Overview of current news of the crypto-space

In our digest, we looked at several important news in the crypto-industry over the past week:

1. SPB Exchange received CFA issuer status;
2. Russian regions will soon be able to issue their own CFA;
3. The Russian State Duma passed a bill establishing the procedure for the inheritance of the digital ruble;
4. Russian authorities are planning to legalize cryptocurrencies, but will introduce strict control;
5. Pawnshops in Russia began to be interested in cryptocurrency and other digital financial assets as collateral;
6. Tether released USDT on the Kava blockchain;
7. Halving passed successfully in Dash cryptocurrency;

Bit.team exchange updated its rules and listing ranking system.

Now for more details. Reading time: 10 minutes.

1. St. Petersburg Exchange has been granted the status of a CFA issuer listed in the register of information system operators for the issuance of digital financial assets by the Bank of Russia. This means that SPB Exchange can issue digital financial assets, but they must be traded only on the platform that issued them. According to the current legislation, CFA issued by the platform must be traded only on it, so the platform needs to separate exchange operations and token trading.
   In addition to SPB Moscow Exchange, Atomyze, Lighthouse, Sberbank, Alfa Bank, Masterchain and Eurofinance Mosnarbank also hold licenses to issue CFA in Russia. The volume of CFA market in Russia at the moment is about 20 billion rubles, of which 17 billion are transactions made in 2023, according to VTB data.
   SPB Moscow Exchange became the eighth CFA issuer and the only trading floor to obtain the status of a CFA issuer entered in the register of the Bank of Russia. This gives it a competitive advantage on the market of digital financial assets in Russia. However, the launch of secondary trading on the exchange infrastructure is not yet possible, as the Central Bank has not yet entered any organization in the register of CFA exchange operators.
   In this connection, SPE Exchange is “actively involved in discussions and preparation of proposals to change the current regulation to start CFA circulation in organized trading. Access of a wider range of investors to such assets may revive the CFA market in Russia and lead to the development of this segment.
   Thus, SPEX receiving the CFA issuer status is an important event for the digital financial assets market in Russia. However, the development of this segment requires changes in the current regulation so that the circulation of CFA in organized trading becomes possible.
2. Russian regions will soon be able to issue their own CFA. Deputies of the State Duma are planning to introduce legislative amendments by the end of June, which will allow regions to issue digital financial assets on their own, in order to raise funds and their further use in the relevant areas. The volume of issued CFA at the moment is about 3 billion rubles. Anatoly Aksakov, head of the State Duma Committee on Financial Market, said that he expected much more, but believes that the process will go much faster in the second half of this year. He also said that there is no critical difference between CFA and futures for an ordinary investor. Companies that have already issued CFA’s can use their operating systems to create new assets, and industry representatives should make an effort to create attractive CFA’s.
3. The State Duma passed a bill establishing the procedure for inheriting the digital ruble. According to the new law, the digital ruble refers to non-cash funds and may be passed on to heirs by will. The heirs will also be able to receive digital rubles from the testator’s account for funeral arrangements. New rules of inheritance of the digital national currency are introduced in the Civil Code. At the same time, the order of conclusion and termination of the agreement on the use of digital rubles, operations and transactions with it are established. Funds in the digital wallet may be divided between spouses and bequeathed to children and grandchildren. The document should come into force on August 1, 2023, and the government and the Bank of Russia should develop a procedure for making bequests of the digital ruble.
4. Russian authorities are planning to legalize cryptocurrencies, but will introduce strict control over their use. This was announced by Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Market at the Cheboksary Economic Forum. He noted that after the legalization of cryptocurrencies, all operations with digital assets will be “under the hood” to avoid abuses. Despite this, cryptocurrencies can be used for international payments. A package of laws to regulate cryptocurrencies is due to be passed this October. Four bills related to cryptocurrencies are already scheduled to pass in July. Cryptocurrency players are ready to work in the legal space and are waiting for the legalization of digital assets in Russia, as foreign banks are wary of interacting with Russian banks and making settlements with Russia.
5. Pawnshops in Russia have become interested in cryptocurrency and other digital financial assets as collateral. Recall that industry representatives believe that cryptocurrencies can be used in the same way as traditional gold. Neolombard appealed to the Bank of Russia to clarify the possibility of accepting cryptocurrencies as collateral, and received a positive response. Despite this, the regulator and experts are still doubtful about the prospects of this idea. The industry is confident that access to cryptocurrency will provide an influx of clients from the mining industry. The benefit for clients is in the prompt resolution of everyday financial issues without having to sell the asset urgently at unfavorable prices, and for active investors, attracting additional money against collateral allows them to build an effective margin position. However, the issue is the legal regulation of the product. Digital currencies are recognized as assets only for the purposes of the federal anti-money laundering, insolvency and anti-corruption laws.
6. Tether, the company that launched the first and most widely used stabelcoin, announced the release of USDT on the Kava Tier 1 blockchain. The new network was chosen for its functionality and security. Kava combines the flexibility of the Ethereum virtual machine with speed, low transaction fees and interoperability with the Cosmos SDK. The stablecoin issuer is already running on several networks such as Ethereum, Solana, Algorand, Avalanche, EOS, Near and Tron. This new development confirms Tether’s position as the most widely accepted stablecoin. At the time of writing, USDT had a capitalization of $83.2 billion and hit all-time highs in June.
7. Halving in the cryptocurrency Dash was successful. Miners’ remuneration per mined block decreased from 2.49 to 2.3097 coins. The hash rate is 3.38 PH/s, and the current mining complexity is 125.47 M. At the time of writing, DASH is trading at $34.73 per day on the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, adding 1.7% per day and 16% per week, according to aggregator CoinGecko. Halving occurred at a block height of 1,892,161 and is a 7.14% decrease in miners’ reward per block each year.
   Dash is among the securities classified by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in lawsuits against the exchanges Binance and Coinbase. In this regard, broker eToro announced a delisting of the asset for U.S. clients. In addition, Binance delisted all anonymous cryptocurrencies, including DASH, for users in France, Italy, Spain and Poland due to local legal requirements.
   The next halving in DASH will take place on July 7, 2024. After that, the reward per block will be 2.1448 DASH, down from 2.3097 DASH.
   Halving in Litecoin cryptocurrency is expected around August 5. The reward will decrease from 12.5 to 6.25 LTC. Analysts attribute this event to a 6.5% increase in LTC value per day.
   Halving in bitcoin will occur on April 27, 2024. It is planned that the reward for mining a block will be 3.125 at the current reward of 6.25.
8. Bit.team has updated its rules and ad ranking system. The new rules aim to make the market more fair for all participants and reduce the monopoly of the big players. Now, ads are not prioritized based on age and time of the last revision, and ads are sorted by price. A user with a new ad after 72 hours gets into direct sorting using the CMC, Binance, CG rate link. Additional deal protection rules have been simplified and now in case of several simultaneous deals, you can choose only one without getting a penalty. The exchange has also removed additional checks and reduced the influence of user rating, account status and % of successful transactions on the position in the output. Bit.team hopes that the new rules will make the market more fair for all participants and increase competition.

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