Cryptocurrency - Long Reads, News, Articles & Research: Finextra

The future of payments: Digital currencies for a digital future

While neither the ECB nor the Bank of England have outlined a final decision on pursuing a CBDC, the central banks are actively researching the digital currency proposition and public discourse tends to suggest that CBDC is inevitable in one form or another. In the US, regulators have historically been loudly critical of digital currencies, howeve...

25 June 2021 /crypto

Cryptocurrencies and the offshore world - a difficult marriage?

Sam Sturrock Group Partner at Collas Crill

Cryptocurrencies and the offshore world - a difficult marriage?

This piece was co-authored by Sophia Moustras and Sam Sturrock, Jersey Corporate Finance, Collas Crill. The constant evolution of Fintech and the rise of cryptocurrencies to ubiquity has resulted in offshore regulators and legal frameworks having to continuously adapt and keep pace with change in order to ensure that the integrity of their financia...

18 June 2021 /crypto

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

The real price of the bitcoin gold rush

With international focus on sustainability sharpening, the energy consumption of the world’s first ever popular virtual currency, bitcoin, is being put under the microscope. Its most vehement detractors argue bitcoin uses an unjustifiable amount of energy, and represents a thorn in the side of the wider green transition. Bitcoin’s advocates, on th...

13 May 2021 /crypto

The Next Futuristic Technology: What are NFTs?

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

The Next Futuristic Technology: What are NFTs?

Talk of non-fungible tokens is hard to avoid of late. But why all the fuss? What exactly are they, and what real-world applications do they have? Demystifying this brand-new cryptocurrency will be key to mainstreaming it and ensuring its long-term success. The next futuristic technology everyone is talking about are non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Th...

08 April 2021 /crypto

Why small jurisdictions are forging ahead with crypto regulations

Paige McNamee

Why small jurisdictions are forging ahead with crypto regulations

The world has crypto on the brain. From this year’s early Bitcoin skyrocket, stablecoins approved for banking payments by the OCC, Christine Lagarde and Janet Yellen’s public wariness of the assets, to the FCA’s outright warnings, it seems the market can’t stop trying to make sense of digital currency’s place in today’s and tomorrow’s world. W...

05 February 2021 /crypto

Will Yellen’s Treasury 'invest' in the future of digital currency?

Paige McNamee

Will Yellen’s Treasury 'invest' in the future of digital currency?

Having officially been appointed Treasury Secretary, the digital currency world has its gaze fixed on Janet Yellen to determine precisely what her strategy around cryptocurrency, stablecoins, and digital banking will be. During her confirmation hearing on 22 January, Yellen raised concerns around the use of cryptocurrencies, stating “cryptocurrenci...

27 January 2021 /crypto

The Bitcoin bull run: is it different this time?

Jamie Crawley

The Bitcoin bull run: is it different this time?

Bitcoin is the in the midst of a bull run which has seen it shatter its previous all-time high of December 2017. The cryptocurrency broke through the $20,000 barrier at the end of November and continued to rise through December and into the New Year, eventually hitting a peak of $41,500 on 8th January. A reminder of the inherent volatility of cryp...

21 January 2021 /crypto

Jamie Crawley

Are CBDCs a question without an answer?

The Singapore Fintech Festival takes place next week with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) one of the hot topics on the agenda. Questions should raise be raised about what role such currencies would in fact play in financial systems. Singapore would appear to be an ideal market for the use of a CBDC, with its dense population, universal int...

02 December 2020 /crypto

What is Celo and could it succeed where Libra won’t?

Jamie Crawley

What is Celo and could it succeed where Libra won’t?

Celo promises to be a stablecoin to rival Libra. While unlikely to be regarded with the same distrust as Facebook’s much-maligned digital currency, Celo will still have its share of challenges relating to regulation and scale. The announcement that Facebook was leading the development of a digital currency in June 2019 was met with fierce pushback ...

25 May 2020 /crypto

Bitcoin halving: What does this mean and what will its effect be?

Jamie Crawley

Bitcoin halving: What does this mean and what will its effect be?

Bitcoin’s 2020 halving took place today. This happens around once every four years and is of much interest to cryptocurrency investors due to the profound effect halving has had on the cryptocurrency in previous occurrences. Halving refers to the number of coins that miners receive for adding new transactions to the blockchain being cut in half. Th...

12 May 2020 /crypto

Jamie Crawley

The pros and cons of CBDCs

Multiple central banks are looking closely at developing digital currencies to address the threat posed by projects such as Libra. There are many benefits to be found in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), likely to be magnified amidst the Coronavirus pandemic as more and more transactions are carried out electronically and cash usage continu...

27 April 2020 /crypto

Jamie Crawley

Welcome to the era of stablecoins

Thanks in no small part to Facebook’s controversial Libra project, stablecoins have attained a great deal of interest in recent months and many questions have been thrown up about their place in the global financial system. How many stablecoins might exist with in a few years? What are the benefits and risks to banks and central banks? What techni...

05 March 2020 /crypto

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