Ukrainian authorities will be able to “block crypto wallets” in order to seize illegally obtained assets, a notice on the country’s Ministry of Finance says. Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s Finance Minister, reportedly said that the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine (SFMS) will be the responsible authority for tracking the sources of origin of the funds on citizens’ crypto wallets. Authorities use an analytical product scanning for the crypto funds’ origins and uses As part of the regulatory policy, the SFMS will be able to not only find out the origin of crypto, but also detect how those funds have been …

The Ukranian government has approved the final version of a money laundering law that will handle virtual assets and virtual asset service providers (VASPs) per FATF guidelines. On Dec. 6, the Rada, Ukraine’s legislative body, published a final version of the law that considers virtual assets to be a store of wealth, while also recognizing its potential use in financial crimes, such as money laundering, fraud, and the financing of terrorists. Applying verification to both sender and receiver The new law includes some guidelines on how the government intends to monitor and regulate the trading of cryptocurrencies. One of the …

A Ukrainian government official said that United States cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex sought to collaborate with the Ukrainian government on developing the country’s cryptocurrency industry. In a Nov. 20 interview with domestic blockchain media outlet ForkLog,. Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Alexander Bornyakov claimed that Bittrex contacted the Ukrainian government to this end. Referring to Ukraine’s recent memorandum of understanding with Binance to collaborate on creating crypto legislation in the country, Bornyakov said, “After we announced it, we began receiving requests from Bittrex, from Coinbase." Bittrex did not contact the Ukrainian government Bornyakov’s statement was soon reported by local publications, interpreting …

A branch at Ukrainian Railways (Ukrzaliznytsya), was illegally mining crypto using the power grid of the state. Ukrzaliznytsya, a state-owned enterprise of rail transport in Ukraine, says that its Lviv Railway unit used its electricity to plug in more than 100 pieces of crypto mining devices to mine Bitcoin (BTC), according to an official announcement on Nov. 15. The state’s power grid-operating mining farm was reportedly discovered by Ukrzaliznytsia's security department and local prosecutors. As reported by the director of the Department of Economic and Information Security at Ukrzaliznytsia, the farm was organized by officials of the Lviv Railway unit. …

Major global crypto exchange Binance will collaborate with Ukrainian authorities to establish cryptocurrency-related legislation in the country. Potential legal status of cryptocurrencies in Ukraine Binance has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine to jointly work on the legal status of cryptocurrencies in the country, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Nov. 6. According to the announcement, the Ministry, Members of Parliament (MP) and commercial companies are planning to finalize the relevant bills and introduce them to the Ukrainian Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, by the end of 2019. Binance CEO …

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has arrested power plant operators for mining cryptocurrency in the Yuzhnoukrainsk nuclear power plant facility. English-language Ukrainian news site UNIAN reported the details of the arrest on Aug. 21. According to its article, the crypto miners compromised the nuclear facility’s security via their mining setup’s internet connection — and reportedly ended up leaking classified information on the plant’s physical protection system. SBU detectives obtained a search warrant and performed an investigation on July 10. They found unauthorized computer equipment and seized a media converter, fiber-optic cable and a partial network cable. Nuclear engineers attempted …

Why have blockchain pilots in real estate abated somewhat? Those projects bump up against the fundamental inconsistency of blockchain and existing state system, and it seems they cannot confessed to this. First, there is no such thing as the use of blockchain for real estate. There are plenty of different concepts and ideas, and as you will find below, some of them are useless. And when you consider probably the most ultimate idea — i.e., a title token — you understand that none of the existing projects could offer a complex solution to address issues with inheritance, lost private keys, …

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) believes that central banks may issue digital currencies in the future, according to a report by the IMF on June 27 According to the full paper, the IMF and World Bank conducted a survey on fintech that solicited answers from financial institutions within all member countries, and has based its conclusions in part upon the 96 received responses. According to the paper, several central banks in different countries are considering implementing some form of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Uruguay has reportedly launched a CBDC pilot program already, while the Bahamas, China, Eastern Caribbean Currency …

A Ukrainian delegation has visited Estonia to get an expert evaluation of their e-government concept, according to a statement one the website of the Administration of the President of Ukraine published on June 12. Led by advisor to Ukrainian president Mikhail Fyodorov, the delegation met with Estonian authorities on June 10–11. The parties met to discuss future collaboration in the development of new technologies, as well as to get consultations about Ukraine's govtech concept “Government in a Smartphone.” Fyodorov stated that Estonia was the first government in the world that conducted digital elections and reached a 99% rate of services …

This article previously contained statements implying that Binance DEX itself — rather than its website — was geoblocking users. It has been updated for accuracy. The decentralized exchange (DEX) developed by major cryptocurrency exchange Binance will block website access to users based in 29 countries. The Binance DEX website informs potential users of the restriction via a message that appears when accessing the platform from one of the regions. The message appearing on the platform states that accessing the website from certain countries will be restricted starting on July 1: “It seems you are accessing www.binance.org from an IP address …

Ukraine’s Cyber Police have arrested a man who allegedly placed crypto mining malware scripts on his own websites, local law enforcement reported on March 26. The cyber crime unit of the national police of Ukraine arrested a 32-year-old man from the Bukovina region who allegedly placed cryptojacking software on a number of educational websites that he created and administered. The unspecified websites and internet resources had 1.5 million monthly visitors, the police reported. The police also stated that the installed malware on the websites was deploying visitors’ devices’ CPU and GPU power to illegally mine cryptocurrencies. The authority has conducted …

Ukraine’s central bank has completed a pilot scheme for its national digital currency, the e-hryvnia, local press agency Interfax Ukraine reported on Feb. 22. The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), which has been considering the concept for at least a year, began the pilot in December 2018, the head of its payment networks and innovative growth department Aleksandr Yablunivskiy revealed. “At the end of last year we began a practical pilot, when the instrument was released for NBU employees under current methodology, in order to assess its practical use aspects and the ability of the central bank to realize future …