In advance of its coming annual report, on June 24 the Bank for International Settlements released a special chapter from that report on digital payments — especially central bank digital currencies, a topic that’s attracted tremendous interest in recent months. The report encourages central banks to treat CBDCs as their future, saying: “One option at the frontier of policy opportunities is the issuance of CBDCs, which could amount to a sea change.” A recent shift in favor of CBDCs The BIS found that there had been a major bullish shift in sentiment for CBDCs since the beginning of this year …

As countries around the world dive into central bank digital currencies (CBDC), many in the crypto industry look forward to what that means for adoption and even lucrative partnerships to develop such tokens. However, at least some commentators have noted that national CBDCs will likely disappoint those looking to update monetary policy. “A change in packaging” Speaking to Cointelegraph, Ido Sadeh Man and Barry Topf — respectively the founder and chief economist of Saga, a global stablecoin project — cautioned against the wave of optimism surrounding CBDCs. “It’s basically a change in packaging, a change in technology. A welcome change,” …

Chinese officials are reportedly planning to create an East Asia digital currency to assert more independence from the United States dollar and foster trade relations within the region. According to a recent Nikkei Asia report, 10 members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top political advisory body, proposed creating a digital currency that would be backed by a basket of currencies including the Chinese yuan, Japanese yen, South Korean won and Hong Kong dollar. The article does not specify which blockchain the projected cryptocurrency would be based on. The proposal was reportedly put forward by Neil Shen, …

David Weild IV, who is known as the father of the JOBS Act, believes that the U.S. government had to move to stamp out Facebook’s Libra stablecoin. Facebook: Number of Active Users. Source: Statista. ‘Government’s got to do something’ In an interview with Cointelegraph, Weild said that when he first heard about Zuckerberg’s initiative, he knew right away that the government needed to step in: “When I heard what Zuckerberg was going to do (and this was before the government clamped down), I said ‘the government’s got to do something here.’ And it was picked up by the House Financial …

WhatsApp has premiered fiat electronic payments on its platform, with Brazil becoming the first country to experience a nationwide release. According to a statement released Monday by WhatsApp, users that have Visa and Mastercard debit or credit cards from Banco do Brasil, Nubank or Sicredi can now attach instant payments to their messages. There’s an unspecified monetary limit imposed due to Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism concerns. Additionally, WhatsApp users in Brazil cannot make more than 20 in-app transactions per day. WhatsApp is reported to have over 120 million users in Brazil, or roughly 57% of the …

In an interview with the Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence, Forbes Inc chairman Steve Forbes weighed in on cryptocurrency and the future of money. Forbes described cryptocurrencies as a “high-tech cry for help” borne from “the instability of government-printed money today.” Crypto too volatile for currency Forbes criticized the volatility of crypto assets, describing Bitcoin (BTC) as looking like “steak” one day, and “dog food” the next. Contrary to many crypto supporters, Forbes took aim at the hard cap on Bitcoin’s supply, stating that many within the virtual currency community have “made the mistake of thinking that if they …

The Libra Association, the group behind Facebook's digital asset endeavor, unveiled an update to its brass. The association announced Sterling Daines as the chief compliance officer of the outfit, said a statement provided to Cointelegraph staff. Daines will leave his post at Credit Suisse at some point in 2020 to assume his role at the Libra Association. Daines comes on board to ensure safety "I am pleased to join the Libra Association as it works to transform the digital payment space to empower billions of people," Daines said in the statement, adding: "A critical element of achieving this mission is …

Blockchain infrastructure-as-a-service company Bison Trails has announced support for NEAR, which is designed to power open finance and the open web. According to the announcement, NEAR’s smart contract platform is focused on strengthening accessibility and usability to support large-scale consumer applications. NEAR plans to make a transition to a restricted mainnet Speaking to Cointelegraph, Bison Trails CEO Joe Lallouz stated that the company has been working closely with NEAR since 2019. He also noted that it was a good time to make the official announcement, as NEAR plans to transition from proof-of-authority to the restricted mainnet sometime in the summer …

Since launching its Alliance for Prosperity earlier this year, open payment platform Celo has quickly emerged as an apparent rival to Facebook’s Libra stablecoin project. Cointelegraph spoke to Konstantin Richter, the CEO and founder of Celo alliance member Blockdaemon, to learn about the experience of working on Celo from its beginnings and get his take on what the Celo ecosystem will look like in the near future. Blockdaemon launched in 2017, comprising a blockchain infrastructure and node provider targeting developers and enterprises. While Richter noted that the 2018 bear trend had a significant impact on many of the firm’s clients, …

Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, expects more Libra competitors to enter the space, seeing “an opportunity for a new financial network." As the venture firm’s general partner Katie Haun told Bloomberg in an interview published Monday, a16z expects money to become largely digital in 10 years, akin to music, books and other things that have moved online. Haun clarified that platforms such as Venmo and PayPal are not a necessarily accurate example of digital money, as they rely on traditional banks’ "IOUs." Instead, she outlined a crypto-related category called “internet money,” which includes Facebook-backed stablecoin project Libra and open-source payments network …

Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Goldman Sachs butts heads with Bloomberg over Bitcoin One of the world’s biggest investment banks caused a stink this week when it declared cryptocurrencies are not an asset class. In a leaked PowerPoint presentation, Goldman Sachs warned Bitcoin doesn’t provide diversification benefits, dampen volatility in a portfolio or show evidence of hedging inflation. One damning …

The proposed Libra cryptocurrency will allow Facebook to increase ad prices, the social network’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, according to a transcript provided to Cointelegraph by the Novi press team. At the event, Zuckerberg was asked how Facebook plans to profit from integrating Libra into its services. The social network CEO replied by saying that Libra will make commerce more beneficial for businesses, and thereby increase ad revenue. Last year, Facebook earned around $69.6 billion from selling ads, which constituted more than 98% of their total income in 2019. Zuckerberg said: "When they …