Crypto Market Overview February 20th | Dex-Trade

Mykhailo Fedorov Shortened the Deadline for the Ukrainian CBDC

In an interview with RBC-Ukraine, the Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine (DCT), Mykhailo Fedorov, said that he plans to speed up the process of creating the electronic currency of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) — e-hryvnia. Initially, it was planned that the pilot phase of testing the CBDC was supposed to start in 2024, but recently the government decided to postpone the pilot launch date to the current year. Moreover, the first blockchain transactions using the digital hryvnia took place at the end of 2021 — the beginning of 2022, that is, before the invasion of the terrorist country into the territory of Ukraine. In January 2021, the Ministry of Transformation of Ukraine announced a partnership with the Stellar Development Foundation to develop the country's virtual asset ecosystem, including CBDCs. And in November 2022, the NBU already presented to the stakeholders of the cryptocurrency sector, banking and other financial organizations a “draft electronic hryvnia concept.” Moreover, in January of the same year, Tuscombank conducted a pilot test of the currency in the Stellar network. The initial strategy of the NBU for the implementation of CBDC involved a pilot launch of the currency with “live” testers until 2025. However, Fedorov said that he had already sent a letter to the NBU with a call to speed up the creation of an electronic version of the hryvnia. He intends not to postpone testing until next year and is ready to “put pressure on the gas.”

 

Kevin Zhou Closes Galois Due to FTX Collapse

In a note shared with the Financial Times (FT), Kevin Zhou, co-founder of one of the world's largest crypto-focused hedge funds, Galois Capital, announced its closure after losing much of its internal capital in the FTX crash: “Given the severity of the FTX situation, we do not think it is tenable to continue operating the fund both financially and culturally. Once again I’m terribly sorry about the current situation we find ourselves in.” Recall that back in November 2022, when the clouds began to gather over the Sam Bankman-Fried crypto exchange, Galois Capital kept about 40 million on the trading platform wallets. At that time, Zhou told his investors that it would take several years to return “some percentage” of the funds: “We will work tirelessly to maximize our chances of recovering stuck capital by any means.”— he told investors at the time. Now, according to the FT, Galois has sold its bankruptcy filings for 16 cents on the dollar. Notably, FTX claims in the Xclaim bankruptcy market are around 13 cents on the dollar. “This entire tragic saga starting from the luna collapse to the 3AC [Three Arrows Capital] credit crisis to the FTX/Alameda failure has certainly set the crypto space back significantly. However, I, even now, remain hopeful for crypto’s long-term future.” — Zhou wrote.

 

Tim "www" Berners-Lee Thinks Crypto Is Dangerous

The legendary Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web and the creator of the first global Internet, expressed concern about the concept of cryptocurrency, called it “dangerous” and even compared it to gambling. He views digital currencies as speculative and compares them to the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s, when internet stocks were massively inflated without a solid business foundation. However, Berners-Lee acknowledges that digital currencies can be useful for money transfers, but only if they are immediately converted back to fiat currency after transactions. By the way, a British computer scientist expressed his dissatisfaction with the current state of the Internet in general and how it differs from his original vision. Seeking to change the future of the Internet, Berners-Lee announced a partnership with John Bruce to launch his startup Inrupt, which aims to give users maximum control over their data. By the way, Berners-Lee also claims that the concept of Web 3.0 is his own proposal to change the Internet. However, in fact, his ideas are opposed to the representation of Web 3.0 that we are used to hearing about. For example, Berners-Lee's Web 3.0 has nothing to do with blockchain technology because it's not fast or secure enough. Probably the concept of the metaverse is next in line...