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Libra was the final wake-up call for central banks that prompted serious consideration of digital currency issuances, according to the head of the BIS Innovation Hub.

The potential economic impact of a shift to widespread remote working is a matter of risk management: Authorities should be mapping out scenarios.

Payments for passport renewals and name changes are being processed by Coinbase Commerce.

Quick Take

• The top 10 staking networks by value participating in staking include Polkadot, Cardano, Tezos, EOS, Algorand, Cosmos, Avalanche, Tron, Band Protocol, and Synthetix
• There is roughly $12 billion in aggregate, taking part in staking on the top 10 largest staking networks by staking value

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Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) will replace cash in the long term, according to Deutsche Bank’s research team.

In its latest edition of the “Konzept” periodical, published Tuesday, the bank said the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the use of digital payments over cash and the trend will eventually lead to CBDCs taking over cash.

However, many countries are behind in their progress for digital currencies, according to Marion Laboure, a macro strategist at Deutsche Bank. Laboure said countries such as China and Sweden are leading the digital currency development, but if other countries do not catch up, “they may find that their companies are forced to adopt the digital currencies and policies of other countries as payment mediums.”

The U.S. and Europe, in particular, need to catch up, according to Laboure. She said their development in the area is “too slow.” Both the countries have been studying CBDCs, but do not appear to be in a rush to issue one.

Laboure said developed nations need to overcome two key challenges for insurance and adoption of CBDCs: Low interest rates and cultural/ privacy norms.

CBDCs could help in today’s environment of negative real interest rates, according to Laboure. “That is because consumers currently have little incentive to deposit or save money. So, moving cash from under the mattress into a bank account is unlikely to happen (at scale) in the near term,” said Laboure.

“Similarly, with bank accounts paying low-interest rates, a CBDC could help disintermediate the banking system. People might choose to hold their money directly at the central bank.”

As for privacy, Laboure said perspectives on this topic vary from culture to culture. In China, for instance, only a tenth of Deutsche Bank’s survey participants reported concerns about anonymity and traceability. People in advanced economies, on the other hand, “are more worried about privacy,” said Laboure, citing the survey.

While CBDC developments will take time, countries should prioritize their digital payment systems in the meanwhile, according to Laboure. European nations, for instance, must have an independent European payment solution, similar to Sweden’s Swish, said Laboure.

“On a region-by-region basis, the penetration of the smartphone, the rollout of 5G technology, and the advance of digital ledger technology, or blockchain, could all disrupt traditional card payment systems,” said Laboure.

© 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The new title and logo suggest Ripple has another payments product in the works.

The Chinese government cracks down on the crypto exchanges (again), but Binance has been benefiting.

Axelar is a decentralized protocol designed by the founding members of Algorand to make it easier for dapps to work across blockchains.

With the launch, BitPay now provides a new alternative to crypto payroll services such as BitWage.

Crypto exchange Binance has launched an Ethereum mining pool, seven months after launching a Bitcoin mining pool.

The expansion means Binance Pool users can now also mine ether (ETH), in addition to bitcoin (BTC). Binance will charge a 0.5% pool fee for ETH mining, half of what its competitors are charging. Ethermine and SparkPool, for instance, levy a 1% fee for ETH mining rewards.

For the first month, however, i.e., up to December 12, Binance would charge no fee for ETH mining. That means users can connect their Ethereum hash power to Binance Pool and earn rewards without sharing any commission with the exchange.

Binance’s Ethereum mining pool uses the full pay-per-share (FPPS) method for reward payouts, similar to its Bitcoin mining pool. This method distributes block rewards, as well as transaction fees to miners.

It remains to be seen whether Binance’s Ethereum mining pool gains similar traction as its Bitcoin mining pool, especially when Ethereum is set to move from a proof-of-work mining system to a proof-of-stake system in the near future. Binance’s Bitcoin mining pool had about 7% of the network’s hashrate in October, according to tracker BTC.com. 

© 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.