Rio De Janeiro will invest 1 percent. treasury of the city in cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency prices stabilized somewhat last week, after the first two weeks of the year with sharp drops. Bitcoin started last week badly, at one point fell below the $ 40 mark on eToro (last Monday). But the price of the world's largest cryptocurrency has stabilized since then, rising above $ 000 on Thursday, before stabilizing at $ 44 over the weekend.

Ethereum It also had a weak start last week, dropping below $ 3000 on Monday, the lowest level since late September 2021. Cryptocurrencies did improve somewhat, however, reaching around $ 3300 on Thursday and holding there over the weekend.

The blocking of mining infrastructure continues

According to CEO Thomas Templeton, the payment company Block (formerly Square) builds systems for bitcoin miners. The company, led by former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey, also wants to mine its own bitcoin. Templeton outlined the mining plans in a series of tweets, saying the company wants the mining process to be more distributed and efficient. He added that buying and maintaining physical infrastructure for mining, from oil rigs to energy use, made it difficult for people to extract themselves.

While the plans are unclear at the moment, this is not the first time Block has expressed a desire to create bitcoin mining systems. Dorsey's CEO tweeted in October 2021 that the company is looking at the process of building open source systems for individuals and companies to be used in cryptocurrency mining.

Rio de Janeiro allocates reserves to crypto

The mayor of one of the largest cities in Brazil has announced that he will start holding reserves in cryptocurrencies. Mayor Eduardo Pais he said on Thursday that the local government will invest 1 percent. treasury of the city in cryptocurrency.

The city also intends to offer discounts to taxpayers if they pay their taxes in bitcoin. Finance secretary Pedro Paulo announced that the city will offer 10 percent. discounts on certain taxes when paid in bitcoins.

The announcement was made during the Rio Innovation Week, which was also attended by another cryptocurrency enthusiast, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. Paes intends to transform the city into a hub for cryptocurrency innovation, along with other unannounced tax innovations, to encourage the crypto sector to continue influx into the region.

The Lords' Committee is in talks on CBDC in Great Britain and the Swiss test is successful

The Peers Committee in the UK House of Lords rejected the idea of ​​the British Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The Economic Affairs Committee took a look CBDC and stated that while there are some benefits, it will cause serious problems with financial stability. The committee also said it had concerns about user privacy.

The chairman of the committee, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, said:

“We collected evidence from various witnesses and none of them were able to give us a compelling reason why the UK would need a central bank's digital currency. The concept seems to carry high risk versus very small gains. We came to the conclusion that the idea was a potential problem rather than a solution. "

However, the report comes at a time when other countries are already trying CBDC, and some of them are even successful in this field.

The Swiss National Bank announced on Thursday that it had run a successful test in which it settled transactions with five commercial banks using CBDC.

The process involved major investment banks including Credit Suisse, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Hypothekarbank Lenzburg, and UBS. The trial showed the execution of instant payments of between 100 and 000 million Swiss francs.

Switzerland is one of the most advanced nations in terms of CBDC, and the Helvetia Project, as you know, is close to paving the way to a fully functional digital currency for the Alpine nation.

Benoit Coeuré, head of the Innovation Center of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), who participated in the survey, commented: benefits".