Argentina has reimposed capital controls, limiting citizens’ and businesses’ freedom to buy foreign currency. As Bloomberg reported on Sep. 1, the increasingly troubled South American nation took the step as the Argentine peso (ARS) suffers overwhelming losses against major fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar. Argentina puts $10K limit on dollar access Argentina has shown an affinity for Bitcoin (BTC) in recent times, with trade volumes accelerating as uncertainty around the economy grew. Last month, a premium appeared on the country’s cryptocurrency exchanges. Now, access to hard currency is restricted to just $10,000 for individuals looking to dump ARS …

Binance Research, the research arm of the major crypto platform Binance, has reported that no bank account will be necessary to use China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC). Loose coupling and anonymity Binance Research shared its findings on Aug 28. According to the report, China’s CBDC will be transferable without a bank due to its loosely coupled design. As explained by the researchers, a loosely coupled design refers to a system of components that do not all depend on each other. The upshot is that users will reportedly be able to transfer the CBDC to one another without needing a …

San Francisco-based crypto lending and borrowing firm Dharma has announced the start of a closed beta for a new version of its platform. Upcoming changes and short-term timeline Dharma announced its new platform iteration in an official blog post on Aug. 29. According to the announcement, Dharma has partnered with the Ethereum-based money market Compound and will reportedly use its protocol as infrastructure for the new platform. Additionally, Dharma will now make its smart contracts open source prior to production, per the announcement. Dharma V2 is currently in closed beta, which means that it is only accessible to existing Dharma …

According to sources, the People’s Bank of China is giving its first round of central bank digital currency (CBDC) to online retail giant Alibaba, Internet giant Tencent, five banking organizations and one unknown entity. The first beneficiaries Forbes reported the news on Aug. 27. The sources named are Paul Schulte, who previously worked as head of the China Construction Bank, and an anonymous individual identified as part of China’s CBDC project. According to Schulte, the first beneficiaries of China’s CBDC are Alibaba, Tencent, China Construction Bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank …

Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins, is joining crypto-friendly bank Silvergate’s Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN) to speed fiat transfers. Real-time fiat money transfers Gemini announced the move in an official blog post on Aug. 27. According to the announcement, the main benefit of the exchange’s partnership with Silvergate is that Gemini’s institutional investor clients can withdraw and deposit United States dollars from their accounts at any time. This is already the industry standard for cryptocurrencies, but not for fiat money, per the report. Additionally, the announcement states that Gemini is integrated into SEN’s application programming interface (API). …

Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of blockchain-based, crypto-inclusive money transfer company Circle, has said that the firm has long believed major fiat currencies will eventually be tokenized. Significant digital currencies In an interview on Aug. 21 on the podcast Global Coin Research, Allaire said that Circle has thought for years that sovereign currencies would go digital. He added: “When we got started with Circle back in 2013, I think our belief has been that there will be significant non-sovereign digital currencies that grow in use and that will be attractive to people for a wide variety of reasons, and Bitcoin obviously …

A crypto exchange says it is providing a much-needed bridge between fiat and digital currencies — offering an easy, accessible, intuitive platform to consumers, especially when purchasing crypto for the very first time. BitMart says too many exchanges rely on crypto-to-crypto transactions or depend on stablecoin trading pairs. Although this may be perfectly practical for enthusiasts who already own coins and tokens, the company says this can alienate large swaths of the public — many of whom have been taking a wait-and-see approach to cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC). The exchange, which has offices around the world — including in New …

A fiat-to-crypto exchange has unveiled a new feature enabling its consumers to buy Bitcoin and Ether using credit cards. BiboxEurope says it offers a much-needed bridge between fiat and crypto thanks to its Insta-Buy function, which paves the way for major coins to be acquired using euros and British pounds. According to the company, cryptocurrency that’s purchased using a Visa or MasterCard credit card subsequently arrives in the customer’s account within 10 minutes. Compared with fiat-to-crypto offerings by other exchanges, BiboxEurope says its fees are a user-friendly, competitive 2.9%. Other rivals in this space, such as Binance and Coinbase, charge …

The existence of private decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) has a healthy impact on governments’ fiscal and regulatory policy, a new analysis contends. The argument was put forth in a paper published on Aug. 16 by Max Raskin (NYU School of Law), Fahad Saleh (McGill University) and David Yermack (NYU Stern), entitled “How Do Private Digital Currencies Affect Government Policy? 3 positive impacts of cryptos simply existing The analysis notes that as regards the global financial system, the question of cryptocurrencies’ influence is not confined to whether or not the majority of the population opts to use them. Rather, the …

Update [10.42 a.m. UTC]: This article has been updated to include comments from Santander denying the allegations that U.K. users are deliberately being blocked from making deposits into their Coinbase accounts. Santander: “We do not block payments to any legitimate company” Some online users have accused major Spanish bank Santander of blocking United Kingdom customers from depositing their fiat funds to major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. An unverified source posting to Reddit on Aug. 14 claims to have been informed of the development over the phone by a Santander representative. However, a Santander U.K. spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the bank has …

Volunteer cryptocurrency developers in Iran have created a blockchain platform called IranRescueBit, which allows people to make charitable cryptocurrency donations to aid regions in the country in recovering from destructive flooding. Al Jazeera shared the news in a report on Aug. 14. According to the report, the platform supports donations in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC). The government is reportedly not involved in the project. IranRescueBit reportedly allows donors to dodge American sanctions that have insofar prohibited international donations to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, which is a non-governmental humanitarian society within Iran. According to the report, the …

Binance’s fiat-to-crypto conversion branch for euros and British pounds, Binance Jersey, has entered into a partnership with the crypto investment service Caspian, which provides trading, portfolio and risk management on its platform. Caspian shared news of the partnership with Cointelegraph on Aug. 14. The partnership will purportedly result in improved security for crypto investors, as well as a lower barrier to entry for the crypto market. The managing director of Caspian Chris Jenkins elaborated: “I am delighted for us to partner with Binance Jersey, a substantial step forward in helping move the wide adoption of cryptocurrency trading forward for the …