez as the president of Colombia on August 7 for four years after winning the second round of a run-off election on Sunday. The president-elect took to social media in December 2017 shortly after a major bull run to speak on the “strength” of Bitcoin (BTC). Petro hinted at the time that cryptocurrencies like BTC could remove power from government and traditional banks and give it back to the people. El bitcoin quita poder de emision a …

Rappi, the most popular delivery service in Latin America, is working with Bitso and Bitpay to accept Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrency payments. As reported by Cointelegraph Brazil, Rappi is integrating with Bitso and Bitpay through a trial project in Mexico. However, it's unclear whether the pilot plan will also enable access to the service in Brazil and other Latin American countries. In Mexico, Rappi, a Colombian delivery app with operations in nine Latin American countries, has launched a crypto payments pilot program. Customers will be able to convert crypto into credits that can subsequently be used to complete purchases …

Bitso, a major Latin American cryptocurrency exchange and El Salvador’s crypto wallet assistant firm, has announced its formal launch in Colombia. As part of Bitso’s development strategy in Colombia, the exchange has hired former Mastercard executive Emilio Pardo as new country manager, the firm announced to Cointelegraph on Thursday. Pardo is former head of business development for the Andean Region at Mastercard, where he focused on fintech issues like instant and cross-border financial transactions and open banking. He will now be responsible for developing Bitso’s strategy in Colombia to increase the local crypto adoption and financial inclusion, focusing on Bitso’s …

Down in Bogotá, cryptocurrency adoption is raging on. Colombia’s tax authority, the DIAN, (Dirección de Impuestos y Aduanas Nacionales de Colombia) has begun to catch up. It seeks to take “special measures” to crack the whip on cryptocurrency tax avoiders. In a statement released on January 28th, the DIAN stated that it would attempt to better regulate the cryptocurrency space, to work toward a more “honest” Colombia. The statement admits that Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency use is growing worldwide: “Currently, operations with crypto assets are a reality worldwide and with the boom in the use of so-called virtual currencies or …

Last month, Cointelegraph interviewed Reserve CEO Nevin Freeman and the payment decentralized application’s community manager Yens Michiels about the company’s mission to provide access to stable currencies. More recently, Cointelegraph spoke to a couple of users based out of Venezuela and Colombia who shared their positive experiences with Reserve. Reserve is a tool to exchange fiat currency like Venezuelan bolivares for U.S. dollars via the Reserve (RSV) stablecoin. From everyday purchases to family remittances, Reserve has said that its use cases are increasingly growing in Latin America. After one year on the market in Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Argentina, there …