December 19, 2022

❤UN's stablecoin pilot delivers aid to displaced Ukrainians🪙

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All the emerging market web3 news you need in less than 5 minutes

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In This Issue

Eastern Europe•RUSSIA'S WAR IN UKRAINE: The United Nations partner with Stellar to launch a blockchain-based aid distribution program for war-displaced Ukrainians•TOKENIZATION: Russia's largest bank is tokenizing gold due to western sanctions

Asia•CBDC: Kazakhstan completes second phase of its digital tenge platform•TERRA-LUNA: Prosecutors believe Do Kwon is in Serbia, global manhunt continues

Africa•PAYMENTS: South African mobile bank launches crypto payments gateway•PARTNERSHIP: Bitnob partners with UK exchange to enable cross-border Bitcoin Lightning Network payments from Europe

Latin America and The Caribbean•STABLECOINS: With the Peso in shambles, an Argentinian province approves issuing US dollar-pegged stablecoin•TOKENIZATION: Brazil's Central Bank establishes working group to study financial asset tokenization

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Eastern Europe

Image Credit: Manny Becerra via Unsplash

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Stellar Development Foundation have launched a blockchain-based pilot to make digital cash distributions to Ukrainian people displaced by Russia's war in Ukraine. The UNHCR will distribute funds using Circle's stablecoin, USDC, to recipients' Vibrant digital wallets. The pilot will initially be run in Kyiv, Lviv, and Vinnytsia, with a plan to expand to other towns and cities in Ukraine.TOKENIZATION: Russia's largest bank is tokenizing gold due to western sanctions (2 minute read, original article in Russian)

Russia's Sberbank is tokenizing gold on its own blockchain platform. The tokenized gold allows investors to receive investment income based on the price of gold, can be completed through a smart contract without the need for intermediaries, and can be transferred to other users of the platform. Anatoly Popov, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Sberbank, said, "The Russian market of digital financial assets is at the initial stage of its development. Nevertheless, we see that digital assets have great prospects for bank customers and allow us to bring existing financial instruments to a new level…and [is] especially relevant for businesses in the current situation," referring to western sanctions on Russia for its war in Ukraine.

Asia

Image Credit: David Dvoracek via Unsplash

The National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) has announced the successful testing of its digital tenge platform, following the completion of a two-phase pilot project. According to the project road map, the first phase, which ran from July to December 2021, involved the development of a prototype to test the viability of the concept. The second phase, which took place from January to December 2022, involved refining the prototype and launching it into trial operation with a limited number of participants. The third phase, which runs from January 2023 to December 2024, will develop solutions for the digital tenge's launch into commercial operation, and the fourth and final phase in 2025 will focus on adding participants, creating new services, and cross-border integration.

South Korean prosecutors believe Do Kwon is hiding in Serbia, as they continue a global manhunt for him. Kwon has been charged with fraud and breaches of capital markets law after the collapse of terraUSD and luna in May. South Korea has revoked Kwon’s passport and Interpol has issued a red notice for him, however, South Korea does not have an extradition treaty with Serbia. The main cause of the collapse of Kwon's cryptocurrencies remains unknown, however, The New York Times reported that US federal prosecutors were reinvestigating whether Sam Bankman-Fried and his hedge fund, Alameda Research, manipulated the market in a way that led to the crash of Kwon’s twin coins.

Africa

Image Credit: Jan Kopriva via Unsplash

South African mobile-only bank, Be Mobile Africa, has launched a cryptocurrency payments gateway that will enable wider cryptocurrency transactions in the country. The gateway will allow South African merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments and immediately convert them into fiat currency, as well as enabling users to convert fiat currency into cryptocurrencies. The gateway will support payments in Bitcoin, Ether, USD coin, and Tether.

Africa-based peer-to-peer Bitcoin platform, Bitnob, has teamed up with UK-based cryptocurrency exchange, CoinCorner, to enable cross-border transactions via the Bitcoin Lightning Network from Europe to select African countries, including Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana. The funds are first converted to Bitcoin, then to the local currency of the receiving country, and deposited into the recipient's bank account or mobile wallet. The remittance market is a significant opportunity to demonstrate the utility of Bitcoin, according to CoinCorner CEO Danny Scott. Nearly 80% of African countries restrict the type of institutions that can offer local banks remittance-related services.

Latin America and The Caribbean

Image Credit: Donald Teel via Unsplash

The province of San Luis in Argentina has approved legislation that allows for the issuance of a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. The stablecoin, called the "Activo Digital San Luis de Ahorro", will be available to all citizens over the age of 18 and will be 100% collateralized by liquid financial assets of the province up to 2% of its annual budget. The stablecoin initiative is one part of a larger bill called "Financial Innovation for Investment and Social Economic Development", which aims to promote development in the province through the use of blockchain technology, and also allows for local artists to issue non-fungible tokens (NFTs) with the goal of promoting financial and cultural inclusion. The legislation does not specify which blockchain will be used for the transactions.TOKENIZATION: Brazil's Central Bank establishes working group to study financial asset tokenization (2 minute read, original article in Portuguese)

The Central Bank of Brazil is forming a working group to study the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) for the custody, negotiation, and settlement of financial assets. The group will address issues such as efficiency gains with tokenization in the National Financial System (SFN) and financial, operational, reputational, and business risks. The Interdepartmental Working Group on Tokenization of Assets, known as GTI Tokenization, will last 180 days and will compare the Brazilian experience with the international scenario, analyze the results of the Central Bank's Lift Challenge and sandbox programs, and consider the impact of DLT on services and market structure.

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