European Central Bank’s head (and former International Monetary Fund’s head) Christine Lagarde said that the stablecoins market is gaining momentum and the officials need to keep up with changes:“My personal conviction is that giving the developments we are seeing, not so much in the bitcoin segment, but in the stablecoins projects. And we only know of one at the moment but there are others, being explored and underway at the moment. We’d better be ahead of the curve if that happens. Because...
Read More »EU Wants to Compete with Facebook’s Libra Instead of Just Banning It
The G7 meeting participants state that things like stablecoins including Facebook‘s Libra should be strictly regulated and the risks connected with them are not yet studied well. Per EU lawmaker and a German conservative Markus Ferber:“At the very least, we need a robust regulatory framework to deal with virtual currencies. The (executive EU) Commission has been way too complacent on the issue so far. With the threat of Libra on the horizon, it is time for action now.”The draft text of the...
Read More »Lagarde and Cryptocurrency: Slowly but Surely?
Photo: Wikimedia CommonsI have big hopes for Christine Lagarde following her appointment as the new head of the European Central Bank. And here’s why (Warning: libertarian crypto enthusiasts should look away now).A company I co-founded held Bitcoin in the now-infamous Mt. Gox exchange. You may remember that back in 2013-14 it was the world’s leading Bitcoin exchange handling over 70% of all transactions worldwide. But in February 2014 things went horribly wrong as Mt. Gox suspended trading...
Read More »U.S. Congressmen Want the Federal Reserve to Consider a Digital Dollar
Even as the U.S. Congress bites down hard on Facebook and the social media giant’s grand plans of issuing its own digital currency, a recent event has corroborated the general idea that the problem with the Libra might not be the fact that it’s a digital currency itself, but that it’s being issued by Facebook. This is because, two Rep members have revealed concerns about the inevitability of digital currencies in the near future, suggesting that the United States should start getting used to...
Read More »Visa, Mastercard and Other Major Libra Backers Want to Pull Out from the Deal
Since its launch on June 18, 2019, Facebook’s Libra project has encountered mixed reactions. Now, four payment companies that had joined the social media giant as founding members of the Libra Association are hesitant. They have developed cold foot over whether to formally sign on to the crypto project. The issue was explained by people familiar with the matter.According to a new Bloomberg report, MasterCard, Visa, Stripe, and PayPal are allegedly stalling at officially joining the...
Read More »ECB Exec: Libra Could Address Global Payments System Problems
Speaking to the German federal parliament Bundestag on Wednesday, Benoit Coeure, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB) said that Facebook’s currency Libra could possibly fix some of the troubling issues that exist at the international payments market. However, he warned that, on the other hand, it might create other problems that will need regulators to act more liberal and creative. He said:“Libra has undoubtedly been a wakeup call for central banks and...
Read More »ECB Revives Plans for a Rival Coin to Libra & Bitcoin
It seems Facebook’s woes are starting to mount as the European Central Bank (ECB) revives plans to create its own digital currency in direct competition to Libra and bitcoin. Yet another Libra challenger steps up to the plate. This time, it isn’t China’s incipient central bank digital currency (CBDC) but instead a newly proposed CBDC from the ECB. According to Reuters, speaking at a news conference after a meeting of EU finance ministers in Helsinki, ECB board member Benoit Coeure noted that...
Read More »Europe, Led by France, Set to Block Facebook’s Libra
It seems that France decided to go rigorous on Facebook’s Libra by entirely blocking the development of it. When Facebook announced their Libra project in June this year, they called it a “global currency and financial infrastructure powered by a version of blockchain – the technology that underpins Bitcoin”.However, a lot of governments were really against even the idea and France was the harshest of them all. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire then called out on Libra saying it...
Read More »Incoming ECB President Advocates ‘Open’ Crypto Regulations
Incoming European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde advocates for an open approach to cryptocurrency regulation. | Image: ShutterstockChristine Lagarde, the chairman of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and presidential nominee for the European Central Bank (ECB), has urged regulators to remain “open” to the opportunities presented by distributed ledger technology when developing crypto regulations.During a statement delivered to the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the...
Read More »