The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, one of the country’s financial regulatory agencies, has granted the local arm of crypto exchange Binance approval to manage and trade digital currencies. According to a Jan. 11 announcement, Binance said following “months of constructive engagement” with the financial regulator, the Swedish FSA granted Binance Nordics AB registration status on Jan. 10. This decision effectively allows Swedish residents to access Binance’s crypto services. "Sweden fully adopts EU laws and has further local requirements, so we have been careful to ensure that Binance Nordics AB has adopted risk and AML policies to match this exacting standard,” …

Up to $40 billion a year (AU$60 billion), could be added to Australia's national GDP with the right regulatory framework and could lead to enormous cost savings for consumers and businesses according to a new report. The Nov. 29 Digital assets in Australia report was commissioned by the Tech Council of Australia (TCA), one of the country's technology industry advocacy groups, and written by technology consulting firm Accenture, which outlined a number of potential benefits the growth of the digital assets sector in Australia could deliver, stating: “Digital assets (DA) have the potential to transform our lives offering significant time …

Despite the turbulence that broke out in the crypto market this summer, there is an important long-term marker that should be considered in any complex assessment — the combination of adoption and regulation. The latest report by EUBlockchain Observatory, named “EU Blockchain Ecosystem Developments,” tries to measure this combination within the European Union, combining the data on each and every member country from Portugal to Slovakia. As the original report counts more than 200 pages, Cointelegraph prepared a summary with the intent to capture the most vital information about the state of crypto and blockchain in Europe. Cointelegraph started from …

Bitcoin enthusiasts on social media platforms have reiterated their annual petition to have the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel awarded to Satoshi Nakamoto. On Oct. 10, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced three recipients of the economic prize — former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke, and U.S. economists Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig — for “research on banks and financial crises.” Many crypto enthusiasts have argued for years that the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin (BTC) was the most deserving candidate for the economic award, first instituted in 1968, “according to the same principles …

The Ethereum network’s transition from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus is likely to flood the crypto industry with out-of-work ETH miners, causing severe disruption to all PoW tokens. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Andy Long, CEO of Bitcoin miner White Rock believes the upcoming Ethereum Merge will force PoW miners to look for greener pastures, such as other PoW blockchains, and thus "swamp” other coins — increasing mining difficulty and reducing profitability, stating: "As GPU miners point their hardware at other chains their difficulty will increase causing lower returns and splitting the reward amongst more miners." Long added that the migration will likely …

Another day, another environmental attack on proof-of-work (PoW) mining. A report shared by the Swedish central bank argued that energy-intensive Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency mining should be banned. The Swedish central bank, known as the Riksbank, is the oldest central bank in the world. In a damning report entitled, "Cryptocurrencies and their impact on financial stability,” the bank had a crack at PoW cryptocurrency mining. PoW mining employs energy-guzzling data centers that solve puzzles to secure blockchains. The report stated: “Recently, some extraction of crypto assets has been established in northern Sweden, where it consumes as much electricity as 200,000 …

The Swedish central bank’s digital currency project, a proposed CBDC known as the e-krona, has successfully finished its second phase of trials. According to Riksbank, the nation's central bank, the asset is now technically ready to be integrated into banking networks and to facilitate transactions. During the second phase of the e-krona pilot project — which began in February 2021 — the CBDC was investigated on the matter of its technical ability to function within the country’s existing digital banking infrastructure. Participating banks included Handelsbanken and Tietoevry. The report indicated that the e-krona could indeed be successfully exchanged for fiat …

Erik Thedéen, the vice-chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority has raised concerns over the growing use of renewable energy for Bitcoin mining. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Thedéen said that Bitcoin (BTC) mining has become a “national issue” and warned cryptocurrencies could pose a risk to climate change goals. He called upon European regulators to take special exception to proof-of-work mining which is primarily used by Bitcoin and a few other forked altcoins. He also advocated for proof-of-stake as a better, energy-efficient alternative: “We need to have a discussion about shifting the industry to a …

Nasdaq Stockholm has announced that 21Shares has listed their first two physically backed exchange-traded notes (ETNs) on the Swedish trading platform. The two instruments listed, with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) as underlying assets, represent a new segment for ETNs — a type of unsecured debt security that tracks an underlying index of equities and trades on a major exchange. According to the announcement, the new ETNs will provide investors access to investment opportunities in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether. Helena Wedin, European head of exchange traded products at Nasdaq, says that exchange-traded notes allow one to invest in …

Swedish financial watchdog’s call for a European Union-wide ban on proof-of-work (PoW) crypto mining, mainly known as the method of minting new Bitcoin (BTC), has received backlash from crypto-related fund managers. Melanion Capital, a Paris-based alternative investment firm known for its Bitcoin ETF, addressed the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority and Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s call to ban PoW mining across Europe. “The claim that Bitcoin miners jeopardize the electricity network is completely misinformed,” noted Melanion, reminding that Bitcoin miners’ business model is prone to collapse when the electricity demand increases as it would also increase energy prices. The statement points …

The governor of Sweden’s central bank, the Sveriges Riksbank, has dismissed Bitcoin (BTC) as an altogether far-fetched alternative to government-backed fiat currencies. Speaking at a banking conference in Stockholm, Sveriges Riksbank governor Stefan Ingves argued, “Private money usually collapses sooner or later.” In a further disparaging remark, he claimed, “Sure, you can get rich by trading in bitcoin, but it’s comparable to trading in stamps.” Notwithstanding Ingves’ view of Bitcoin’s weaknesses as a currency, he has taken its popularity among investors seriously. Highlighting consumer interests and money laundering as being of particular concern, the central banker conceded this June that …

The Swedish government has found itself in the unforeseen situation of paying out around $1.5 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) to a convicted — and then jailed — drug dealer. Two years ago, the man was convicted in a Swedish court for having illegally earned 36 Bitcoin through online drug sales. Yet, Tove Kullberg, his prosecutor at the time, had used the Bitcoin’s equivalent value in fiat to make her case. The court, therefore, judged that the man should be stripped of his illicitly earned Bitcoin at its then-value of 1.3 million Swedish kronor ($100,000). In the period following the …