Crypto news headlines
April, May & June 2021
Startup News Asia’s Q2 2021 crypto news summary gathers links to individual digital currency news items, reports or downloads, each free to read online. Headlines listed cover the widest range of related items – CBDCs, cross-border tests, NFTs – and were gathered across April, May and June of 2021.
Taking a wide angle view allows us to provide an overview of crypto news items not just concerning the broad Asia-Pacific region, but also covering ‘wider world’ crypto developments, giving readers additional points of reference and a wider context for consideration.
The Q2 2021 cryptocurrency news round-up pulls headlines from across 17 locations across South & SE Asia, Australia and NZ, and provides a quick, at-a-glance overview of developments in crypto and its many related technologies.
Headline items featured in this Q2 digital currency news round-up deliberately take a ‘wide angle’ view, covering implementations and initiatives rather than looking at developments in a single industry.
Hit any of the quarterly crypto news headlines below and you’ll get directly to the online article behind them – no middleman service, no interstitial ads, no time wasted and free-to-read.
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June 2021 | May 2021 | April 2021
Cryptocurrency news: June 2021
- ICYMI: El Salvador president announces plan to make Bitcoin legal tender alongside US Dollar, subject to approval of legislation by El Salvador congress
- Download: Bitcoin White Paper Made Simple – A guide to understanding the Bitcoin white paper for people without an advanced degree in computer geekery (pdf)
- ICYMI: Bitcoin set to become legal tender in El Salvador on September 7th, becoming the first country to take the step
- Download: Bloomberg Crypto Outlook, May 2021 Edition (pdf)
- Download: Bloomberg Crypto Outlook, June 2021 Edition (pdf)
- Q1 2021: Cryptocurrency, CBDC and digital currency news headline summary for January, February and March of this year
- Download: Cryptocurrency Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Report, via CipherTrace
- ICYMI: Square payments provider considering developing hardware cryptocurrency wallet, essentially open-source and not tied to Square ecosystem
- Fantasy Hollywood’: A deep dive into the combination of cryptocurrency, NFTs, decentralized autonomous organisations and community-owned characters
- NFT trading volume expected to hit $175M by October, given 645% rise between January and March 2021, with market expected to grow from 2020’s $338M to $470M by year-end
- “There’s a new vision for crypto, and it’s wildly different from Bitcoin”
- ICYMI: US City of Miami to launch MiamiCoin token, allowing residents ‘to make money for yourself while building municipal assets’
- “Unlike cryptocurrencies…central bank digital currencies would be issued, backed and controlled by domestic national banks [allowing]…governments to monitor every transaction…”
- ICYMI: Andreessen Horowitz venture capital giant – a16z – raises $2.2BN for Crypto Fund III, making it the VC industry’s largest cryptocurrency-focused investment fund
- ICYMI: Snickerdoodle Labs raises $2.3M with data privacy-focused NFTs, aiming for NFTs to be ‘the cookies of the Web 3.0 ecosystem’
- “The digital currency revolution is here, and may sweep away 5,000 years of monetary history. There is a coming storm in the world of finance as governments around the world engage in a global contest to digitize their currencies.”
- ICYMI: Bank of France completes CBDC settlement experiment, testing CBDC issuance and settlements on a public blockchain via a smart contract simulation
- Download: ‘The future of digital currencies’, a February 2021 9-page outline from Standard Chartered (pdf)
- The digital currencies that matter’: Get ready for Fedcoin and the e-euro – via The Economist
- China: Past digital yuan project head talks of CBDCs in future working on Ethereum smart contract basis rather than as digital cash, executing functions when set conditions are met
- China: Industrial and Commerce Bank of China the first bank in the country to launch feature allowing conversion of cash to ‘digital yuan’ at 3000 ATMs in Beijing
- China: Xiong’an government launches digital yuan pilot using Blockchain Fund Payment Platform to pay some builders’ wages
- China: Will digitization change the status of the yuan at home and abroad?
- China, global trade & CBDC: “The only question is how far-reaching the ramifications will be across issues related to who controls access to capital and its movements.”
- The digital currencies that matter’: Get ready for Fedcoin and the e-euro – via The Economist
- Download: Are Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) the money of tomorrow? From Deloitte (pdf)
- ICYMI: Indonesia’s central bank now planning to launch ‘digital rupiah’ currency and is assessing which platform it will use
- Bank of Thailand hires Germany’s Giesecke+Devrient tech firm to develop central bank digital currency prototype, allocating around $320K for the project
- Australia: Lloyds Auctions Australia begins accepting cryptocurrency for all purchases on its marketplace
- China: Sichuan, the country’s second-largest bitcoin mining province, added to crackdown, ordering cryptocurrency mining projects to shut down
- Cryptocurrency attack methods to be aware of in 2021, focusing on the 4 most talked-about methods on cybercrime forums
- ICYMI: US Republicans’ House campaign arm to accept contributions in cryptocurrency, processing donations using BitPay and immediately converting into dollars
- Hong Kong: Amber Group cryptocurrency trading firm raises $100M Series B, ten times the company’s 2019 Series A, offering algorithmic trading and more
- South Korea: Residents to be required to pay tax on crypto assets held in overseas exchanges, starting January 2022
- China: BIT Mining delivers first batch of 320 machines to Kazakhstan after operations in Sichuan province were suspended in gov’t crypto mining crackdown
- ICYMI: JPM Coin, JP Morgan’s digital token, looks at future “programming what money can do for you, whether it’s conditional payments, whether it’s things like tax assessments.”
- South Korea: Banks to be required to ensure virtual currency exchange clients are classified as high-risk, subject to transaction monitoring and user ID verification
- South Korea: Over $47M in bitcoin, ethereum and other crypto assets were confiscated from 12K people accused of tax evasion following months-long probe
- Indonesia: Cryptocurrency transaction volume grew by nearly 470% from $4.4BN last year to $25BN in the first 5 months of 2021
- Hong Kong to test connecting China’s e-CNY, the ‘digital yuan’, with its domestic payments network, heralding second stage of digital currency trials in the city
- FinTech news, quarterly: A wide angle round-up of key fintech and banking technology news headlines, articles, reports and downloads from Q1 2021
- Philippines: Yield Guild Games raises $4M Series A with focus on play-to-earn games using NFTs
- India: Unbound Finance blockchain startup raises $5.8M, in part enabling interest-free crypto loans in Unbound’s $UND stablecoin and other ‘synthetic assets’
- ICYMI: Tim Berners-Lee to sell source code that made the first web browser work as an NFT in a Sotheby’s auction later in June
- ICYMI: ‘Vault by CNN’ set for launch, to sell memorable moments from CNN’s 41-year history as non-fungible tokens
Crypto news headlines: May 2021
- MoneyGram transfer giant to allow customers to buy and sell bitcoin for cash at 12K US retail locations in partnership with Coinme
- Mastercard investing in smart contract tech to pair with central bank digital currencies, aiming to help governments evaluate the utility of CBDCs beyond payments
- Download: Digital Dollar Project – Exploring a United States Central Bank Digital Currency – Proposed Pilot Programs (pdf)
- The Digital Dollar Project – Exploring a US Central Bank Digital Currency, from Accenture and The Digital Dollar Foundation (pdf)
- CBDCs: “It is not obvious that new forms of private money that reference fiat currency, like stablecoins, can carry the same level of protection as bank deposits or fiat currency”
- A video-based round-up of 16 recent cryptocurrency and digital currency news headlines, QR coded to link you to the online articles behind each headline
- Download: Crypto Theses For 2021 – Key trends, people, companies and projects across Crypto, Bitcoin and Ethereum (pdf)
- Super Crypto Conference 2021, inaugural virtual event from Super Crypto News, set for June 17th, covering all things blockchain and cryptocurrency-related
- Download: Asia’s Crypto Landscape, the key exchanges, funds and market makers that define crypto in China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and SE Asia (pdf)
- Jay-Z and Andreessen Horowitz back $19M investment in Bitski, platform simplifying creation, purchase and sale of non-fungible tokens
- PayPal reportedly exploring developing its own partnership-driven stablecoin, meeting with protocol developers and blockchain firms
- WeWork office-sharing major to accept payments in cryptocurrencies, partnering with Coinbase and Bitpay payment app
- 3rd Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study results, from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (pdf)
- Facebook-backed Diem, digital currency project formerly known as Libra, to now operate from the US, withdrawing application for Swiss payment licence
- Available to download now: The Chainalysis 2021 Crypto Crime Report
- Russian artists join to sell NFTs to support Meduza, independent media outlet spuriously designated a ‘foreign agent’
- PayPal payments giant to allow users to withdraw cryptocurrency to off-platform third-party wallets
- Central Bank of Bahrain to pilot digital currency settlement project, partnering with JP Morgan and local Bank ABC, focusing on instant cross-border payments
- MoneyGram transfer giant to allow customers to buy and sell bitcoin for cash at 12K US retail locations in partnership with Coinme
- China’s share of Bitcoin hash rate reportedly diminishing, likely in part due to expected increase in crypto and mining-related regulations and gov’t scrutiny
- China: Gov’t bans financial institutions and payment companies from providing services around cryptocurrency transactions, warning investors against speculative trading
- China: “If you have bitcoin or ethereum, and I want to buy some, I can just send money to you through banks. Just don’t write down anything like bitcoin or ethereum”
- A brief look at the opportunities, and challenges, presented to financial institutions by cryptocurrency and decentralized finance
- IndiaTech, industry association representing startup ecosystem founders and investors, lays out proposed 5-point policy framework aimed at cryptocurrency regulation
- South Korea: Bank association advises members to audit altcoins to gauge trading capacity of exchanges, aiming to identify and manage trading risk presented by minor cryptocurrencies
- South Korea: Gameper launches Bitro P2P cryptocurrency trading app, with payment methods including bank transfer, mobile gift cards, e-cards and mobile points
- “NFTs are a very real opportunity for brands and retailers…from authenticating tangible goods to reducing friction in e-commerce to generating new revenue through virtual sales.”
- Singapore’s Alpha Impact cryptocurrency platform gains $3.1M via private token sale, with trading-copy platform allowing users to mimic more experienced traders
- Singapore’s DBS bank now offers offers clients tokenization, trading and custody services for Bitcoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash and XRP
- Thailand: Opening new cryptocurrency accounts may require in-person machine verification of identity once new Anti-Money Laundering Office regulation kicks in
- Vietnam: A brief overview of the country’s startups looking at combining gaming with cryptocurrencies
- ICYMI: Switzerland’s software giant Temenos giving more than 3K client banks ability to offer crypto features to customers via Taurus crypto/blockchain firm partnership
- China: Beijing launches check on data centres involved in cryptocurrency mining to measure energy consumption, seeking amount and share of power consumed by mining
- India: Bitex cryptocurrency exchange launches Bitex Coin, its own utility token, to facilitate trading, addressing high deposit/withdrawal fees, custody of fiat and fiat withdrawal
- ICYMI: Ebay enables sale of non-fungible tokens for digital collectibles like trading cards, images or video clips, becoming the first e-commerce company to tap into NFTs
- ICYMI: Instagram to host invite-only panel for NFT creators as part of first ‘Creator Week’
- China: Industrial and Commercial Bank, one of world’s largest banks by assets, enables public users to activate CBDC wallet in its mobile app, widening ‘digital yuan’ adoption
- India: PhonePe payments company to acquire IndusOS app store for $60M, potentially aiming to integrate with its own in-app platform, PhonePe Switch
- Download: State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2021, from GSMA (pdf)
- Philippines: Bayad bills payment firm gains central bank Electronic Money Issuer license, allowing users to soon be able to pay over 1000 different bills by app
- An interview intro to OMO, gateway for SE Asia’s first-time retail crypto investors, and OMO Finance, for more experienced crypto investors, built on Taiwan’s Dapp Pocket tech
- Australia: An intro to Zed Run, digital horse racing platform featuring horses in NFT form, allowing users to own, race, even breed them as in the physical world
- South Korea: Samsung expands support for blockchain-based trading of virtual assets on Galaxy handsets, adding connectivity for select cold hardware wallets
- South Korea’s Bloom Technology to partner IDCM Asia cryptocurrency trading platform to establish blockchain-based bank in Dubai
- ICYMI: Mastercard New Payments Index infographic, drawn from survey results gained from over 15K consumers across 18 markets globally
- Philippines: Community in rural Nueva Ecija comes together to earn an income in NFTs by playing Sky Mavis’ Axie Infinity, generating blockchain-based crypto rewards
Crypto news in April 2021
- ICYMI: Eastern Caribbean Central Bank unveils DCash central bank digital currency, partnering with Bitt fintech firm for infrastructure and operations
- ICYMI: Bank of Russia plans to unveil prototype for ‘digital ruble’ design in December, running on distributed ledger technology with central bank control
- Download: PwC CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) Global Index, 1st edition (pdf)
- ICYMI: UK launches central bank digital currency taskforce with the Bank of England to investigate the potential of a digitally-issued currency
- Cryptocurrency: A round-up of crypto, digital currency and payments news headlines from the past month, touching on CBDCs, NFTs and more
- Download: Cryptocurrency – Looking Back on 2020 and 2021 Predictions, via @cryptocom (pdf)
- ICYMI: Signal private messaging app’s latest UK beta supports new Signal Payments feature, allowing crypto payments using open-source MobileCoin
- Download: Bloomberg Crypto Outlook, April 2021 Edition (pdf)
- ICYMI: Boxing world champion, Terence Crawford, enters NFT space with launch of Greatness, first of 12 NFT bundles, in partnership with Ziliqa
- ICYMI: Visa begins settling transactions in USD Coin, US dollar-pegged cryptocurrency; users of partner service don’t need to first convert USDC tokens to US$
- ICYMI: Tesla now accepts Bitcoin as payment option in the US, with company retaining Bitcoin rather than converting to USD
- ICYMI: Square, Coinbase, Fidelity Investments and others partner to form Crypto Council for Innovation industry group, aiming to lobby, inform policy and develop research
- Bank of Japan launches first phase of experimenting with a central bank digital currency, testing technical feasibility of core functions and features
- South Korea: Klaytn blockchain firm partners with ConsenSys to work towards a Korean central bank digital currency, a digital won
- Bank of Thailand announces intention to develop a retail central bank digital currency, provisionally aiming for trials in Q2 2022
- Download: Central Bank Digital Currency – The Future of Payments for Corporates, from the Bank of Thailand’s Project Inthanon (pdf)
- Hong Kong: TOKEN2049 crypto conference set for November 23-24, looking at global developments in cryptocurrency, blockchain and more
- Hong Kong: Kikitrade cryptocurrency investment platform gains $8M pre-A with sights on NFT and DeFi services
- South Korea: Smaller cryptocurrency exchanges likely to close later in the year as new anti-money laundering regulations take effect
- Non-Fungible Tokens: What exactly are they?
- ICYMI: Edward Snowden to auction an NFT, with 100% of proceeds going to Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non-profit tasked with protecting free speech
- Digital Securities & Tokenization Summit set for May 19-20, a virtual conference focusing on the implementation of blockchain in traditional finance
- Australia: Living Room of Satoshi launches Wages service, allowing users to pay bills with cryptocurrencies
- China: E-commerce giant JD has paid some employees using ‘digital yuan’ in what’s believed to be part of central bank’s move to expand the scope of its use
- Indonesia: East Ventures Digital Competitiveness Index 2021 now available, assessing digital economic condition of each region in the country
- Japan: A look at how some municipalities are embracing digital currency, launching community-focused digital money initiatives to boost local economy and identity
- Singapore: Mintable non-fungible token marketplace platform gains seed funding, with over 150K NFTs created and listed for sale in the last month alone
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