| Bitcoin | $18,392 | 7 day: -5.3% | | Ethereum | $562 | 7 day: -8.3% | | All crypto | $542B | 7 day: -6.2% | | Bitcoin dominance | 62.8% | 7 day: +0.5% | Prices as of 3 p.m. EST
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met with G7 finance ministers and central bank governors regarding digital currency regulation. - On Dec. 7, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin held his 12th meeting with G7 members to discuss the ongoing pandemic response and strategies for global economic recovery.
- The focus of his crypto discussions centered on criminal activities.
- Central bank governors and finance ministers from Canada, France, Italy, Germany, the U.K., Japan, the European Commission, the head of the IMF, World Bank, and FSB joined the discussion.
- According to Mnuchin's statement after the meeting, the G7 members were supportive of digital currency regulation.
U.S. Treasury 
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The Chairwoman of the Bank of Russia says the digital ruble would benefit small businesses but reduce commercial banks' profits. - During a meeting held on Dec. 3, Bank of Russia's Elvira Nabiullina noted that launching the digital ruble would undermine commercial banks' profits via commissions and transaction fees.
- Nabiullina called the digital ruble a natural development to organize financial services and discussed its benefits for small and medium-sized companies, highlighting its potential for faster and more secure payments.
- The head of the central bank said that authorities are working on various models for digital ruble regulation.
CoinTelegraph
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Thailand's excise department looks to the blockchain as an alternative for a tax raise. - Thailand will utilize blockchain technology to collect obligatory taxes, meeting the Finance Ministry's revenue target, and restrict tax evasion, according to a local news outlet.
- The Fiscal Policy Office's director-general, Lavaron Sangsnit, said that raising taxes would affect the recovery of Thailand's domestic economy. Sangsnit urged the department to incorporate blockchain into revenue collection administration during 2021.
- According to Sangsnit, Thailand's revenue and customs departments should integrate blockchain into their operations to enforce duty and tax collections.
Bangkok Post
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Standard Chartered Bank (STAN.L) and the Union Bank of the Philippines have issued blockchain-based retail bonds as a proof-of-concept. - The banks tokenized $187M worth of par value during a blockchain-based tokenization event on Dec. 7.
- The retail bond issuance involved about 9B Philippine pesos, completed on a platform created by UnionBank and S.C. Ventures, the innovation and ventures arm of Standard Chartered.
Standard Chartered
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Spain's second-largest bank, BBVA (NYSE:BBVA), will launch crypto custodial services for Europe-wide use next month. - BBVA intends to roll-out cryptocurrency custody based in Switzerland for the European market, Coindesk sources say.
- The services would also include tokenized securities.
- BBVA has been working on integrating Russian Gazprombank's SILO custodial platform for the past six months, Coindesk's sources shared.
- BBVA executives hope to pass regulatory compliance obstacles by next month.
Coindesk
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Russia's BTC-e founder is sentenced to five years in a French prison for money laundering and extortion. - A French judge has sentenced Alexander Vinnik, the co-founder of BTC-e (Aleksandr Bilyuchenko was the other co-founder), in a Paris court on Dec. 7, 2020 to five years in jail, plus fines worth $120,000.
- Vinnik, whom police arrested in Greece in 2017, avoided a more significant sentence by arguing that his role at BTC-e was that of a technical operator "merely" following directors' orders.
- French prosecutors failed to link Vinnik to the creation and distribution of ransomware called Locky. Therefore, the court acquitted extortion charges related to those additional cyberattack charges.
- The 41-year-old was found guilty of organizing a money-laundering scheme.
ABC
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Fidelity Digital enables customers to hold bitcoin as collateral against cash loans through a partnership with BlockFi. - Fidelity Digital, which is distinct from Fidelity, is rolling out a feature to allow institutional customers to hold bitcoin as collateral against cash loans facilitated by crypto startup BlockFi.
- According to Bloomberg, the president of the Boston-based Fidelity Digital Assets, Tom Jessop, said in an interview that the financial services company would keep the custody for digital currency and not the issuance of cash loans.
- Potential customers of the services are cryptocurrency miners, hedge funds, and over-the-counter (OTC) trading desks who want to convert their digital currencies into cash without selling it, often for tax purposes.
- Jessop indicated that having bitcoin backing fiat loans is a "foundational capability" for the market's growth.
Bloomberg
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- J.P. Morgan is using its JPM Coin for intraday repurchase agreements totaling billions of dollars.
- Stefan Ingves, governor of Sweden's central bank, said in a speech that Riksbank needs new tools and analysis to reach its inflation target and to stay consistent with the world's monetary dynamics, as reported by Bloomberg.
- San Francisco-based cryptocurrency fund manager Bitwise Asset Management launched a publicly-traded Bitwise Crypto Index Fund with up to $120M in AUM under the symbol BITW and public quotation on the OTCQX market on Dec. 9, 2020. Note: Bitwise has applied for multiple bitcoin ETFs, all of which have been denied by the SEC.
- Standard Chartered (STAN.L) is launching a crypto custody service called Zodia Custody for institutional clients through a partnership agreement between its innovation and ventures unit, S.C. Venture, and a Chicago-based financial services company, Northern Trust (NASDAQ:NTRS). Once it completes regulatory filings and registrations in the U.K. FCA, Zodia hopes to launch in London next year offering bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), Ripple (XRP), litecoin (LTC), and bitcoin cash (BCH) to its customers.
- Peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange LocalBitcoins announced in a Medium blog that Russia accounts for 17.4% of its volume, Venezuela 12.3%, and Colombia 11.3%. The three countries total 41% of global trading volume for the peer-to-peer platform, despite being banned multiple times by Russia's telecommunications regulator.
- Cryptocurrency trading company Bison, backed by the parent company of the German stock exchange Börse Stuttgart and developed by its subsidiary Sowa Labs GmbH, posted a 180% increase in its user base. The two-year-old app exceeded €1B in total trading volume in the last month.
- German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz discussed Facebook's Libra rebrand during a video conference with G7 finance ministers on Dec. 7, suggesting that German and European markets will not allow Libra (now Diem) stablecoins before the company meets all regulatory requirements.
- On Dec. 7, the ECB's head of market innovation and integration, Holger Neuhaus, said that the central bank would consider launching a central bank digital currency by mid-2021 in an "investigation," per comments made during the Singapore FinTech Festival 2020.
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 |  | Written and curated by wide-eyed bitcoin watcher since $1, Aaron Wise. Streaming headline junkie, Associated Press fanboy, eye-strained news terminal watcher, 2017 founder of Cryptocurrency Newsfeed. Temporarily based in Florida while awaiting the construction of cryptopia. |  | | Editor | Alexander Huls is a Toronto-based journalist. He has contributed articles about true crime and pop culture to The New York Times, Men's Health, Popular Mechanics, and other fine publications. Follow him on Twitter @alxhuls. | |
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