October 17, 2022

🤖Bitcoin + El Salvador…not the crypto utopia you're looking for🪙

October 17, 2022

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All the emerging market blockchain & crypto news you needin less than 5 minutes

In This Issue

Latin America and The Caribbean•ADOPTION: El Salvador's Bitcoin experiment so far…not the crypto utopia maxis envisioned yet•CBDC: ConsenSys withdraws from Brazil's digital real testsAsia•MARKET ENTRY: Coinbase and Blockchain.com receive licenses to operate in Singapore•CBDC: China's digital yuan surpasses 100B yuan in spending -PBOCEastern Europe•ADOPTION: Eastern Europe is the 5th largest crypto market in the world -Chainalysis•NFTS: Ukrainian art museum launching NFT collection to preserve Ukrainian cultural heritageAfrica•WEB3: Nigerian Vice President promotes developing policies, regulation, and innovation for Nigeria's Web3 economy•CRIME: Are Web3 crimes on the rise in Kenya?

Latin America and The Caribbean

Image Credit: StarWars.com

A little over a year since adopting Bitcoin as legal tender side-by-side with the US dollar, El Salvador's Bitcoin experiment isn't looking as utopia-like as it was first pitched to be. At current prices, El Salvador has spent $375mm and lost $60mm in value, most consumers aren't transacting in BTC and prefer dollar, and remittance payments, a widely cited use case for cryptocurrencies, are still being sent in dollar rather than BTC due to BTC’s volatile price and technical knowledge needed to send, receive, and convert to fiat. However, one bright spot is BTC tourism is up 30% according to official estimates.CBDC: ConsenSys withdraws from Brazil's digital real tests (3 minute read, original article in Portuguese)

Ethereum solutions company, ConsenSys, has stopped actively participating in Brazil's CBDC tests, according to the Central Bank of Brazil. ConsenSys was part of a consortium led by Visa. According to the Central Bank, the technology provided by ConsenSys will still be used, but they won't be participating in the business model development meetings.Want more Latin American & Caribbean news?•CVM publishes opinion on crypto-assets and wants to respect rules for the disclosure of offers (Portuguese)•Brazil Registers Record Number of Institutions Declaring Cryptocurrency Holdings•Pow.re Announces Construction Launch and Timeline for Paraguayan Data Centers, ASICs Purchases•Dominica Selects TRON as its National Blockchain to Issue the Country's Official Coin•Carrefour installs 5 more Bitcoin and cryptocurrency ATMs in Brazil (Portuguese)

Asia

Image Credit: Hu Chen via Unsplash

Both Coinbase and Blockchain.com received approval from Singapore's Central Bank to offer payment services. Known to be a very difficult license to receive, the total number of crypto companies allowed to operate in Singapore is now 18 out of 180 applicants since the beginning of this year. Despite the Terra Luna and Three Arrows Capital fallouts in the city-state, Singapore's welcoming approach to digital asset companies has helped make it an attractive location and a major center in Asia for crypto.

China's Central Bank is reporting that its CBDC has exceed 100 billion yuan ($13.9 billion) in transactions since August 31st. The spending involved 360 million transactions, with over 5.6 million merchants, across 15 pilot provinces and municipalities. The digital yuan has been mainly used for domestic retail payments, but the Central Bank has said that it will be promoted to be used by businesses, finance, taxation, and government affairs.

Eastern Europe

Image Credit: Joy via Wikimedia Commons

Eastern Europe has received over $630 billion in crypto between July 2021 and June 2022, representing over 10% of global transaction activity according to an excerpt from Chainalysis' upcoming 2022 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report. Despite being the 5th largest market globally, Eastern Europe continues to have the highest share of illicit crypto transactions with 18.2% of all cryptocurrency received coming from addresses associated with risky or illicit activity, more than any other region. Crypto has partially played a positive role during the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine with over $65 million in crypto-based donations sent to the Ukrainian cause.NFTS: Ukrainian art museum launching NFT collection to preserve Ukrainian cultural heritage (2 minute read)

Kharkiv Art Museum will be auctioning 15 NFTs as part of its "Art without Borders" NFT collection on Binance NFT. Possessing one of the oldest and most valuable museum art collections in Ukraine, the funds raised from the auction will support the museum's restoration activities and create more jobs. The collection will feature works by Albrecht Dürer, Georg Jacob Johann van Os, Ivan Aivazovsky, Simon de Vlieger, and other artists.Want more Eastern Europe news?•The Central Bank announced that they will soon test the use of the digital ruble for government payments (Russian)•Dapper Labs suspends Russian accounts after new EU sanctions•Turkey works hard to make İstanbul home to global blockchain hype•Interest in crypto-currency Telegram channels has sharply decreased in Russia (Russian)•The Ministry of Finance urged to give businesses the opportunity to pay with cryptocurrency (Russian)

Africa

Image Credit: Italian G7 Presidency 2017 via Wikimedia Commons

In a speech during the Nigeria Digital Economy Summit, Nigeria's Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, promoted developing Nigeria's Web3 economy by advancing policies, regulation, and innovation. According to Osinbajo, “we must think through and develop appropriate policies and regulations that promote, rather than inhibit, innovation and commerce. We can be world leaders in the Web3 revolution. The only limit is our vision.” On regulatory development, the VP spoke about setting "clear rules to enable crypto markets and trading in other digital assets."

Kenya is one of the most enthusiastic Web3 markets in Africa, however, there have been increasing reports of Web3 projects raising money and receiving grants without contributing to the ecosystem's growth. Luke Martin, a crypto podcaster, tweeted about Africa DAO, an initiative to educate African youth on Web3, as a façade while raising over $240K. BitcoinKE also references growing reports of distrust by Web3 employees in Kenya who are complaining of receiving sub-standard pay, not getting allowances, and sometimes not getting paid at all.

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