An overview of current news in the crypto space

In our digest, we took a look at some important crypto industry news over the past week:

1. VTB introduced a digital ruble withdrawal feature at ATMs
2. Nabiullina said that testing of the digital ruble is going according to plan
3. CertiK: Q3 saw the lowest number of cryptocurrencies issued in three years
4. Pavel Durov spent $200,000 in TON to draw premium subscriptions
5. CEO of Roblox gaming platform hopes for NFT implementation soon

Now for more details. Reading time: 6 minutes.

1. “VTB was the first among Russian banks to develop a technology for withdrawing digital rubles through ATMs and presented it at the Finopolis-2023 forum of innovative financial technologies,” the company said.The function will be available to participants in the bank’s digital ruble pilot. It will be possible to receive money at any of the bank’s 14,000 ATMs.
   “The digital ruble is a new form of national currency, which in the future will become an additional means for payments and transfers to the usual cash and non-cash rubles. So far, it is being tested on real transactions by the banks participating in the project, after which the project will be launched on a mass scale. In order to make it understandable for users, it is necessary to prepare the entire infrastructure in advance,” said Georgy Gorshkov, Deputy President and Chairman of the Management Board of VTB.At present, Russia is actively developing a digital ruble. The national digital currency should become one of the factors to curb the influence of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins on the Russian economy. Earlier, Alexei Moiseyev said that the digital ruble will become the “cash” of the XXII century.However, economists at the Central Bank of Russia are confident that cryptocurrencies and stablecoins could pose a threat and even displace national fiat currencies if there is a lack of regulation.
2. Speaking at the Finopolis forum, Central Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina said that the pilot testing of the digital ruble is proceeding according to plan. The Bank of Russia plans to expand the pilot project in 2024, and in 2025 to move to its mass implementation.

   Now the testing of the digital ruble is going according to plan. Our plans for next year – to expand this pilot in terms of the number of participants and types of operations, – said the head of the Central Bank.Also Nabiullina said that technologically the Central Bank is ready for international operations with the digital ruble, but much depends on partners.Earlier, First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia Olga Skorobogatova reported that 13 Russian banks began testing the digital ruble. She noted that several thousand transactions have been carried out, including transfers between banks, payment for goods and services in trade and service enterprises.

3. The rate of new cryptocurrency creation has fallen to its lowest point in three years, according to analysts at CertiK, an audited blockchain company. Excluding meme tokens, only 293 new coins were added to the CoinMarketCap aggregator in Q3. By comparison, at the peak of the bull market in Q4 2021, there were 1,261 new coins.

   The figures are consistent with other reports on the state of the crypto market. Experts at Mike Novogratz’s investment firm Galaxy Digital previously said that venture capital funding for cryptocurrency and blockchain projects in Q3 fell to its lowest level since late 2020.

   Analyst Colin Wu reported that venture funding for crypto projects fell 20% in October. 340 million dollars went to 75 projects, including Web 3.0 (24), infrastructure (18), DeFi (16), NFT/GameFi (10) and CeFi (7).

   According to CertiK co-founder Ronghui Gu, the company’s survey results point to the continuation of the cryptozyme. Thus, projects may have suspended development and postponed launches while waiting for the crypto market to recover

   At the same time, analysts of the investment company CoinShares noted an inflow of funds into investment crypto products for the 6th week in a row. The figure reached 767 million dollars, exceeding the results for the whole of 2022 and setting a record since the end of the bull market in December 2021.

4. “In honor of our new feature, I’m hosting a giveaway for 10,000 Telegram Premium subscriptions. In one week, 10,000 random subscribers to my channel will receive a Telegram Premium subscription for 6 months I have already prepaid for this giveaway to the tune of $200,000 in TON,” Durov wrote in his channel.

   The other day, Durov commented on the success of the TON blockchain, which recently set a world record for transaction speed. The Telegram founder said that the company did the right thing by choosing TON as Telegram’s blockchain platform.Earlier, Durov said that he bought some bonds to finance the social network’s further growth and admitted that he keeps bitcoins and TON tokens in his crypto accounts.

5. Online gaming platform Roblox already earns hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter by selling its own digital currency that players use to purchase assets on its closed platform.

   Founder and CEO David Basuki envisions that the Roblox ecosystem will eventually be open to the use of non-replaceable tokens on its platform as well as others.

   “For example, we believe that someday… I use a fun use case where Elton John can come to Roblox and make, like, eight or ten one-piece really cool capes, and sell them to donate money to charity. Maybe someday they’ll leave the platform as NFT and be sold and then come back to the platform.”

   Through interoperability, digital assets like NFTs can work and function on a variety of platforms. And this is a significant difference from closed ecosystems where an avatar or item only works on one specific platform.

   The introduction of NFT on the Roblox platform, which currently has over 70 million daily active users, will be a truly revolutionary event for the entire crypto sector.

   Thank you for being with us. Crypto industry news on Bit.team – always up to date.