THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

  • Bitcoin adopted as legal tender by Central Africa. The republic's lawmakers voted unanimously to pass a bill legalizing crypto. Bitcoin will be considered legal tender alongside the regional Central African CFA franc. The CAR is the second nation in the world to make bitcoin legal tender after El Salvador did so last year. The move could help small countries like the CAR reduce their dependence on the U.S. dollar for global trade.

  • Fidelity to offer Bitcoin in 401(k) plans. The product won’t be a mutual fund. Instead, each plan sponsor would have a separate account for employees. The accounts would hold both Bitcoin and short-term money-market investments for liquidity. The Bitcoin would be custodied by Fidelity on its digital assets platform. The firm said it would charge between 0.75% and 0.90% in annual fees for administration, custody, and accounting.

  • First combined gold-bitcoin ETP launches in Europe. It has launched on the SIX Swiss Exchange. The fund will rebalance monthly based on 360-day historic volatility, with the less volatile asset having a higher weighting in an attempt to maximise risk-weighted returns. In reality, this means gold tends to dominate the portfolio, with a weighting of between 70 and 90%. Read more here.

  • Fort Worth is the first city in the U.S. to mine bitcoin. Mayor Mattie Parker oversaw the construction of a small mining farm in City Hall. Three Bitmain Antminer S9 mining rigs will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in the climate-controlled information technology wing of Fort Worth City Hall. The city says the miners will be hosted on a private network to minimize the security risk.

  • Grayscale targets European financial hub for crypto expansion. The fund manager, whose $36bn of assets are invested in funds tracking digital tokens such as bitcoin and ethereum, is holding a series of meetings with possible partners. A move into Europe comes as the UK and EU step up their efforts to lay out a regulatory framework that will both protect investors.

  • Finland picks brokers to liquidate its $75 million Bitcoin hoard. The brokers are set to sell the cryptocurrency during the spring and early summer, Finnish Customs said in an emailed statement on Thursday after signing two-year contracts with Coinmotion Oy and Tesseract Group Oy. The Customs has 1,981 Bitcoins, of which it will now sell 1,890. The Finnish government is considering donating a part of the proceeds to help Ukraine.

  • Bored Ape Instagram hack cost NFT owners $3 million. Once in, the hackers uploaded a post that linked to a cloned version of BAYC’s official website and included an offer of free crypto tokens. Anyone who tried to claim the free tokens by authenticating and connecting their digital wallets to the fraudulent site instead gave the hackers free rein to access and transfer their NFTs and other cryptoassets. Read more here.

  • Kraken is set to launch in the UAE. The Abu Dhabi Global Market has licensed Kraken, making it the first global assets exchange group in the UAE to receive a full financial license from the ADGM. The new license means new exchange options for current and future Kraken crypto clients. Abu Dhabi's progressive stance on cryptocurrency is attracting top exchanges to secured licensing in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

  • Bitcoin mining is becoming more efficient. The bitcoin mining council recently published their latest survey results and it found that the bitcoin network hashrate grew 23% over the last 12 months, yet energy consumption dropped 25% in the same time period. Over 50% of energy used for mining is coming from renewables compared to industry averages of approximately 20% renewables in other major industries. Read more here.

  • Cuba to dole out Crypto licenses amid continued U.S. sanctions. The country's government is planning to hand out licenses to virtual asset providers including cryptocurrency issuers as soon as next month in a move that may help the communist nation continue to skirt U.S. financial sanctions. Both international and local parties will be able to apply for the licenses through the Central Bank of Cuba.

  • Tron announced that its new algorithmic stablecoin, USDD, will launch on May 5. USDD will pay 30% APY interest to holders. The stablecoin will have a similar mechanism to Terra's TerraUSD. Algorithmically backed stablecoins are not backed by physical dollars but instead utilize algorithms to balance supply and demand by incentivizing traders to keep the coin's price stable. Source.

  • NEAR launched its own stablecoin. NEAR's USN stablecoin had been much-anticipated, and was one of the factors that drove its price up. NEAR Protocol's stablecoin launch may have been overhyped, causing the coin's 11% price drop.  Today, after falling 11% in the past 24 hours, NEAR is close to a one-month low. But it's still up 150% in the past year, according to CoinGecko data. Source.
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