Kazakhstan, the country behind one of the largest sources of Bitcoin mining hash power, has released the results of a pilot program for its digital tenge. According to a Wednesday report, the National Bank of Kazakhstan, or NBK, said it had confirmed the possibility of implementing a retail central bank digital currency, or CBDC, based on distributed ledger technology. In addition, the central bank tested how Kazakhstan’s citizens might use a digital tenge for offline payments as well as its programmability. In a series of hypothetical scenarios, the central bank tested how a CBDC could be used between second-tier banks …

Global Impact Week, an industry event which features fintech, policy, climate, healthcare, and media innovations, kicked off in Valencia, Spain, and is ongoing from Dec. 14 to 18. Recent figures put attendance at 100,000, with 500 speakers and 150 live sessions. Cointelegraph's Editor-in-Chief Kristina Cornèr has been in virtual attendance at the event, moderating the panel titled Fireside Chat: Fintech Defining the Future with Mastercard's executive VP of market development Liza Oakes. Here's what they had to say: Kristina Cornèr: In November, Mastercard announced the launch of crypto-funded payments cards. How do you see this opportunity develop in the next …

The biggest regulatory story of the week was a United States House Committee on Financial Services hearing squarely focused on crypto. Even the event’s title — “Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: Understanding the Challenges and Benefits of Financial Innovation in the United States” — conveyed a different vibe than countless previous Congressional meetings that had been first and foremost about investor protection or security risks or threats to financial stability. Judging from reactions from many industry participants and experts, the exchange has been received as an overwhelming net positive, with legislators asking informed questions and otherwise acting like …

After the Chinese authorities introduced a complete ban on cryptocurrency transactions in September by equating them to illegal financial activity, local cryptocurrency miners either dropped off the radar or moved to other countries in order to continue with their business. The United States subsequently became the leader in terms of Bitcoin (BTC) mining volumes with a share of 35.4%. Modest Kazakhstan is currently in second place (18.1%), and the bronze spot was secured by Russia (11.23%). It’s not surprising because Russia has several advantages, meaning that conducting crypto business in the country is extremely lucrative for almost any miner. There …

Kazakhstan, one of the world’s largest countries in terms of Bitcoin (BTC) mining hash power, is continuing to explore a potential central bank digital currency (CBDC). The National Bank of Kazakhstan has completed a prototype of a digital tenge platform, governor Erbolat Dossayev announced, according to a report by local news agency Kazinform. The central bank is now preparing to publish preliminary results of digital currency testing and a pilot CBDC project on Dec. 15, Dossayev said. He noted that the pilot involved local financial companies and some international partners. Despite actively moving forward with CBDC testing, Kazakhstan is yet …

The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) rolled out its digital payment system to The Commonwealth of Dominica and the British overseas territory of Montserrat on Dec. 7, leaving only Anguilla left among the eight countries planning to implement it. The ECCB launched the “EC dollar” Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in March 2021 in collaboration with DCash to Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Saint Christopher (St Kitts) and Nevis, and Saint Lucia. In August, it was expanded to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. DCash is a payment system designed specifically for use with the digital EC currency. The wallet app allows …

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) published a report into its two-year research project into wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) that emphasized the benefits of digitizing and autonomizing manual, paper-based banking processes using distributed ledger technology (DLT). The report marks the conclusion of the two-year project named “Project Atom” that was conducted in partnership with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), National Australia Bank (NAB), Perpetual, and ConsenSys, along with additional input from King & Wood Mallesons. Commenting on Project Atom, RBA’s assistant governor (Financial System) Michele Bullock noted that it “demonstrated the potential for a wholesale CBDC and …

On Wednesday, the Banque de France (BdF), the BIS Innovation Hub (BISIH), and the Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced the success of a pilot run of a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC), titled Project Jura. The project aimed to investigate cross‑border settlement with euro and Swiss franc wCBDCs, and launched on a third‑party distributed ledger technology platform. The experimental technology explored in Project Jura first consisted of a decentralized peer‑to‑peer network of computer nodes (Corda) to validate transactions while simultaneously ensuring that all legal, regulatory, and business rules of governing nations are satisfied. Then, there was the tokenization of …

The Australian government is seriously consider the rollout of central bank digital currency (CBDC) and has backed numerous forward-looking regulatory crypto-proposals as part of a new “payments and crypto reform plan.” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says the reforms "will firmly place Australia among a handful of lead countries in the world." The reform plan is said to be the biggest shake-up of the Australian payments system since the 1990s, with part of the crypto-related groundwork set by the innovative proposals put forward by an Australian Senate Committee in September. According to the Australian Financial Review, the government is in favor of …

On Tuesday, BloombergQuint (Bloomberg India) reported that the penalty for non-compliance with the Indian government's crypto policies could range from a maximum fine of 20 crore rupees ($2.7 million USD) or 1.5 years in jail. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will likely give cryptocurrency investors a deadline to comply with new rules and declare their assets. Whilst the regulatory environment in the country holds a high degree of uncertainty, reports have indicated that investors' crypto must be soon be held in exchanges operating under the oversight of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, or SEBI. This would mean that private …

According to The Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei), one of the world's largest financial newspapers and the entity behind the Nikkei 225 stock index, Japan's Financial Services Agency, or FSA, will propose legislation next year restricting stablecoin issuance to only bank and wire transfer companies. Theoretically, this would prevent entities such as Tether (USDT), which does not operate as a bank and is only regulated in the British Virgin Islands, from conducting business with Japanese customers. However, the new proposed rules would only affect some stablecoin issuers. For example, USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle plans to become a crypto bank chartered …

Cross-chain asset transfer has been around for several years. The concept developed almost as soon as multiple blockchains were developed and began to gain adoption. In its initial application, the transfers focused on swaps between the chain’s native assets and tokens, which led later to several decentralized exchanges. While exchange of assets has its utility, pure transfer and movement of assets and other data easily across blockchains without changing their identities is just as important, and is becoming more frequent. Currently, 400,000 Bitcoin (BTC), and increasing, exist and are used in transactions outside of the Bitcoin blockchain. A good amount …