Daily crypto news alerts for 26th December, 2020

🗞Turkey to test national digital currency in 2021

According to the Governor of the Central Bank of Turkey, Nasi Ağbal, the agency plans to test the national digital currency in the second half of next year.

Agbal's statement came as a surprise - no one knew about the digital lyre project before. Even in the records of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), there is no evidence that Turkey is working on its state cryptocurrency. However, it has now become clear that Turkey has joined the race to develop a national digital currency and, as it turned out, the project is already at a fairly late stage of creation.

“We launched a project to create digital money. The conceptual phase of the project has now been completed. We plan to launch pilot tests in the second half of 2021, ”Agbal said.

Detailed information about the state digital currency of Turkey has not yet been reported. In September, the local cryptocurrency publication Koin Bülteni reported that the country's central bank is looking for experts in blockchain and digital currencies to develop its own state cryptocurrency.

Note that Russia is also working to create a digital version of the ruble, which should help companies and citizens of the country in making payments, and reduce the cost of such operations.

At the moment, China is the leader in the development and implementation of digital currency. There have already passed several stages of testing the digital yuan. At the same time, the Chinese authorities are not positioning the national cryptocurrency as a replacement for global fiat currencies.

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🗞US users of Bitstamp will not be able to trade XRP

European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp announced that in January, US users of the site will lose access to XRP trading.

The decision was made in connection with the lawsuit of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Ripple and its management. The regulator accuses Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen of selling XRP, which are unregistered securities, in 2013.

“In light of the SEC lawsuit alleging that XRP is a security, we are discontinuing XRP trading and deposits for all US clients starting January 8,” the exchange wrote on Twitter.

An article on the company's blog states that Bitstamp "will closely monitor the situation and respond accordingly." At the same time, the volume of XRP trades on the site is quite large - according to CoinGecko, over the past 24 hours on the site in the XRP / USD pair, deals worth $135 million were made. This is the second pair in terms of trading volume.

Note that after the SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple, many companies began to restrict work with XRP. The Hong Kong-based regulated platform OSL announced the temporary suspension of XRP trading and all operations with the crypto asset. In addition, two large market makers Jump Trading and Galaxy Digital, as well as the payment company Simplex, announced the suspension of trading.

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🗞Binance CEO Announces Explosive Growth in Institutional Clients

In the third quarter of 2020, the number of corporate clients on the Binance bitcoin exchange increased by 60% compared to the previous period. This was announced by the CEO of Changpeng "CZ" Zhao.

Since the beginning of the year, the number of institutional investors on the platform has grown by 46%, he noted in the article "Industry Trends and Forecasts for 2021".

Contrary to expectations, the past year has not seen a strong growth in the use of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, CZ emphasized.

“This can mainly be due to the fact that existing fiat payment systems are still more commonplace and rather difficult to replace quickly. In this direction, the best strategy may be to combine traditional payment instruments with cryptocurrencies. "

According to the head of Binance, in 2021 the growth in the number of international payments using stablecoins will continue.

"Making cross-border payments using stablecoins or any other cryptocurrency is much easier and cheaper than using traditional methods."

Efficiency in cross-border transfers will drive stablecoin adoption next year, Changpeng Zhao said.

Earlier, he said that Binance conducts from 30 to 50 deals for the acquisition and purchase of other projects (M&A). According to him, the company will continue to actively invest in the industry in 2021. The exchange established a $100 million Accelerator Fund specifically to fund projects on the Binance Smart Chain, CZ added.

Recall that in 2020, the total trading volume in the Binance markets exceeded a record $3 trillion.

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🗞Mike Novogratz hopes for friendly cryptocurrency regulation under new president

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz hopes that the administration of new American President Joe Biden will be more crypto-friendly.

The team of the still incumbent head of the White House, Donald Trump, on the contrary, in every possible way hindered the development of the industry and the more active adoption of bitcoin, Mike Novogratz said on the air of CNBC.

In his opinion, the cryptosphere will expand at an accelerated pace if the US authorities put it in a certain legal framework. Many potential investors are now intimidated by the lack of legislation, so they refrain from purchasing BTC and other coins.

The new administration can solve this problem and give impetus to the development of the industry. In 20 days, a change of power in the country will take place, and the CEO of Galaxy Digital hopes that regulators will change their position and become more friendly to digital currencies.

Donald Trump spoke extremely negatively about Bitcoin last year. By contrast, his Twitter post then sparked the famous July BTC rally.

Many experts even seriously feared that the Trump administration might ban bitcoin transactions altogether and start pursuing cryptocurrency holders.