Weekly news: 21. — 27. March
Malaysia will not adopt BTC in near future, use of coal waste in Pennsylvania, Ukraine is making NFT timeline to preserve the vents of the war, and the Thai SEC is banning crypto payments
Malaysia and BTC
Recently, the deputy communications minister of Malaysia proposed that the country should adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender, same as El Salvador did. Unfortunately, according to the Ministry of Finance of Malaysia the country has no plans in connection with adopting the cryptocurrencies.
“Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are not suitable for use as a payment instrument due to various limitations,” Mohd Shahar declared.
Malaysia is focusing now on creating and developing its central bank digital currency (CBDC). The reason for that is the growing technology and payment landscape.
Coal waste and powering of mining rigs
The state of Pennsylvania is now ranked as the third-largest producer of coal in the United States, with its wastage being at 881 pounds per 2,200 pounds mined. Now, Stronghold Digital Mining (SDIG) which is a crypto mining company in Pennsylvania came with solution on how to use this waste and make it useful. The company started to collect coal refuse. That is a leftover material (waste), which occurs during the process of coal mining. This waste can cause many environmental problems, from water and air pollution to acid mine drainage.
So, SDIG is now taking this waste and burning it in emission controlled environment to turn it into energy and with that energy they are powering their Bitcoin mining rigs.
NFTs of timeline of war
Mykhailo Fedorov announced on his twitter that the Ministry of Digital Transformation in Ukraine is launching an initiative with non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This initiative is artwork collection or artwork project that is supposed to depict and preserve all events that happened since February 24, the day when Russia invaded Ukraine.
There are 54 NFTs with key moments since the start of the war, which will be available in auction. All the money raised will be used to support ukrainian army and civilians.
“While Russia uses tanks to destroy Ukraine, we rely on revolutionary blockchain tech,” said Fedorov.
The Thai SEC is banning crypto payments
For a while the SEC of Thailand is trying to find a way to create a regulated crypto market for public use. But unfortunately the process is harder then it seemed, so now the Thailand SEC announced ban on all crypto payments and use of cryptocurrencies for payments. Alongside with this ban, the SEC proposed new law or rule which will demand that brokers, exchanges and dealers will have to disclose their service quality and IT usage information of their crypto businesses.
Some of the reasons why Thailand is still lacking the crypto market for public use, according to the SEC, are loss of value caused by price volatility, cyber theft, money laundering and personal data leakage. The services which will not accept this law will unfortunately be subjected to legal actions.
Thank you for reading.
