It has been a blazing start to a new decade, with 13% more large, uncontrolled wildfires around the world this year compared with 2019. This has spelled dire consequences for CO2 levels, which have made worse a terrible COVID-19 pandemic that has led to unprecedented worldwide lockdowns that have rapidly pushed the economy toward digitization. Related: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the crypto space? Experts answer As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world have been forced to focus on integrating blockchain technology into their financial services. At the 75th anniversary of the United Nations General …

For the first time in Romania, the recent national parliamentary elections, which were held in November, used blockchain technology with the main purpose to guarantee the integrity of the electoral process and to strengthen its transparency. The government aimed to ensure tamper-proof and real-time data on voters’ presence. There is still a way to go for the voters to be empowered to record, manage, count and check the votes themselves (without bypassing it to the electoral authorities) by allowing them to hold a copy of the voting record. However, the perspectives of fostering the development of a tech-enabled community consensus …

The German word for securities is wertpapieren, or "papers of worth," which may soon be as outdated as nocturnal traders saying they're burning the midnight oil. Per a Reuters report from Wednesday, Merkel's cabinet had passed a new law that will end the requirement to have a paper certificate for sale of a security, overtly looking to advance blockchain trading within the country. German Finance Minister Olaf Scholtz reportedly said, “The paper certificate may be dear to some for nostalgic reasons, but the future belongs to its electronic version.” The Finance Ministry called the shift to all-electronic securities a component …

The European Commission is inviting tenders for the European Union blockchain pre-commercial procurement, or PCP. In general, a PCP is a public sector purchase of research and development services to adapt new or emerging technology to its needs. This PCP will focus on developing a novel blockchain solution that builds on the EU legal framework such as the General Data Protection Regulation, the Electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust Services regulation and the Network and Information Systems directive. The process will involve awarding several research and development contracts in parallel to existing service providers considered to offer the best value-for-money. These …

Several experts from various European banks agreed that even a proof of concept for a digital euro is four or five years away. In a panel on Monday called "Upgrading Money to the Digital Age: Introducing Digital Euro," participants agreed that the current task was primarily one of getting everyone onboard with the specifics of a digital euro, putting any real implementation well into the future. Central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, have been an extremely popular topic of debate in recent years, but especially since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Austėja Šostakaitė of the European Central Bank said …

When banks finally come to improve their technology experience, they go no deeper than changing the front end. They’ll make a button blue instead of green or create rounded edges on buttons instead of square ones. They think in terms of their interfaces, not the back end. If a bank were to truly innovate its technology, it’d dig deeper into the back end and transform its legacy technical infrastructure, which has been the same for decades. Few today even know how to work on those old programming languages of yesteryear, such as COBOL, so they’re stuck with upgrades that turn …

Pascal Saint-Amans, the director of the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, has asserted that the 37-nation organization will introduce a common reporting standard, or CRS, for crypto assets in 2021. According to Law360, Amans stated that the crypto tax standard “would be roughly equivalent to the CRS” developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to combat tax evasion. The director attributed the likely development of the crypto tax CRS to a desire to introduce stronger standards surrounding crypto regulations among its member-countries: “The timeline to deliver is probably ’21, sometime in ’21, because there is an …

The president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, has said that the bank should reach a decision on releasing a digital euro early next year. In an online policy panel held on Nov. 12, Lagarde stated that the European Central Bank, was not “racing to be first” in its efforts to release a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. However, she said that the results of the consultation the central bank launched in October on a digital euro would be ready in January 2021. “At that point in time we will make the decision as to whether or not …

Crypto exchange BLOX received the go-ahead to operate in the Netherlands, making it the first platform to do so since the country implemented the European Union's 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive, or AMLD5. "BLOX is the first consumer-focused cryptocurrency company that will be included in the registry of the Dutch Central Bank," the company said in a blog announcement today. "This registration is mandatory in the Netherlands for every company that allows its users to buy, sell, trade and hold cryptocurrencies." Netherlands-based crypto services provider AMDAX BV made headlines in October as the inaugural company of its kind in the newly …

The World Trade Organization and Trade Finance Global have published their latest taxonomy of blockchain projects in international trade, arranged into what they present as a “periodic table” for the industry. The original rendition of the periodic table was published in winter 2019. Since then, a lot has changed: despite the pandemic, several indicators used in the table show that blockchain trade innovation projects worldwide are reaching ever greater maturity. On a scale of one to five, projects’ maturity was assessed as being 2.3 on average in Dec. 2019. As of this month, the same figure stands at 3.3. To …

From what started as something of a “technological experiment” with Bitcoin (BTC) over a decade ago, the crypto asset industry has become a significant driver for change in global financial markets. Cryptocurrency exchanges started as a means to enable crypto enthusiasts to trade digital coins outside the traditional financial system on a decentralized and largely autonomous basis. It is likely that combined with regulatory recognition and development of digital market infrastructures, acceptance of essential Anti-Money Laundering practices, investment in security protection systems, and recognition of investor protection measures will see these businesses continue to expand and potentially merge or compete …

Canada doesn’t want any "surprises" regarding central bank digital currencies. In a recent interview with Reuters, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem doubled down on the country's contingency-plan approach to CBDCs, stressing that he sees no urgent need to issue one right now. For Macklem, inter-state competition and coordination remains the key question when it comes to CBDC issuance. He told reporters: “If another country has one and we don’t, that could certainly create some problems. So we want to make sure we’re ready. Currencies move across borders, and so we certainly wouldn’t want to be surprised by some other …