Cryptocurrency
April 2020 news
Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, digital currency and central bank digital currency – CBDC – news from April 2020, collected from across Asia and Oceania, and also delivering need-to-know news from beyond the broad Asia-Pacific region.
- Webinar: Coindesk analysts talk about the upcoming Bitcoin halving event – online April 21st
- The approaching Bitcoin halving event: A quick primer on what it is, how it works and what its impact will be
- ICYMI: Keep blockchain protocol launches with tBTC altcoin to bridge gap between Bitcoin and Ethereum, allowing BTC holders to use Ethereum-based DeFi solutions
- Crypto: A dive into the proposed Schnorr/Taproot upgrade for Bitcoin, major improvement to privacy, scaling, speed of transactions and cost of processing
- Cryptocurrency: BTCPay, open source tool for accepting bitcoin payments, to partner PayJoin to preserve two-way privacy of transactions
- Binance crypto exchange launches Binance Loans to allow users to leverage crypto assets as collateral for instant-approval, low-interest borrowing
- Facebook’s proposed Libra project will no longer be a standalone coin; instead a ‘digital composite of some of the single-currency stablecoins available on the Libra network’
- ICYMI: Financial Stability Board publishes 10 high-level recommendations to address ‘regulatory, supervisory and oversight challenges’ of stablecoins
- ICYMI: US Congresswomen introduce stimulus proposal for federal gov’t to issue $2K per month to residents via pair of $1TN coins, using these to back payments
- ICYMI: Facebook’s Libra Association gains UK online payments processor, Checkout, as new member
- ICYMI: A look at Fold, crypto-focused startup with newly-launched Visa card offering cash back rewards in Bitcoin
- ICYMI: The Bank of England is open to the possibility that private cryptocurrencies may have a role in the future of money, with private companies as issuers
- Digimentality: Fear And Favouring Of Digital Currency – A study of digital ways to pay and the evolution of a cashless future, from The Economist
- China: An overview of the issues for the country’s Bitcoin mining space presented by the approaching Bitcoin halving event
- Hong Kong: Venture Smart Asia launches HK’s first approved crypto fund with” target first-year size of $100M, offering a window for institutional investors into Bitcoin
- China: State-owned Agricultural Bank of China now trialing test front-end interface for the country’s central bank digital currency
- India: A brief look at survey results from Paxful, peer-to-peer bitcoin marketplace, gauging interest in and concerns around cryptocurrency
- Webinar: Coindesk analysts talk about the upcoming Bitcoin halving event – online April 21st
- The approaching Bitcoin halving event: A quick primer on what it is, how it works and what its impact will be
- Crypto: A dive into the proposed Schnorr/Taproot upgrade for Bitcoin, major improvement to privacy, scaling, speed of transactions and cost of processing
- China: Shenzhen’s MicroBT to roll out 3 news bitcoin miners in competition with Bitmain, focusing on electricity efficiency in the mining process
- China: An overview of VC firm NGC Ventures, the country’s most active crypto investor
- ICYMI: In response to US EARN IT Act which aims to abolish end-to-end encryption, developer builds uncensorable messaging system using Bitcoin Cash transactions
- South Korea: Binance KR crypto-to-crypto exchange launches, offering Binance KRW stablecoin backed by the South Korean Won
- South Korea: Central bank begins pilot program aimed at identifying technical and legal provisions required to create and issue a digital currency
- ICYMI: US gove’t outlines countermeasures intended to block North Korean regime’s often cryptocurrency-dependent cybercrime campaigns
- North Korea believed to be operating with circa $1.5BN in cryptocurrency in trade-based money-laundering networks to avoid sanctions
- China: Suzhou municipal government employees to receive 50% of their May transportation subsidies in DCEP digital currency as state-owned banks step up testing
- People’s Bank of China, country’s central bank, has said that its digital currency could be used in the 2022 Winter Olympics event, hinting at CBDC launch schedule
- ICYMI: Facebook’s Libra Association gains UK online payments processor, Checkout, as new member
- ICYMI: Keep blockchain protocol launches with tBTC altcoin to bridge gap between Bitcoin and Ethereum, allowing BTC holders to use Ethereum-based DeFi solutions
- Asia Reserve Currency Coin gains $3.48M seed funding from Int’l Blockchain Monetary Reserve, aiming for financial inclusion for the urban working poor in SE Asia
- Japan: BitFlyer cryptocurrency exchange launches blockchain consulting service to aid companies taking their first steps into blockchain
- ICYMI: Opera web browser expands crypto wallet service across whole of Europe, and adds Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Switzerland to roster
- ICYMI: Reddit forum apparently working towards cryptocurrency integration with implementation of blockchain-based points system
- An overview of Althea, powering internet connections with cryptocurrency as a payment method, creating community-powered mesh networks
- China: Starbucks and McDonald’s reportedly among 19 restaurants and retail stores to be involved in testing central bank digital currency in Xiong’An new district
- China: dForce Foundation secures $1.5M seed funding with Lendf, platform for lending fiat-backed stablecoins, and synthetic fiat stablecoin USDx
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