Central banks of Honduras, Guatemala eye digital currencies
The central banks of Honduras and Guatemala are reportedly studying digital currencies with the aim of eventually introducing them into the economy, including via a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
CSBS Releases Model for the Future of Payments Regulation
The US Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) released the Uniform Money Transmission Modernization Act for state adoption as part of states’ broader effort to modernize the state financial regulatory system. Also known as the Money Transmitter Model Law, it aims to replace 50 sets of state-specific money transmitter laws and rules with one single set of nationwide standards and requirements.
SIX Digital Exchange receives FINMA approval
SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) formally received the go-ahead from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to operate a stock exchange and a central securities depository for digital assets in Switzerland. This authorization enables SDX to go live with a fully regulated, integrated trading, settlement, and custody infrastructure based on distributed ledger technology for digital securities.
Nasdaq Data to Aid Blockchain-Based Tokenized Stock Trading
The Nasdaq stock exchange, along with Finnhub and Tiingo, will deliver price feeds to DeFiChain, a blockchain-based service offering the 24/7 trading of tokenized stocks. The tokenized stocks will be collateralized by crypto-assets, including DeFiChain’s DFI native digital currency.
Countdown to Cardano’s Hard Fork
Cardano will hard fork on September 12, at which point the crypto-asset will get functional smart contracts. These can be used for decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and other types of decentralized applications (Dapps). Cardano has managed to capture the third-largest crypto market capitalization among 10,000+ crypto assets.
Algorand sets up $330 million fund that’s focused on DeFi
Algorand created a decentralized finance (DeFi) fund, in the form of 150 million ALGO tokens, to be handed out to potential projects to encourage growth of DeFi on Algorand. Also, Harmony, a blockchain platform designed for running Ethereum applications, similarly announced a $300 million fund, focused on attracting projects that are already running on other blockchains.
September 28-30 CordaCon Conference
At the September 28-30 CordaCon2021, I’ll be providing an overview of recent retail CBDC developments. You can register for the event here: https://www.cordacon.com.
On October 4 I’ll be providing an overview of international work on retail CBDC and evolving thinking on motivations, system design and safeguards at The CBDC Conference. You can register for this and the full three-day (October 4-6) event here: https://www.cbdc-conference.com/index.php
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