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The UK Treasury and Bank of England are working on a possible launch of digital pound backed by the country’s central bank by the end of this decade. The digital pound issued will be backed by the Bank of England and stored in a digital wallet account operated by private sectors. The officials believe that the digital pound could help the central bank to maintain control of the core of the country’s financial system and ensure that digital payments would be widely available rather than kept within a closed network. A final decision on whether to roll out the digital currency in the country will be made around 2025.

Crypto exchange Binance announced on 3 February that it had acquired a majority stake in the South Korean crypto exchange Gopax. The acquisition is part of its Industry Recovery Initiative to support industry players negatively influenced by the crypto turmoil last year. Gopax halted the withdrawal of principal and interest payments in its decentralized finance service GoFi in November 2022 due to the upstream challenges faced by Genesis Global Capital. The deal is expected to allow Gopax’s customers to withdraw their assets from the account in full.

A class-action lawsuit against Coinbase Global Inc under federal securities law alleging the exchange sold unregistered securities and failed to register as a broker-dealer was dismissed by the US District Judge Paul Engelmayer on 1 February. The judge denied the customers’ claim that Coinbase was the actual seller of the disputed tokens and held that the exchange did not play a direct role in the transactions, though it had allegedly promoted tokens by mentioning their “purported value proposition” and participating in “airdrops”. The claims were dismissed with prejudice, which means the same claim could not be brought again.

Indonesia’s Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan revealed the government’s plan to launch a national crypto exchange by June this year at the opening of Crypto Literacy Month held in Jakarta. The new target is later than the government’s initial plan to roll out the exchange by the end of last year. The government is reportedly reviewing which companies are eligible to become part of the exchange. There are currently five active crypto exchanges in the country and it is possible for the national exchange to encompass all of them. The exchange would perform the function of clearing house and custodian.

Finnish Fintech company Membrane Finance announced the launch of EUROe on 2 February, saying it is the Europe’s first EU-regulated full-reserve stablecoin. According to the blog post published by the company, EUROe is pegged to the EUR placed in a European financial institution or bank at a 1:1 ratio, ring-fenced from the company. The stablecoin will initially be transactable on Ethereum and the company plans to support more blockchains in the future. The company has previously obtained the license from the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority (Fin-FSA).

JPMorgan has published its seventh e-Trading Edit to provide insight into predictions for this year. The survey collected the views of 835 institutional traders across 60 locations worldwide. It reveals that the vast majority of respondents lack confidence in trading crypto for the year ahead. 72% of the respondents indicated that they had no intention to trade crypto/digital coins in 2023, while only 8% of the traders said they were currently trading crypto/digital coins.

My Big Coin Inc founder Randall Crater was sentenced to more than eight years imprisonment and was ordered to forfeit nearly $7.7 million for committing wire fraud and making unlawful monetary transfer on 31 January. He was found misrepresenting the nature of a virtual currency called My Big Coin, claiming it was backed by gold and had a partnership with Mastercard, and defrauded investors millions of dollars. However, the prosecutor’s suggestion to impose a 13-year imprisonment was rejected by District Judge Denise Casper, saying the request went too far.

Mastercard and Crypto exchange Binance announced the launch of prepaid Binance Card in Brazil on 30 January, making it the second country in Latin America following Argentina to introduce the product. Existing and new Binance users will be able to make purchases and pay bills with crypto at Mastercard merchants. According to the press release published by Mastercard, the prepaid card is “part of the ongoing efforts toward evolving the bridge between existing financial services and the growing crypto ecosystem.” The prepaid card is now available for beta testing and is expected to be ready for Brazilians in the coming weeks.

Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla filed its annual report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 31 January. According to the report, Tesla’s Bitcoin holdings recorded a $204 million gross impairment loss last year. The company also gained $64 million from Bitcoin trading, resulting in a net loss of $140 million from its Bitcoin trading activities. The company invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin in the first quarter of 2021, but it sold 75% of the holdings in the second quarter of 2022.

As the Bitcoin price is gradually recovering from the crypto turmoil last year, this month has recorded a 50% growth in Bitcoin mining revenue through mining rewards and transaction fees when compared to last month’s figure. The revenue dropped to $13.6 million on 28 December 2022, which was the first time since October 2020. The Bitcoin hash rate has also hit a new all-time high at 300 exahashes-per-second as more miners are involved in powering and securing the Bitcoin network.

The Central Bank of Nigeria’s new measure to limit the daily and weekly withdrawal of local currency from the ATM has led to a surge in the price of Bitcoin in the country. The exchange rate of 1 Bitcoin is reportedly $38,792 on the country’s crypto exchange NairaEX, which is at a premium of more than 60% over the Bitcoin market price. The central bank’s measure aims to facilitate the adoption of digitalized cash. Nigerian citizens could only withdraw a maximum of nairas equivalent to $43.5 from ATM per day as of 9 January. They are allowed to withdraw no more than $217 per week.

South Korea’s Ministry of Justice introduced its plan to launch the Virtual Currency Tracking System on 26 January to combat money laundering and trace funds related to illegal activities. The new system is expected to be deployed in the first half of 2023 and will be used to monitor transaction history, extract transaction-related information and examine the source of funds. An independent tracking and analysis system will also be developed in the second half of this year.