The Federal Reserve on Thursday released its long-awaited study of a digital dollar, exploring the pros and cons of the much-debated issue and soliciting public comment. Billed as “the first step in a public discussion between the Federal Reserve and stakeholders about central bank digital currencies,” the 40-page paper (PDF) Read more…
Google is forming a group dedicated to the blockchain and related technologies under a newly appointed executive who has spent more than a decade on the company’s core business of search advertising. Shivakumar Venkataraman, an engineering vice president for Alphabet’s Google, is now running a unit focused on “blockchain and Read more…
Russia must ban cryptocurrencies, the country’s central bank said in a report released Thursday. The report, “Cryptocurrencies: trends, risks, measures,” was presented during an online press conference with Elizaveta Danilova, the director of the Bank of Russia’s Financial Stability Department. The report says cryptocurrencies are volatile and widely used in Read more…
NGOs looking to provide emergency aid to Afghanistan are turning to cryptocurrency. When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August of last year, Fereshteh Forough feared that the group would close her school in Herat, the country’s third-largest city. Code to Inspire, an NGO Forough founded, was teaching computer programming Read more…
Intel, one of the world’s largest chipmakers, is likely to unveil a specialized crypto-mining chip at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in February, according to the conference’s agenda. One of Intel’s “Highlighted Chip Releases” at the conference is entitled “Bonanza Mine: An Ultra-Low-Voltage Energy-Efficient Bitcoin Mining ASIC.” The session Read more…
“When the Mozilla Foundation took to Twitter on New Year’s Eve to announce it was going to begin accepting cryptocurrency donations, it likely didn’t think about potential blowback from one of its founders, but that’s what it got,” reports TechRepublic. “In response, Mozilla has said it’s pausing cryptocurrency donations.” Wikipedia Read more…
Former Twitter CEO and Block founder Jack Dorsey has announced plans to create a “Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund” with Chaincode Labs co-founder Alex Morcos and Martin White, who appears to be an academic at the University of Sussex. CoinTelegraph reports: The announcement was sent on a mailing list for Bitcoin Read more…