Crypto and blockchain news is taking an increasingly prominent place in news coverage. What are the European Central Bank’s (ECB) plans, what’s next for CBDCs globally and what are banks and corporates doing? It is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain an overview here. But don’t worry! We’ll take care of that for you and summarize the most important news about digital currencies and blockchain here every month.

Bitcoin

• El Salvador introduces Bitcoin as a means of payment: El Salvador has recognized Bitcoin as an official means of payment since September 7. Payments are primarily sent via the Lightning network.
• Deutsche Börse launches bitcoin futures trading via Eurex: With the new product, Deutsche Börse’s derivatives subsidiary gives its participants access to bitcoin in a regulated, exchange-traded and centrally cleared environment. This will create the first regulated market for bitcoin-related derivatives in Europe.

CBDC

• Test phase of Chinese CBDC e-CNY progressing: In August, the Chinese CBDC was tested in the financial sector for the first time. In addition, banks have now developed the first wallets for the payment application.
• Nigerian Central Bank Announces Technology Vendor for ‘eNaira’ Project: The Central Bank of Nigeria has announced that it will partner with Caribbean technology company bitt as part of its CBDC ‘E-Naira’ project.
• Lessons from the Eastern Caribbean CBDC Project: The Eastern Caribbean Currency Union is one of the pioneers around CBDCs. A recent post explains the reasons, challenges, and most importantly, lessons learned from the CBDC project from the technology provider’s perspective bitt.
• Benoit Cœuré with well-received speech on the future of CBDCs: Benoit Cœuré, former member of the Executive Board of the ECB and now Head of the Innovation Hub at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), speaks about the future of CBDCs in a recent speech.
• BIS explores cross-border wholesale CBDC payments in another project with a number of central banks The Dunbar project will work with central banks in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa to develop a platform for processing cross-border payments in various CBDCs.

Corporate & Crypto

• BaFin grants second crypto license to Kapilendo, the crypto custodian acquired by Hauck & Aufhäuser : Hauck & Aufhäuser acquires the shares in Kapilendo Custodian AG, which is the second crypto custodian licensed to hold crypto assets.
• Diem does not yet have the green light : The Facebook-initiated Stablecoin project continues to be a thorn in the side of US politics, which is why all attempts at appeasement have seen little success so far.
• SEC puts pressure on crypto exchange Coinbase : US exchange Coinbase has been warned by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against launching a product that pays customers interest on their crypto holdings through the use of DeFi protocols. According to the authority, this should be classified as a security.
• Six is central securities depository for digital assets : Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA approves Six Digital Exchange (SDX) as central securities depository. The associated SDX Trading is thus granted a licence as a stock exchange.
• Leak shows integration of Bitcoin and Ether on Twitter : Twitter is most likely introducing a feature that will allow users to add their wallet addresses for Bitcoin and Ethereum to their profiles.
• IOTA now with EU funding : IOTA Foundation is selected alongside six other companies to support the EU’s European Blockchain Services Infrastructure project, which seeks to build blockchain infrastructure in Europe.
• Mastercard acquires CipherTrace : CipherTrace, a cryptocurrency transaction tracking company, has been acquired by credit card provider Mastercard. Accordingly, the cryptocurrency of the payment service provider will continue.
• MetaMask Grows Rapidly: MetaMask, a crypto wallet provider, has celebrated a successful financial year in which its user base grew by almost 2000% to 10 million. MetaMask benefited in particular from the boom in decentralized finance (DeFi).
• Algorand to fund DeFi projects via new fund : The “Viridis DeFi Fund” is led by the Algorand Foundation, the operator of the Algorand blockchain project, and is expected to provide 150 million ALGO for DeFi expansion on the Algorand network.

Header image iStock: Photo credit: peterschreiber.media