Crypto Ban

Crypto advocacy group Coin Center has slammed the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) with a lawsuit. The think tank cites the Treasury’s blacklist of privacy protocol Tornado Cash as the reason for the suit. According to the filing, Coin Center claims the ban was harmful to US-based users and stood in the way of private transactions on the Ethereum network.  Coin Center Shares Privacy Concerns On October 12, Coin Center filed a lawsuit against the Treasury…

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill into law preventing the use of digital assets as a means of payment According to the explanatory note on the draft law, the bill prevents “the use of digital financial assets… as a means of payment.” Specifically, it establishes a direct ban on the “transfer or acceptance of” digital financial assets as compensation for work, goods, or services. The note reinforces the primacy of the ruble as Russia’s official monetary unit.  “This article…

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka says crypto poses too much legal and financial security risk.   In a public release this Tuesday, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) has once more retained its anti-crypto stand. It publicly warned Sri Lankans that the government does not consider digital currencies a viable investment option. The release stated that the central bank has no regulations to protect crypto investors in place. Furthermore, the government had not authorized any exchanges to operate…

The position of the Russian regulator has become increasingly restrictive towards cryptocurrencies in 2021. By the start of 2022, we have received several reports of further legislative moves that Moscow is allegedly studying. The positions on the issue in the country are different, and, to date, the direction of the policymakers is unclear. In this article, we provide an overview of the situation, reporting the opinion of several prominent people on this topic. An evolving situation At the moment, in…

Throughout 2021 we have seen a series of crypto bans coming from Asian countries. Last year, some countries decided to adopt Bitcoin as legal digital currencies, while others chose to ban cryptocurrencies investments. Worldwide decisions from policymakers have affected the price of leading cryptocurrencies. While it is difficult to predict what will happen in 2022, some trends already seem visible in many economies. This article will summarize what we saw in 2021. Also, it tries to read between the lines…

India's crypto future remains uncertain. Crypto remains a heated topic in India as the new bill appears to be delayed again. The bill is listed for the winter session of the Parliament, which will end on Dec. 23. It is unlikely that the bill will pass by that time. Moreover, a similar statement was also listed for earlier sessions this year. The government is reportedly considering more changes to the proposed bill. However, sources also cited needing more time to…

The Russian Central Bank is seeking to ban crypto investments. Reports say that Russian monetary authorities are concerned with a growing number of crypto transactions. Namely, they see these transactions as a risk for economic stability. Moreover, authorities are concerned with the supposed use of crypto in money laundering. For years, Russian authorities spoke out against crypto. The central bank spoke about the risk of its use for money laundering and terrorism. In 2020, Russia gave crypto legal status but banned…

Bitcoin has seen a significant strengthening of its mining network in recent months. The network's hash rate has almost completely recovered from China's crackdown on mining. The hash rate is a measure of the total computational power that contributes to mining Bitcoin. A hash is a fixed-length alphanumeric code that miners have to solve to process BTC transactions. We measure the hash rate in exahashes (1 quintillion hashes) per second (EH/s). The hash rate is also a rough measure of…

India may issue a blanket ban on all cryptos, statements from top officials indicate. However, the government is drafting a new bill that would allow for the private use of cryptos. Just last week, the country introduced a Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021. The bill spooked investors, as it was identical to the draft of the 2019 bill to ban crypto. The bill wrote that it intended to "create a facilitative framework" for India's official digital currency. To…