I hope everyone is having a great Friday. Thanks again for reading.
For those who missed it earlier this week, we wrote about how crypto innovation is not Argentine central banker Miguel Pesce’s priority - but neither is outright prohibition.
Besides that, here are several things we think you need to know from the last several days:
Finance minister Alejandro Zelaya reaffirmed that El Salvador’s $1bn volcano bond issuance is imminent. But we still haven’t seen the securities laws pass through congress. There is also a rumor that it will be LaGEO, El Salvador’s geothermal company, that emits the bonds. Zelaya cited Ukraine as a factor in the delay.
Crypto miner Sierramoros C.A. in Venezuela suffered a reversal by Venezuela’s top court. The crypto miner was shut down by the Tribunal Suprema de Justicia after an earlier sentence ruled against the national crypto regulator SUNACRIP and in favor of the miner. Here is the ruling.
A UN report found that crypto is being used by Mexican and Colombian cartels. That’s not surprising. The reported highlighted that traditional banking payment rails are still the main method for laundering money.
Small and medium businesses in El Salvador hardly use bitcoin or crypto in their transactions. Of the total, 86% said they didn’t make sales for crypto. Another 91% reported indifference toward crypto. In other words, it didn’t make a difference to their business revenues. Issues including the pandemic, lack of liquidity and security issues (theft) were among the main concerns amongst non-corporate businesses in the country.
AlphaPoint’s Chivo fix involves KYC, Lightning, local banking integration. AlphaPoint was hired earlier this year to fix El Salvador’s Chivo Wallet after numerous bugs appeared.
Mexican business leader Ricardo Salinas Pliego is under the gun for dodging taxes. His group’s Elektra was fined for not paying taxes. He is also Mexico’s biggest Bitcoin cheerleader.
Thank you for reading.