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. The issuance of the CFA, which is a digital debt of PR-Leasing with a yield of 14% p.a., took place in October 2023 on the Atomize platform. Its volume amounted to 50 million rubles. The instrument is now available to all types of retail investors.

   “The launch of CFA rating is an important event, which indicates that the CFA market is entering a phase of maturity, when this instrument becomes measurable and understandable and is fully integrated into the financial market landscape. In turn, this creates prerequisites for more mass development of CFAs”, – said Ekaterina Frolovicheva, CEO of Atomize.

   Rosbank recently issued the first hybrid digital rights (HDRs) for gold on Atomize, which, when redeemed, allow to receive either cash or bullion. Previously, issues of digital financial assets were linked to the value of gold and did not offer the option to redeem them in bullion.

   Also, VTB Bank (MCX:VTBR), which is actively involved in the digital ruble pilot, recently introduced a prototype of cross-border B2B transfers in digital rubles from Russia to Belarus.

2. Cryptocurrency exchange CommEX starts accepting Russian rubles for deposits and withdrawals from client deposits, as well as opening spot trading in the USDT/RUB pair. In addition, from November 15, 2023 to January 31, 2024, Binance community members who have a fiat balance in Russian rubles on the trading platform will be able to transfer their funds to CommEX without commission.

   As a welcome campaign, CommEX will cancel all commissions on spot trading in the USDT/RUB pair between now and December 7, 2023.

   “Our goal is to make cryptocurrency trading as convenient and accessible as possible. That’s why CommEX is expanding opportunities for users and adding a new channel for depositing balances using Russian rubles” – said Anton Toroptsev, CommEX Regional Director for Russia and CIS.

   To top up their balance, users need to:

   ● Enter the “Wallet” – “Wallet Overview” section, having previously authorized in their CommEX account.
   ● Select a fiat deposit method and specify the desired deposit amount.
   ● Optionally: choose your preferred bank from the list (the field can be left unchanged, the choice of bank does not affect the amount of commission).
   ● Bank transfer of the previously specified amount according to the received details within 15 minutes after receiving the details.

   The minimum deposit amount is 500 rubles, the maximum one-time transfer amount is 300,000 rubles, the maximum daily limit for fiat deposit is 3 million rubles. Commission for fiat deposit is 3% of the transfer amount. Funds are credited to the user’s fiat balance within 15 minutes after the transfer is made. Withdrawal of funds in Russian rubles is carried out in the same way:

   ● Authorize in the account – “Wallet” – “Wallet overview” – “Withdrawal” – “Fiat withdrawal”.
   ● Fill in the “Withdrawal amount” field.
   ● Specify the bank card number to receive the transfer and the recipient’s full name.

   The minimum withdrawal amount is 1,000 rubles, the maximum single withdrawal amount is 300,000 rubles, the maximum daily limit for fiat withdrawal is 1,500,000 rubles. Commission for fiat withdrawal is 1.8% of the transfer amount. The maximum withdrawal time in rubles does not exceed half an hour and takes 7-10 minutes on average.
   “The launch of the deposit and withdrawal service from user balances in Russian rubles is another step towards the fulfillment of CommEX’s mission, which we see as an opportunity for any user to get convenient access to trading opportunities on the cryptocurrency market” – emphasized Anton Toroptsev, CommEX Regional Director for Russia and CIS.

3. Representatives of the organization told the publication that the bank’s client received the service on Sber’s (MCX:SBER) blockchain platform. The user initiated the smart contract with a transaction from an e-wallet.

   According to Sber’s CEO Herman Gref, blockchain will develop very fast in the near future. He added that tokenization and digitalization of resources could account for up to 10% of global GDP by 2030.

   Recently, VTB Bank (MCX:VTBR), which is actively participating in the digital ruble pilot, unveiled a prototype of cross-border B2B transfers in digital rubles from Russia to Belarus. VTB also announced that it has developed a technology for withdrawing digital rubles from ATMs in Russia.

4. Sam Altman, director of OpenAI, said that his firm’s employees are preparing to develop a new version of ChatGPT GPT-5.

   Altman declined to provide technical details of the project, but noted that experts have not yet begun to train the model based on artificial intelligence (AI). At the current stage, experts are thinking about the AI training methodology, compiling an information base and customizing annotators that will describe the data and leave comments.

   Sam Altman

   OpenAI employees are assisted in their search for relevant information by a search bot called GPTBot, which was launched over the summer. It collects and analyzes publicly available data uploaded to the Internet. The web crawler ignores paid content and information that violates OpenAI policy; accordingly, materials for training artificial intelligence will initially be censored.

   Sam has promised to delay the development of a more advanced version of the virtual assistant, thus fulfilling the request of Ilon Musk, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen and many others in the tech industry who have called for the creation of advanced AI to be put on pause for security reasons. For this reason, the release of GPT-5 may not happen for a while.

5. The Disney Pinnacle platform will be powered by Flow, a first-level blockchain developed by Dapper Labs. The developers promise to tokenize iconic Disney and Pixar characters, as well as various heroes and villains from the Star Wars universe. These characters will be represented as unique digital icons that users will be able to collect. The platform is scheduled to launch later this year. It will be available via iOS on Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) App Store, Android on Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Play Store and online.

   “Fans of these characters from anywhere in the world will be able to collect interactive badges on their phone and securely trade them with each other. All transactions will be instantaneous. The collaboration with Disney will combine traditional entertainment and blockchain, and people will have a new way to interact with their favorite characters,” said Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou.

   Disney decided to launch the new platform after discontinuing its meta-universe development and exploration division. The closure was due to restructuring to reduce operating expenses by $5.5 billion.The company laid off about 7,000 employees within two months.Recall that last year, Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) announced that it was looking for employees to develop new technology projects related to NFT and decentralized finance (DeFi).

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