Crypto Land

2020-12-20 19:53:03 Bybit Jingle Brawl

This festive season, Bybit has launched the fun-filled Jingle Brawl - a BTCUSD trading competition.

Up to 25 BTC Prize Pool
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8 Sets of iPhone 12 Pro up for Grabs

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Registrations is ongoing till Dec. 22, 2020. And participants will only need a minimum equity of 0.01 BTC to join the competition, ending on Dec. 23, 2020.

Join Bybit Jingle Brawl Here Open / Comment

2020-12-10 20:00:54 ​​Clampdown on Crypto To Keep France In The Paleolithic Era Of Banking - MP

In what he called an attempt to dry the financing of terrorism, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has unveiled a regulation that is to enable the state to combat the anonymity of crypto transactions. Meanwhile, local crypto industry players and at least one politician accuse the ministry of potentially hampering the sector's development.

“It is regrettable that France is still distinguished within the EU by additional constraints. Why not instead put forward efforts made to simplify KYC whose bureaucratic rules date back to the Paleolithic and are benefiting the existing banking institutions,” Pierre Person, an MP from the ruling La République En Marche! (LREM) party, said.

In a more tongue-to-cheek fashion, Simon Polrot, President of France’s crypto asset industry association ADAN, tweeted that “France is making big waves in the international crypto press! Finally, we are promoting our superb national cryptocu… oh, no, we’re talking about the counterproductive KYC-AML measure of the day. Good job”.

Meanwhile, one Twitter user hailing from the French cryptosphere described the proposal as yet “another fight against the wrong opponent,” advising the Finance Ministry to instead focus its efforts on the country’s banks.


“Because of your 'repressive' measures against crypto companies, France will again miss a major technological shift, just like it missed the Internet shift in the early 2000s,” the user, who goes by the name of Yggdrasil, tweeted.

In a statement, the Ministry of the Economy, Finance and the Recovery said that “digital assets (cryptoassets) present important opportunities for the economy” but “last September’s dismantling in France of a terrorist financing network using digital asset transactions is a reminder of the existence of criminal undertakings against which it is necessary to fight.”

“This is why the government wishes to promote the development of cryptoassets under the best conditions of security and attractiveness,” the ministry claims. “New regulatory provisions will be presented with the aim to accelerate the launch of digital identification solutions for digital asset transactions.”

Among others, the ministry is to enforce new obligations on crypto exchanges and custody services. These will be related to the assessment of money laundering and terrorism financing risks related to crypto transactions, know your customer (KYC) measures, seizing assets suspected of serving criminal ends, but also increased cooperation with the French intelligence services. Open / Comment

2020-12-07 20:00:35 ​​Venezuela Paying Iranian, Turkish Companies in Bitcoin.

With crypto prices still sky-high, it appears that Venezuela’s ruling Nicolás Maduro administration has been looking to make hay while the sun shines – and is already starting to pay companies in Turkey and Iran in bitcoin (BTC), making use of a large state-owned stash of BTC and ethereum (ETH), with crypto prices still soaring.

Unnamed “sources at the Central Bank of Venezuela” have stated that “payments to companies from allied countries such as Iran and Turkey have been made using bitcoin.”

The country, which has developed its own cryptoasset, the petro – reportedly backed by unbarrelled oil reserves – has found itself in a deepening financial crisis as a combination of American sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic have taken their toll on the Venezuelan economy.

But Maduro appears to have sanctioned a range of crypto business channels in an effort to bypass sanctions – and if the Central Bank is to be believed, there is now no shortage of takers of Venezuelan BTC in the international community.

The same sources stated that President Maduro is making use of its recently passed “Anti-Blockade Law,” a piece of legislation that allows the Venezuelan executive to authorize “the creation and implementation of any kind of financial mechanism” for payments, including “cryptoassets and tokens based on blockchain technology.”

Earlier this year, Tareck El Aissami, the Venezuelan Vice President and Minister of the Economy, announced that the state would begin creating a system of farm subsidies and loans backed by a “basket” of cryptoassets including the petro and other more popular international tokens. Open / Comment