Polkadot doesn’t have to be an “Ethereum killer” to succeed, according to protocol founder Gavin Wood. In a “fireside chat” with podcaster Laura Shin during the Polkadot Decoded business summit on Thursday, Wood was asked whether his protocol could exist alongside Ethereum given its lofty development goals and growing success in bringing on new developers. Wood acknowledged that the blockchain ecosystem is big enough for both protocols, but said Polkadot is essentially a “bet against blockchain maximalism.” He said the narrative surrounding Ethereum today is that “there only needs to ever be one blockchain,” but he added that he never …

There is no other way for the cryptocurrency industry to thrive without working hand in hand with regulators, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman believes. On Wednesday, Schulman joined the Web Summit online conference to discuss the cashless era of the global financial industry with Squawk Box host Andrew Ross Sorkin. As part of the discussion, Schulman addressed issues related to cryptocurrency regulation, calling on the industry to closely collaborate with financial authorities to bring more utility to crypto. “There is only one way to approach this, and that is working hand in hand with regulators,” he argued. Schulman went on to …

Singapore is exploring wholesale central bank digital currency, or CBDC, said Sopnendu Mohanty, chief fintech officer at Singapore’s central bank and financial regulator, the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Speaking on the subject during an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Mohanty pointed out that in Singapore, there is not much demand for a retail CBDC given that payment system infrastructure in the country already allows fast and cheap payments among individuals. Instead, Singapore's central bank is focused on the development of a wholesale CBDC, which would be used to facilitate settlements of securities and payments among financial institutions. “I don’t think we …

BlockShow has unveiled the speakers for the upcoming cryptocurrency-related event taking place in Singapore in December. As previously announced, the Singapore FinTech Festival, or SFF 2020, is organized in partnership with the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the country's major financial regulator and de facto central bank. The hybrid online and physical event will run from Dec. 7–11, 2020. The upcoming conference will broadcast panel discussions on two channels, the so-called “Green Shoots” and the “Global Channel.” As part of the Global Channel, SFF 2020 speakers will discuss a range of topics related to the future of money. The channel will …

BlockShow, one of the largest blockchain events in the blockchain and crypto industry, will curate discussions around blockchain and cryptocurrency for a five-day hybrid online and offline event hosted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The event runs from Dec. 7–11 and the attendees will have 24-hour online access to the conferences. As a “Knowledge Partner” of the Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) 2020, BlockShow will bring some of the best blockchain leaders to discuss blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. The discussions spanning blockchain and crypto are expected to expose the global fintech community to this new technological landscape. And it will …

A project that bills itself as the first decentralized, interoperable money market has announced it will be participating in Polkadot’s Sub0 conference on Oct. 15. Equilibrium says it aims to open up the vast potential of the DeFi industry by offering services to the users of key crypto assets — people who were isolated until now. The project’s blockchain has been built using Polkadot’s blockchain-building framework, developed by Parity Technologies, and Equilibrium is planning to expand its DeFi product line to deliver a “one-stop, cross-chain money market.” During Polkadot’s event, Equilibrium senior analyst Peter Sergeev will give a speech entitled …

As the world is battling to recover from the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic, a major cryptocurrency event in Switzerland prepares to take return to a physical format. Crypto Finance Conference (CfC) St. Moritz, an international crypto event held in St. Moritz, will take place from Jan. 20–22, 2021, and feature speakers from key industry firms and institutions like Winklevoss Capital, Swiss National Bank, the European Parliament, Ledger and others. Cointelegraph will serve as the main media partner for the CfC St. Moritz 2021. The upcoming conference is the fourth annual iteration of CfC St. Moritz and will be …

Retail central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, do not require the use of blockchain technology, according to executives at major European central banks. Thomas Moser, an alternate member of the governing board at Swiss National Bank, and Deutsche Bundesbank’s Martin Diehl discussed the state of CBDCs at the European Blockchain Convention Virtual 2020 conference on Monday. During the online panel discussion, both Diehl and Moser seemed to agree that global retail CBDC projects do not need blockchain, citing a number of reasons. Moser said that the primary use cases for blockchain intend to provide trust when a project has no …

This week’s headlines from Japan included one of country's leaders describing Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto's dream as meaningful, LayerX Labs collaborating with a Japanese university for blockchain research, the FINSUM blockchain conference hosts notable discussion on security tokens offerings, and the head of Monex Group saying Japan is falling behind the U.S. on STOs. Check out some of this week’s crypto and blockchain headlines, originally reported by Cointelegraph Japan. Japanese Financial Services Agency head describes Bitcoin as impactful At the end of Tokyo's 2020 Blockchain Global Governance Conference, or BG2C, also called FINSUM, Ryozo Himino, the secretary of Japan's Financial …

Tim Draper, a famous American venture capitalist and serial cryptocurrency investor, believes that initial public offerings, or IPOs, are not the best source of funding for industry firms. The billionaire investor joined the Unitize conference on July 6 to talk about investing in early stage blockchain startups. Draper’s thoughts on IPOs During the Unitize panel, Draper highlighted that existing regulations make it difficult for blockchain companies to go public. “I don’t recommend going public to anybody right now unless your company is worth at least $10 billion,” the investor said. Draper continued that it makes more sense for blockchain entrepreneurs …

Despite crypto being an almost completely digital industry, offline conferences and events are an integral part of the space. They facilitate the flow of ideas and build the groundwork for lucrative connections and networking. The worldwide consequences of COVID-19 have thrown a wrench in the vibrant array of annual blockchain events that usually span from New York to Berlin to Hong Kong. As more conferences make the choice to go virtual, it becomes unclear what the lasting effects of this new era of travel restrictions will bring. Today, Cointelegraph gathered some of the space’s leading events organizers to address how …

Last year, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) asked global jurisdictions to adopt its anti-money laundering, or AML, guidelines for crypto. As the apparent deadline is just a few weeks away, some regulation experts believe that the deadline is not the case, while the actual adoption is a matter of years. On May 12, global legal and regulatory experts alongside executives in the crypto industry gathered at a Consensus: Distributed panel to discuss the FATF’s crypto guidelines. Travel rule’s June 2020 deadline “is a bit of a myth” At the virtual event, Siân Jones, a convener of the Joint Working …