El Salvador’s March Towards Legalizing Bitcoin 

Amid Discord El Salvador Inches Closer to Making Bitcoin a Legal Tender

Bitcoin will become a legal tender in El Salvador alongside the US Dollar from September 7. President Nayib Bukele announced the news in a video posted on Twitter, where he went on to expound on the benefits of using the government’s official crypto wallet Chivo, for Bitcoin.

A $150 Million Bitcoin Trust

Furthermore, the Minister of Economy María Luisa Hayém Brevé stated that the government would create a $150 million trust to enable easy exchange between Bitcoin and the US dollars. As a result, local merchants can reduce their exposure to Bitcoin by instantly converting it to dollars.

Not Everyone Is Happy With Bitcoin as a Legal Tender

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has yet again expressed its concern about El Salvador embracing a privately issued cryptocurrency as legal tender. At the same time, a poll shows that over 67.9% of the 1,281 Salvadorans surveyed either disagreed or strongly disagreed with using Bitcoin as legal tender.

Bitcoin Law Critic Arrested

El Salvador police briefly arrested Mario Gomez,  a vocal critic of making Bitcoin a legal tender in the country. He has since returned to his house. Gomez’s lawyer claims he was arrested without a warrant. Meanwhile, the police insist they were investigating Gomez for financial fraud.

Honduras Opens Country’s First Crypto ATM

Meanwhile, in the neighboring country Honduras, a crypto vending ATM launched this week. This ATM is reportedly the first one in the country. It enables users to buy Bitcoin and Ether using their native currency, lempira.

Everyone Wants to Be an NFT Purveyor

Art Masterpieces’ NFTs Go Under Hammer

The State Hermitage Museum, one of the world’s largest museums, has launched an NFT auction on Binance NFT Marketplace. Five NFTs representing masterpieces created by Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, and many more artists are being auctioned from August 31 to September 7. Each NFT has a starting bid of 10,000 BUSD.

Bored and Mutant Apes Rule the NFT World

Sotheby’s, the 277 year old British auction house, has dabbled yet again into the NFT universe, this time with the Bored Apes Yacht Club NFT auction. A collection of 101 bored apes NFTs are under the hammer from September 2 to 9. While Sotheby’s estimated $12 million to $18 million in sales, one NFT has been sold for a whopping $2.25m. Furthermore, the NFT project also $96 million in a public sale of 10,000 Mutant Apes in a single hour on Saturday night.

Christie’s Not Behind

Another prominent auction house, Christie’s, is not far behind. It announced its plans to sell 30 Curio Cards, NFTs representing some of the oldest artworks. This auction will be a part of Christie’s Post War to Present sale and will be starting on October 1.

“Marvel Month” Concludes With Captain America NFT

To celebrate its 81st birthday, Marvel launched “Marvel Month” on August 5 with scores of Spiderman NFT collectibles. On August 31, it concluded the celebration with special edition Captain America NFTs. Marvel has teamed up with VeVe Digital Collectibles, which enabled Marvel fans to participate in the auction via their VeVe iOS and Android apps.

Baseball NFTs on Avalanche

Trading card company Topps is set to launch 2021 Major League Baseball “Inception” NFTs in September. These NFTs will be minted on Avalanche Blockchain instead of the WAX platform used earlier. Topps considers the Avalanche network “fast, low cost, and eco-friendly.”

Line Launches Line Friends Collection

Line, Japan’s largest social network, has released Line Friends NFTs. Line Friends are characters created as stickers for the Line App. The collection, minted on Line Blockchain, will feature four characters and will be awarded to 60,000 users who correctly answer a quiz. 

Australia’s Decentralized Energy Marketplace

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) announced the architecture and technology partners for its Project Energy Demand and Generation Exchange (EDGE) this week. Project EDGE is a platform that allows for the trading of electricity from distributed energy resources (DER), such as rooftop solar and batteries. AEMO has chosen Energy Web, Microsoft, PXiSE, AusNet, among others, as partners for this initiative.

Four Countries Collaborate on Cross Border CBDC

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) is working with central banks of four countries to test how effective a CDBC is in cross border settlements. As a part of “Project Dunbar,” the central banks of Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, and South Africa are creating platforms that support the international settlement of digital currencies.

DeFi Platform Closes Shop

The decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Detoken will shut down its operations today. Semyon Germanovich, the project’s founder, cited ever changing regulatory outlook as the main reason for the closing of this business.

Binance Plans for an IPO Amid Global Regulatory Concerns

This week, the Monetary Authority of Singapore issued an investor alert for Binance‘s global website. The regulator alleged Binance of breaching Singapore’s Payment Services Act while providing services in the country. Meanwhile, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) announced that the crypto firm’s US arm plans to go public by 2024.

Uniswap Under SEC’s Scrutiny

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched an investigation into the DeFi exchange Uniswap. The US regulator is reportedly looking for information on how investors use the platform and how it is marketed to them.

Cream Finance Suffers A Second Hack

Cream Finance, a DeFi lending and borrowing platform, suffered its second flash loan attack this year. The perpetrators made away with 462,079,976 AMP tokens and 2,804.96 ETH tokens, amounting close to $34 million. A bug introduced while adding Flexa Network’s native AMP token is cited as the root cause for the hack.

Nigerian Central Bank Selects a Partner for CBDC

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced this week that it would work with Bitt Inc., a Blockchain payments startup, for the country’s digital currency – eNaira. The central bank that plans to launch its CBDC later this year thinks that a digital currency would help the inflation-ridden nation with cross border trades.

China to Build Mobile Payments Settlements With CBDC

China reportedly plans to build a digital yuan driven international clearing and settlement network for mobile payments. Moreover, it seeks to use CBDC to improve monitoring of cross border yuan flows.

FTX Buys LedgerX

The US subsidiary of crypto exchange FTX will acquire the regulated crypto derivatives trading platform LedgerX. The deal is expected to be closed by October. This acquisition drove the price of FTX’s native token FTT to an all time high of $70.21.

ADA Soars High

Cardano added smart contracts functionality to its testnet this week. It will enable developers to build decentralized applications on Cardano. This new addition supposedly also propelled the price of ADA, Cardano’s native currency, to a new record high of $3.10.

Fractions of Doge NFT Worth Millions

PleasrDAO, the art collective that bought Doge NFT in June for about $4 million, started offering fractionalized ownership of the NFT earlier this week. The intent behind “The Dog” coin is to allow others the opportunity to own a slice of the artwork. In 24 hours of trading, its value doubled and is now a over $500 million asset.

And Finally, Twitter’s Tip Jar Might Support Bitcoin… Soon?

Twitter reportedly could enable its users to tip content creators with Bitcoin. As per reports, Twitter’s latest update to its “Tip Jar” code indicates support for Bitcoin. Twitter also has, in the recent past, posted job vacancies that require candidates to have experience in crypto.