Crypto Moves — Bitcoin, Ether up; Binance registers with Italy’s regulator; Russia to allow crypto for international payments

RIYADH: Bit­coin, the lead­ing cryp­tocur­ren­cy inter­na­tion­al­ly, trad­ed high­er on Sun­day, down 0.60 per­cent to $29,016 as of 10:04 a.m. Riyadh time.

Ether, the sec­ond most trad­ed cryp­tocur­ren­cy, was priced at $1,781, up 0.88 per­cent, accord­ing to data from Coindesk.

Indi­a’s cen­tral bank takes a tiered approach to launch­ing dig­i­tal currency

Indi­a’s cen­tral bank, the Reserve Bank of India, know as RBI, has pro­posed adopt­ing a tiered approach to launch the coun­try’s cen­tral bank dig­i­tal cur­ren­cy, Bitcoin.com reported. 

“The Reserve Bank pro­pos­es to adopt a grad­ed approach to intro­duc­tion of CBDC, going step by step through stages of proof of con­cept, pilots and the launch,” RBI said. 

“The design of CBDC needs to be in con­for­mi­ty mon­e­tary pol­i­cy, finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty and effi­cient oper­a­tions of cur­ren­cy and pay­ment systems.” 

The RBI added that: “the appro­pri­ate design ele­ments of CBD­Cs that could be imple­ment­ed with lit­tle, or no dis­rup­tion are under examination.”

Mean­while, the Indi­an gov­ern­ment has not made a deci­sion on the country’s cryp­to pol­i­cy, but cryp­to income is cur­rent­ly taxed at 30 per­cent, accord­ing to Bitcoin.com

The 1 per­cent tax deduct­ed at source, or TDS, will also come into effect soon in India.

Binance reg­is­ters with Italy’s regulator 

Binance said on Fri­day its legal enti­ty in Italy had reg­is­tered with the reg­u­la­tor in the coun­try, as the major cryp­tocur­ren­cy exchange seeks to gain trac­tion in Europe.

The reg­is­tra­tion of Binance Italy, which was estab­lished in recent months, could poten­tial­ly make the com­pa­ny more account­able and reduce the prospects for mon­ey laundering.

Binance said it could now open offices in Italy and expand the local team. The com­pa­ny is one of the 14 vir­tu­al asset oper­a­tors to be reg­is­tered with the Organ­is­mo degli Agen­ti e dei Medi­a­tori, also known as the OAM, which reg­u­lates the cryp­to indus­try in Italy.

The move comes almost a year after Binance was forced to dial back on its prod­uct offer­ings across Europe after com­ing under scruti­ny from reg­u­la­tors. In Italy, the com­pa­ny had to wind down its futures and deriv­a­tives business.

Ear­li­er this month, Binance’s Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer Chang­peng Zhao said the com­pa­ny had also reg­is­tered with France’s mar­ket reg­u­la­tor. Binance is also seek­ing reg­is­tra­tion in Switzer­land, Swe­den, Spain, Nether­lands, Por­tu­gal and Austria.

Rus­sia mulls allow­ing cryp­tocur­ren­cy for inter­na­tion­al payments

Rus­sia is con­sid­er­ing allow­ing cryp­tocur­ren­cy to be used for inter­na­tion­al pay­ments, Inter­fax news agency quot­ed a gov­ern­ment offi­cial as say­ing on Friday.

“The idea of using dig­i­tal cur­ren­cies in trans­ac­tions for inter­na­tion­al set­tle­ments is being active­ly dis­cussed,” Ivan Chebeskov, head of the finance ministry’s finan­cial pol­i­cy depart­ment, was quot­ed as saying.

Russ­ian offi­cials are wrestling with how to reg­u­late the country’s cryp­to mar­ket and use of dig­i­tal cur­ren­cies, with the finance min­istry opposed to the cen­tral bank’s calls for a blan­ket ban.

Dis­cus­sions have been ongo­ing for months and though the gov­ern­ment expects cryp­tocur­ren­cies to be legal­ized as a means of pay­ment soon­er or lat­er, no con­sen­sus has yet been reached.

The finance min­istry is dis­cussing adding the lat­est pro­pos­al on inter­na­tion­al pay­ments to an updat­ed ver­sion of a draft law, the Vedo­mosti news­pa­per report­ed on Fri­day, cit­ing gov­ern­ment officials.

Allow­ing cryp­to as a means of set­tle­ment for inter­na­tion­al trade would help counter the impact of West­ern sanc­tions, which has seen Russia’s access to tra­di­tion­al cross-bor­der pay­ment mech­a­nisms “lim­it­ed,” Chebeskov said.

(With input from Reuters)