The Chinese government appears to be working to establish uniform national standards for blockchain technology. As the Chinese government announced, they want to promote blockchain and generally distributed ledger technologies in China. To this end, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has already initiated measures, such as a seminar with representatives from business and society.
A statement from Benoît Cœuré and Jacqueline Loh states that Bitcoin is a "challenge" as banks fail to provide appropriate international money transfer options for consumers. Bitcoin exposes an old vulnerability in our current system: cross-border retail payments. Nevertheless, cryptocurrencies can not replace central bank money. Cœuré is a member of the ECB Governing Board and Chairman of the Payment and Market Infrastructure Committee of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Loh is chair of the BIS Market Committee.
In his role as chairman of the Thai Fintech Association, Korn Chatikavanij advocates the regulation of cryptocurrencies. The former Minister of Finance supports the proposal of the Thai Financial Market Authority SEC to issue a rulebook.
The Central Bank of Malaysia made a special announcement. For example, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) took action against the blockchain project Coinzer, which recently launched an ICO. The logo of the coin contained the BNM logo, the Malaysian arms and the 14-pointed star of Malaysia, and thus falsely linked to the Malaysian state.
The comparatively high energy consumption of cryptocurrency mining has not passed the EU Commission. As noted by Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, mining is not banned by any EU law. However, it falls under the EU case law on energy efficiency and climate protection.
Cloud Mining Service Genesis Mining has been ordered to cease operations in the state of South Carolina following an injunction issued on March 9. The order mentions Genesis and a second company, Swiss Gold Global Inc. The mining contracts entered into are classified as securities by the Securities Commission of South Carolina; However, Swiss Gold Global, which acted as broker-dealer for Genesis, was not registered in the state to offer these securities.
Putin adviser Sergey Glazyev doubts the security of Russian deposits in Western banks. That's why he brings a blockchain-based digital currency into play for the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union. This would circumvent the sanctions against Russia, which would greatly unsettle the global banking sector.
The Australian Tax Office has officially warned the Australian public about scams calling for tax payments in cryptocurrencies. Apparently, there had been a number of cases in which a telephone call tax back payments in Bitcoin were required. Concerned citizens should be treated with extreme caution of such demands, as these are not covered by the tax authority.
In a new bill, Senator Leila de Lima proposes to the Senate a higher penalty for crypto-crimes than what the Philippine Penal Code provides. Specifically, the Senator pointed to illegal activities related to crypto-currency, such as bribery of officials in Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies for child pornography, and scam scams by uninformed investors.
The Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities and Investment dealt with the key issues surrounding cryptocurrency and Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) at a hearing held this week entitled "Review of Cryptocurrencies and ICO Markets". Different perspectives of the regulatory authorities were revealed. For example, the SEC, which handles securities transactions, views cryptocurrencies as securities, while the CFTC, which fully controls commodity derivative transactions, claims that tokens are commodities.
