Central Bank of Kenya will start exploring the possibilities of government cryptocurrencies
Bank of Kenya Governor Patrick Njoroge said he is already negotiating this initiative with various international banks. Considering that many of them are not only actively conducting research on state-owned cryptocurrencies, but are also starting to test them, the Kenyan regulator does not intend to be "left out".
The head of the Central Bank of Kenya added that the department will closely monitor the developments of other banks in this niche. Njoroge believes that when creating digital currencies, central banks must eliminate all the associated risks associated with money laundering and financing illegal activities. However, Njoroge doubts that with the introduction of government stablecoins, society will completely abandon cash.
In addition, the digital currencies of the Central Bank have strong competitors - decentralized cryptocurrencies. A CBK manager was skeptical about Bitcoin, calling it a speculation tool. Njoroge said that despite the impressive technology that powers bitcoin, the cryptocurrency cannot be used to solve social problems.
Nevertheless, according to the analytical firm Chainalysis, Africans are increasingly paying for goods with cryptocurrencies in order to avoid high fees and instability of national currencies. Kenya is among the leaders in the number of cryptocurrency transactions on the continent.
It was recently revealed that the People's Bank of China (PBC) is preparing to test a hardware wallet for the digital yuan, and last week the Central Bank of the Bahamas launched the Sand Dollar pegged to the Bahamian dollar.
Unconfirmed BTC Transactions Peak Since December 2017
According to Blockchain data, on October 28, the number of unconfirmed transactions in BTC reached 131,068, and the mempool size was 69.21 MB. Such indicators were last recorded almost three years ago. Now these values have decreased, but still remain at a high level - 118 466 transactions and 65.09 MB.
In December 2017, the number of unconfirmed transactions reached 183,152, and in January 2018, the size of the mempool grew to 73.71 MB. The increase in the mempool size to 67.87 MB also happened in May this year, shortly after the halving of the Bitcoin miner reward.
The growth in the activity of network users and the queue of unconfirmed transactions occurred against the background of an increase in the price of BTC. A week ago, the bitcoin rate exceeded $ 12,800 and updated the maximum in 15 months, on the night of October 28, the BTC price reached $ 13,859. However, now the rate has dropped again and bitcoin is trading for $ 13,365.
Bitcoin network hashrate declined this week amid the end of the rainy season in Sichuan province. Analysts expect bitcoin mining difficulty to decrease significantly with the next recalculation. Recall that the other day the number of "whales" - large investors holding more than 1,000 BTC - reached a four-year high simultaneously with the growth of the price of the cryptocurrency.
OKEx Denies Rumors Of Keeping Users' Assets In A Cold One-Signed Wallet
The press service of the OKEx exchange told the industrial media that the information published on the Jinse Caijing website regarding the storage of cryptoassets of exchange users in a cold wallet with one signature is incorrect.
Recall that the founder of the exchange, Xu Mingxing, was detained by the Chinese police earlier this month, after which the withdrawal of crypto assets from the exchange was suspended due to the "unavailability" of one of the holders of the private keys.
A spokesman said he could not "disclose any information as it could jeopardize users' assets." He also did not say when the withdrawal will be resumed. The posting from the Jinse Caijing website has been removed.
When asked if OKEx uses a single-signature wallet, the press service referred to a 51% attack report on Ethereum Classic, which details the process of withdrawing crypto assets from the exchange, including the use of "semi-autonomous multisignature" for hot wallets.
According to the report, 95% of money is held in cold wallets. The cold wallet security detail page states that when generating private keys, the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) password is "controlled by two exchange employees" - one at the OKEx office in Beijing and the other in a city on the west coast of the United States.
To withdraw cryptoassets, an employee visits "a bank safe near the office and retrieves the required number of unused encrypted private keys." He then scans the QR code of the keys on two separate stand-alone computers. Thereafter, "the owner of the master AES password decrypts the private key on a completely autonomous computer."
The final step is “signing the transaction on another completely autonomous computer. After that, the signature of the transaction is synchronized via a USB drive with a computer connected to the Internet and broadcast to the network. "
Nice