Crypto News Recap: India to Roll Out CBDC

While some countries are still trying to figure out how to regulate this fast-growing field, big economies are racing to get ahead of the curve in crypto.

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The industry, which is as exciting as the prices' volatility, took very big dynamic and fast-moving leaps forward in global finance making interesting dialogues in the WEF 2022.

It's needless to say that this wouldn't be a crazy enough week in crypto without some tweets from Elon Musk.

From India’s CBDC and that of China getting banned to LUNA revival plans and reveals made at WEF, here are last week's highlights in one link!

India to Launch CBDC

According to the RBI Annual Report, The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) proposed a three-step graded approach for CBDC, further confirming India's plan to introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC) dubbed the digital rupee in 2022-23.

It’s worth mentioning that India is estimated to have around 7.3 million crypto users and a trading volume of roughly $21.8 billion USD. The news of the rollout of a digital counterpart of the rupee was stated earlier this year by The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)

The fact that India is warming up to cryptocurrencies could result in a positive attitude boost for the industry, and the clarity of regulation could even deter the usage of cryptocurrencies in illicit operations.

Crypto in Davos: Key Takeaways

With the current status of the market, the debate about crypto regulation is still raging amongst world leaders gathered around the city of Davos, Switzerland in 2022. As a matter of a fact, several panels at Davos, which ended on Thursday, focused on how crypto payments are destined to bridge traditional finance with the future of money. Here are the key takeaways of the first in-person since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, World Economic Forum's four-day meeting:

• Worldwide payment behemoth, PayPal, is planning to extend its crypto service offerings in the near future, according to a company executive.
• Ripple is to be used further for global remittances.
• Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach forecasts that SWIFT, the worldwide cross-border settlement platform, will most likely cease to exist in five years.
•  SWIFT explores CBDCs

  We’re collaborating with @Capgemini to explore how SWIFT can interlink the multiple domestic-based #CBDC networks emerging worldwide to make cross-border payments with #DigitalCurrencies more seamless & frictionless.
  
  Learn more: https://t.co/SgvjDf1dl4 pic.twitter.com/99g99A070H

  — SWIFT (@swiftcommunity) May 19, 2022

• Meta VP Nicola Mendelsohn says that Satoshi Nakamoto could be a woman.

SpaceX to Accept DOGE for Merch Purchases

Elon Musk announced his plan to expand the payment option for his other company, SpaceX, following Tesla in accepting the meme coin Dogecoin (DOGE) for merch purchases.

It’s needless to say that investors tried to cash in on the buzz of Musk's pro-DOGE tweets, however, this wasn’t the case this time. DOGE price didn’t react much but it makes sense considering the gloomy markets. DOGE dropped approximately 55% of its value in May and is trading at $0.082 at the time of writing.
 
Earlier this week, Musk tweeted a public warning about an ongoing fraud in which attackers have been promoting a phony crypto-shilling video using deepfake technology.

US Senators Voiced out to Ban China’s Digital Yuan from US App Stores

Citing “potential undesirable impacts of the global adoption of China’s national digital currency”, 3 US Senators moved to draft a bill that aims to prohibit the use of the digital currency payment system operated by the Government of the People's Republic of China, and for other purposes.

China has made news headlines in 2021 by becoming the first mega economy to implement a sovereign digital currency. Developed by China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) in 2014, China’s digital yuan is poised to impact the world’s economy and shake off some of COVID repercussions in China.

Terra 2.0 Launches

Do Kwon, the co-founder and CEO of Terraform Labs announced the Terra new blockchain, Terra 2.0, is officially launched, to revive the controversial LUNA and its infamous sister coin UST.  

Long story short, Kwon’s revival plan for Terra is to hard forking the existing blockchain and reissuing LUNA tokens to existing investors based on a snapshot taken before the death spiral that swept the LUNA, UST and sent the markets into an unprecedented losing streak. The original LUNA chain will be rebranded to Luna Classic and the new chain is LUNA.