Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has announced the commencement of its e-HKD pilot which “will take deep dives into potential use cases in six categories.” The pilot paves the way for “the possible implementation of a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC),” the central banking institution explained. Pilot Program for e-HKD Begins The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced Thursday “the commencement of the e-HKD Pilot Programme.” The central banking institution revealed that 16 firms from the financial, payment, and technology sectors have been selected to participate in the first round of e-HKD pilots for 2023. The HKMA detailed: The pilots will take deep dives into potential use cases in six categories, including full-fledged payments, programmable payments, offline payments, tokenized deposits, settlement of Web3 transactions, and settlement of tokenized assets. “The HKMA will conduct a series of pilots in close collaboration with various stakeholders to ex...

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has announced that Venezuela will shift away from using U.S. dollars in trade, emphasizing that the de-dollarization process is “inevitable.” He described: “This is the path of Venezuela and the path of a free economy where currencies are not used to punish countries and impose sanctions.” Venezuela Shifting Away From USD in Trade The president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, said on his weekly “Con Maduro +” program earlier this week that Venezuela will shift away from using the U.S. dollar in trade. Commending Zimbabwe for its initiative to issue gold-backed digital currency, he said (as translated from Spanish by Google): Many alternative initiatives to the dollar are emerging in the world. We could say that we are beginning to experience a sustained accelerated process of de-dollarization of the commercial world — of world trade. He added that it would be good for Venezuela to study these initiatives, emphasizing that the process of de-doll...

Interest rate hikes in the euro area are already causing a decline in housing investment, the zone’s central bank revealed in a study. While smaller than in the United States, the impact of the monetary policy tightening on the Old Continent is likely to grow further, the regulator expects. Housing Investment in Europe Declining Amid ECB’s Rate Increases The series of rate hikes announced by the European Central Bank (ECB) is already depressing housing spending across the eurozone, the monetary authority has established in a study , the results of which were published on its website on Wednesday. The findings come after in early May the ECB raised its key interest rates by 25 basis points (bps), slowing the pace from previous increases. The bank has raised them by a total of 375 bps since last July, Reuters noted in a report. The impact of the rate hikes on home purchases in Europe is likely to increase in the future, although it will remain smaller than that in the United States...

Sleeping Bitcoin Wallet Awakens: $3.7M Worth of BTC Suddenly Moves After Close to 12 Years of Dormancy  Court documents filed on May 17, 2023, reveal that current executives overseeing FTX and its subsidiary, Alameda Research, have initiated a lawsuit against Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX, Nishad Singh, FTX’s former director of engineering, and Zixiao “Gary” Wang, co-founder of FTX. The legal action stems from the exchange’s ambitious FTX Stocks project, which was being pursued alongside the acquisition agreement with Embed, a stock clearing service. Legal Battle Ensues as FTX Executives Accuse Former CEOs of Fraud in Relation to FTX Stocks Venture Representatives for FTX Limited and the subsidiaries Alameda Research and West Realm Shires (WRS) are suing three former FTX executives over a deal the company now believes is “worthless.” Prior to FTX’s bankruptcy protection filing, Bankman-Fried, Singh, and Wang allegedly purchased a stock clearing firm and FINRA-license...

Between 2017 and 2022, hacking groups affiliated with North Korea are thought to have stolen crypto assets worth $721 million from Japan alone. According to the findings of a study by Elliptic, hackers were primarily focused on Japan and Vietnam because operators from the two countries had lax security systems. Japan Losses Equivalent to 30% of the Global Total According to the findings of a study conducted by the blockchain intelligence firm Elliptic, North Korea coordinated cyber attacks targeting Japanese crypto assets netted $721 million worth of digital assets between 2022 and 2017. This figure is equivalent to 30% of total global losses that have been attributed to North Korea-affiliated hacker groups. As per the report in Nikkei Asia, which commissioned the study, the value of crypto assets stolen from Japan alone is 8.8 times more than North Korea’s 2021 export figure. While the cyber attackers are thought to have targeted several countries, the Nikkei report suggested tha...

Authorities in Pakistan intend to prohibit all internet-based crypto services despite significant digital-asset investments made by Pakistanis. The decision comes as government officials in Islamabad take a strong stance against the legalization of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Crypto ‘Will Never Be Legalized in Pakistan,’ Minister Tells Senators Pakistan’s government announced on Wednesday its decision to suspend cryptocurrency services offered online in the country, local media reported. One of the declared goals of the measure is to prevent illegal transactions with digital assets. The State Bank of Pakistan ( SBP ) and the Ministry of Information Technology have already started working on banning cryptocurrencies, Minister of State for Finance Aisha Ghaus Pasha revealed during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue. Cryptocurrency will “never be legalized in Pakistan,” Pasha insisted, quoted by the News International daily. She cited requirements by...

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva has announced that state oil company Petrobras will not be using US dollar-based international prices to set its internal fuel pricing structure. The “Brazilianization” of the industry determines discounts for distributors, with prices now being determined by other benchmarks. Brazilian President ‘Lula’ Announces New Fuel Pricing Structure; Abandons U.S. Dollar Import Parity Peg Brazilian President Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva has announced the establishment of a new price policy for fuel and oil derivates in the country on Tuesday, breaking away from the import parity for prices pegged to the US dollar. Petrobras, Brazil’s state oil company, will now use different benchmarks to set its fuel and diesel prices for distributors. The measure, which was part of Lula’s presidential campaign promises, was called a “victory for the people” by the president. Lula informed that prices of fuel and diesel would be lowered by more than 12%, while...