There’s so much happening in the crypto space right now that it can make your head spin. 

It’s a clear sign that the industry is developing and heading in the right direction. Every day brings new stories about new coins, new technologies…making widespread adoption seem inevitable. 


Last week in our YouTube chat show, we spoke about how India had stepped back from the brink of outlawing cryptocurrency. The Reserve Bank of India announced that no banks should be penalising customers for dealing in cryptocurrencies. The New indian Express newspaper ran a story with the headline that “India may move to classify Bitcoin as an asset class.”

It’s a huge relief for the millions of crypto enthusiasts in India and a signal that the Indian authorities understood that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum will have a role in the economy of the future, whether they like it or not. 

This week, the news was even more bullish. The small South American nation of Ecuador announced that Bitcoin would be accepted as legal tender in that country, with immediate effect.

As if that wasn’t enough, the country declared that there will be no capital gains tax for Bitcoin, since it will be a legal currency, and that immediate permanent residence will be granted to crypto entrepreneurs. These are extremely bullish sentiments from the small country that is attempting to disrupt the world’s global economic model in spectacular form. 

 
It’s not the only one. 

Just last week, Brazil announced that it was going ahead with plans to develop a central bank digital coin, known as a CBDC, and it’s not the only one. The European Central Bank is also working on a digital euro and tech firms like Ripple, Ethereum, Stellar are all lining up and doing whatever they can to make that happen. 

Finally, the nature of a decentralised currency means that it’s not only nations that can issue coins. There has been a lot of talk recently about cities issuing their own coins and, in so doing, raising money for vital infrastructure projects. The city at the forefront of this right now is probably Miami, which is fast becoming the new San Francisco in terms of its ability to attract digital innovators to live there, thanks to the forward-thinking leadership of Mayor Francis Suarez.

He’s ushering in a new phase of ‘startup cities’ that function holistically with their own coins a central feature of how that will work.

As Marc Andreesen wrote on Politico…”Policymakers shouldnt’ t be trying to copy Silicon Valley. Instead, they should be firing out what domain could be specific to their region – and then removing the regulatory hurdles for that particular domain.’ 

 Cape Town coin, anyone? 

Posted in Cryptocurrency, News