Switzerland’s Post Office is set to onboard cryptocurrency trading through its banking arm PostFinance as user appetite for custody grows in the country. Some 2.7 million users that currently bank with PostFinance, the fifth largest bank in the country, are expected to be able to buy and sell Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies through an inhouse trading and custody service in the next two years. In correspondence with Cointelegraph, PostFinance spokesperson Dörte Horn confirmed that the executive board sees digital assets as a strategic growth area and will provide direct access to cryptocurrency markets through a proprietary service owned by PostFinance …

On Thursday, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision suggested during its second consultation on the prudential treatment of crypto-asset exposures that banks limit their exposure to so-called Group 2 crypto assets to just 1% of their Tier 1 capital. Group 1 digital assets consist of tokenized traditional assets, such as synthetic stocks, or those with effective stabilization mechanisms, such as regulated stablecoins. Under the new proposal, Group 1 digital assets would be subject to at least equivalent risk-based capital requirements as traditional capital assets within the current capital framework, Basel III. However, cryptocurrencies that do not meet the above requirements …

21Shares, a global issuer of crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs), is taking action to respond to the current bear market by launching crypto winter-focused investment tools. The company has rolled out the 21Shares Bitcoin Core ETP (CBTC), an ETP specifically designed to offer low-cost exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) to the ongoing market sell-off. The physically-backed Bitcoin ETP started trading on the SIX Swiss Exchange on Wednesday, with a total expense ratio of 21 basis points, selected to reflect the 21 million cap on Bitcoin. According to the firm, CBTC’s ratio is 44 basis points below the next lowest product on the …

White Rock Management, a cryptocurrency mining company based in Switzerland, said it will be expanding its operations to the United States, starting with Texas. In a Tuesday announcement, White Rock said it will be partnering with Natural Gas Onsite Neutralization, or NGON, a company that captures natural gas that would otherwise be burned and converts it to energy for use in the firm’s Bitcoin (BTC) mining operations. White Rock said it will be operating out of NGON’s facility in the Brazos Valley region, mining BTC using “environmentally responsible” methods. According to White Rock CEO Andy Long, the move into Texas …

Swiss National Bank Deputy Head Thomas Moser talked to Cointelegraph editor Aaron Wood and discussed the ongoing trends in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), stablecoins and regulations during the recently concluded European Blockchain Convention 2022. Moser talked about the innovation and adoption of private stablecoins and central banks’ plans regarding CBDC launches, saying both could co-exist. He said that the function of CBDCs would be very basic and that private stablecoin issuers could add services on top of them to meet retail customers’ needs. When asked about the recent collapse of Terra’s TerraUSD (UST) and its subsequent impact on regulations, …

In its continued efforts to identify the ideal future monetary system, The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) revealed the edge of the crypto ecosystem over the present-day fiat economy when it comes to fulfilling the policy goals. While sharing its vision for the future monetary system, the BIS outlined eight high-level goals it hopes to achieve — safety and stability, accountability, efficiency, inclusion, user control over data, integrity, adaptability and openness. In its study, BIS found the crypto ecosystem outweighs the traditional finance when it came to broadly fulfilling the policy goals. The above table shared by the BIS shows …

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub released a report Tuesday looking at four projects that examined wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) transfers across borders. The projects demonstrated the technical feasibility of the transfers, the BIS found, but practical and policy issues remain outstanding. The report considered the Jura project involving the central banks of Switzerland and France. Project Inthanon, LionRock2 and the ongoing mBridge project involving currencies in Asia and the Middle East, were also examined, as well as Project Dunbar, a joint effort of Australian, Malaysian, Singaporean and South African banking authorities. The projects looked at …

In a new annual economic report published by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the financial institution revealed that approximately 90% of central banks worldwide are investigating the feasibility of adopting central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs. The BIS report highlighted the ability of current sovereign fiat money to provide (relative) price stability and public oversight while criticizing crypto's inability to perform "basic fundamental functions of money" and their opacity with regards to accountability to the general public. However, the report did highlight crypto's programmable nature as well as the borderless elements of decentralized finance (DeFi) as potential benefits that …

Cointelegraph introduces “Crypto Street,” a series of spontaneous conversations with strangers on the street to educate, entertain and take a temperature check on the world’s relationship with crypto. The first episode comes from the gates of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. Cointelegraph reporter Joseph Hall attempted to speak with the world’s elite where he was rejected, ridiculed, and ignored before stumbling across crypto believers among the WEF attendees. Sporting a Cointelegraph sweatshirt with the loudest Bitcoin (BTC) logo, Hall asked passersby to guess what was print represented. Some WEF-goers refused to talk on camera while others claimed …

On a sun-splashed day in the Swiss Alps, the chief technology officer of Bitfinex and Tether, Paolo Ardoino, shed light on the Plan B Lugano strategy, Tether as an onramp into Bitcoin (BTC) and —crucially — his favorite pizza toppings. Fresh off the plane from Norway, where Ardoino attended an increasingly Bitcoiner-friendly event, the Oslo Freedom Forum, the Italian explained that, in contrast to the WEF,there was no “shilling” in Norway. Tether was invited to speak at the Oslo Freedom Forum as the stablecoin is increasingly considered an “instrument of freedom.” Tether has been adopted by the Myanmar government while …

For Daniela Barbosa — general manager of blockchain, healthcare and identity at the Linux Foundation and executive director of Hyperledger — digital currencies and cryptocurrencies have made it among the big banks at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In an interview with Cointelegraph shot against the backdrop of the Swiss Alps, Barbosa explained that in the few years she has attended the WEF, the presence of cryptocurrency companies has steadily grown. What's more, we should not be afraid of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). “CBDCs are [a]natural evolution of digital dollars and digital currencies.” While the WEF saw calls …

The spectacle that is the World Economic Forum (WEF) came to a close in Davos, Switzerland on Friday, May 27. Nearly 3,000 people from over 110 countries took planes, trains and helicopters to the highest town in Europe to lobby leaders and push and query the WEF agenda. And, while the war in Ukraine took center stage during the WEF, climate change played the hero and economic recovery was the damsel in distress. Meanwhile, blockchain and cryptocurrency featured as — at the very least — a supporting role. As Soramitsu CEO Makoto Takemiya described during a Global Blockchain Business Council …