China’s Central Bank Has Begun Expanding Its Digital Yuan
Top news in crypto this week from stack.money
China’s Central Bank Has Begun Expanding Its Digital Yuan Pilots Across 17 More Provinces
The People’s Bank of China will carry on with the expansion of the pilot program for its central bank digital currency (CBDC) after introducing it in 17 provinces.
The Financial association also stated that the central bank would carry on focusing on the creation of a system that lets customers scan with one code.
The bank has steadily expanded the scope as well as the presence of the CBDC over the past 18 months.
Furthermore, the bank is also looking to improve the use cases for the Digital Yuan, and it will introduce two core new features, such as offline payments and smart contract capabilities, to the CBDC.
Mastercard and Binance Announced the Launch of a Prepaid Card in Brazil, Latin America's Largest Economy
Mastercard Inc., as well as Binance, announced that they are launching a prepaid card in Brazil as part of the crypto giant's efforts towards broadening the connection between traditional finance as well as crypto.
Based on the statement, the Binance Card is in its beta-testing phase and will be widely available at some point throughout the following weeks. This makes Brazil the second country in Latin America to get it after Argentina.
Crypto Services Company Prime Trust Laid Off One-Third of Its Staff Due to the Impact of the Pandemic
The cust has impacted staff in Prime Trust's communications and compliance departments. The move has been characterized as a cost-cutting measure.
Prime Trust is a company that builds crypto and FIAT payment, custody as well, and regulation services for other crypto companies such as Swan, Abra, and Okcoin. A total of 2,900 crypto staff were cut loose across 14 crypto firms in January.
In the case of Prime Trust, the reduction would equate to an estimated 100 or so staff cut due to the fact that the company had 312 employees on Linkedin at the time of the announcement.
The Decentralized Twitter Alternative Went Live on Apple’s App Store
The Decentralized alternative to Twitter has gone live on Apple’s App Store. Specifically, Damus is built on a decentralized network, and the team confirmed its approval on the Apple App Store to its 11,500 Twitter followers on January 31, 2023, for the very first time.
Twitter co-founder and Nostr contributor Jack Dorsey shared the news with his 6.5 million followers.
The app has dubbed itself as a "social network you control" and is a messaging service built on Nostr, which is a decentralized network that enables encrypted, end-to-end private messaging, among other things.
BlackRock Has Increased Its Holdings in Silvergate to 7.2%, Which Is an Increase From the 5.9% Which Was Previously Reported
BlackRock is a global investment company that manages over $10 trillion of assets as of January 2022. The company increased its stake in Silvergate Bank, which is a crypto-friendly bank, to 7.2% based on a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on January 31.
After this announcement went live, the stock price of Silvergate Bank increased by 10.8% to over $13.50. BlackRock revealed that they own 2,285,197 SI shares, an increase over the past two years.