Cryptocurrency penetration in Argentina grew by 12% in the last year, as the adoption of Bitcoin as a store of value for Argentines has increased. This and more news in this practical daily summary so that you are always informed with the most recent events that occur within the crypto world.
Bitcoin and Blockchain Adoption
📍Bitcoin becomes one of the main safe havens for Argentines. Despite the Central Bank of Argentina's ban on cryptocurrency and digital asset transactions, Argentines are turning to Bitcoin, the market's leading cryptocurrency, to protect its value amid rising inflation in the country.
According to a report by the consultancy firm Americas Market Intelligence (AMI), seen by Reuters, the cryptocurrency market in the South American country has grown 12% in the last year, with Argentina being one of the countries in the region where cryptocurrencies and digital assets have had the greatest penetration.
According to data from the Foreign Exchange Observatory, the Argentine peso, the country's fiat currency, has depreciated 62% against the US dollar since 2020.
NFT and DeFi Markets
📍Nike invests $35.000 USD to acquire the DotSwoosh.eth domain. The sportswear company continues to make inroads into the world of blockchain and Web3. Recently, Nike acquired the DotSwoosh.eth domain, bringing its total to nearly 10 Ethereum domain names to date. Although the company did not explain the purpose of this new domain acquisition, it is believed that Nike may have plans to create subdomains in the future.
The purchase of the DotSwoosh.eth domain was made through its subsidiary RFTKT.
CBDC and Central Banks
📍China has launched a new pilot of its CBDC digital currency for the yuan. The city of Shenzhen, in southeastern China, is once again the setting chosen by the country's Central Bank for a new pilot of the digital yuan or e-CNY. This time, the Chinese government and the central bank distributed 30 million yuan (about 4,5 million US dollars) to the citizens of Shenzhen.
China has long been known to give out digital red packets containing digital yuan to its citizens to encourage the use and adoption of the virtual currency issued by the central bank. The digital yuan was delivered to the city's residents via the Meituan e-commerce platform.
Miners and Node Validators
📍Bitcoin mining brings Kazakhstan 652 million tenge (about $1,53 million) in profits. The government of Kazakhstan, considered the third largest Bitcoin miner worldwide according to the CBECI, reported that these profits correspond to the crypto mining activity carried out in the first quarter of this year, when the government imposed new energy tariffs on BTC and other cryptocurrency miners, as part of its regulatory framework for the industry.
According to Press release According to a report published by the Kazakh government, Bitcoin miners are concentrated in 12 regions of the country, with Nur-Sultan, the Kazakh capital, being the region with the highest concentration of crypto miners. In the report, the government revealed that this region generated profits in the order of 277,3 million tenge (about $652.400 today).
The Kazakh government also reported that most of the amount of revenue expected for the first quarter was not received in the country's budget due to the policies imposed to ensure energy security, which forced several miners to disconnect from the electrical system in early October. The government also reported that it is studying a bill to increase the electricity tariff for crypto miners.
📍Russia, the world's fifth-largest Bitcoin miner, is seeking to recognize crypto mining as an industrial activity. Vasily Shpak, Russia's deputy minister of trade and industry, said that cryptocurrency mining consumes more than 2% of the total energy produced by the country. Because of this, the deputy minister urged agencies to regulate crypto mining and recognize it as an industrial activity.
According to Shpak, the current consumption of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency miners in the country is “more than the cost of electricity for agriculture.” Shpak spoke about the energy consumption of crypto miners during a speech on blockchain and crypto regulation this week.
Innovation, Development and Technology
📍Platzi, an online education platform, will train new Ethereum developers. Ethereum Developer Program is the new training program that the Latin American online education platform Platzi has prepared for its students. According to the platform, 100 students will be eligible for the training scholarship to learn how to develop Ethereum in Solidity from scratch.
Rules and Regulations
📍China should regulate stablecoins after UST disappears. Government outlet Economic Daily notes that China's government should regulate cryptocurrencies and stablecoins to protect investors following the debacle of the algorithmic stablecoin UST and the cryptocurrency LUNA, both from the Terra blockchain ecosystem. According to the newspaper, behind the apparent stability mechanisms of currencies such as UST many risks are hidden.
The sharp decline in UST and LUNA has caused multi-million dollar losses for crypto investors around the world. The Economic Daily's comments come just days after the official launch of a new algorithmic stablecoin, USDD, on the Tron network, which is practically a carbon copy of UST.
Continue reading: The United States wants to ban the use of the digital yuan
