Monoup news digest: main updates from fintech industry
Wrapping up the week with news digest from Monoup. Crypto industry in our spotlight and is developing even faster than before; and has reached Kyrgyzstan. Why are the authorities collaborating with Binance? Meanwhile, even Maldives have followed the trend, transforming from a beach vacation destination into a crypto hub and a free zone for Web 3 projects. How and why — read more below.
The CEO of Tether, USDT issuer, shared future plans and explained why things didn't work out with European MiCA.
Let's review what happened this week in fintech and iGaming, and what you definitely need to know.
Binance signed MoU with Kyrgyzstan
Crypto exchange Binance started collaboration with the state of Kyrgyzstan. The country's authorities signed a formal MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the exchange, where Kyrgyzstan is represented by National Investment Agency under the president.
The agreement formalized a positive attitude towards crypto sector and comprehensive state support for implementation of crypto payments throughout the country in everyday life. Primarily, Binance Pay will appear as a payment method across the country and will be actively promoted. Additionally, citizens will gain access to Binance Academy platform, which provides a source of knowledge about cryptocurrency.
Given that the founder of Binance believes that Bitcoin will reach $1,000,000, this is undoubtedly a timely deal. In a recent interview, Changpeng Zhao shared positive forecasts about the future of cryptocurrency, considering trends in the USA and the rest of the world.
VISA AI shopping assistant
VISA payment system is actively working on adopting new artificial intelligence technologies. The company will release an AI assistant capable of making online purchases without human intervention.
The AI agent will be connected to a special Visa card and will be able to make payments according to set spending limits. Currently, company is working on the legal status of such purchases and their technical implementation. Among the AI developers involved in the project are Anthropic, Mistral, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Perplexity. IBM and Stripe, as well as the tech giant Samsung, have also joined.
Visa is confident that this is a literally revolutionary way to make regular purchases that do not bring shopping pleasure. This includes booking tickets and hotels and paying for various basic consumer services. The AI agent will not only be able to pay but also find the necessary tickets and hotels upon request, choose the best offer, and purchase it. That is, this task can be fully delegated to an internet assistant.
Potential users already have concerns that AI agents will make uncontrolled purchases or take full access to bank accounts. Visa payment system believes that this will not happen and that proper limits should be set for such purchases. Then, the AI will not be able to spend more money than it is allowed. At the same time, it is not yet clear whether it will coordinate its choice of hotels and tickets and whether airlines will want to participate in this development to promote their services. On one hand, this sounds very promising and convenient, but on the other hand, the less a person is involved in the process, the higher chances that brands can manipulate the choice and, by collaborating with Visa, sell more of their services.
Maldives turning into a crypto hub
The Maldivian government has signed an agreement with Dubai-based company MBS Global Investments, which will invest nearly 9 billion dollars to develop a crypto-friendly zone on the islands' territory.
This will allow the country to reduce its dependence on tourist flow and earn money to cover its growing external debt, as well as to triple country's GDP. Maldives International Financial Center will be built in the capital, Male, over the next 5 years. The hub will provide jobs for 16,000 people and become a free zone for cryptocurrency projects.
This solution is not very new but very effective for many island states. Many remote countries are often engaged in issuing offshore gambling or forex licenses, hosting offshore zones, or various companies on their territory. All this helps provide jobs, attract funds, and develop the region. Such projects pay off quickly but can negatively affect the attitude of developed countries towards them. For example, in the European Union, licenses issued in most island countries are not valid, and such countries are considered high-risk. However, in some other cases, this is a more profitable and quite viable solution. The same Anjouan license for iGaming companies today has become the most popular solution and has proven itself well in practice. If you are interested in obtaining Anjouan license, drop us an email.
USDT will not register under MiCA
CEO of Tether has finally shed light on the future of USDT stablecoin in connection with its non-compliance with European laws. The new regulation of crypto assets in the EU, MiCA, has caused a lot of stir in the industry, and we have already discussed this in the previous article. In addition to the strict new rules that affect everyone, businessmen and users were worried that world's largest stablecoin by capitalization, USDT, refused to comply with these rules.
For some time, rumors have been circulating around this topic. Some believed that USDT would definitely get authorization, as Europe is one of the most important regions, while others believed that the stablecoin would not return to the EU. Recently, at the Token2049 conference held in Dubai, company's CEO spoke and explained Tether's position and its future plans. It turned out that USDT will not bring its activities into compliance with the new European rules, as the company believes this is a dangerous path that could have unexpected consequences. Stablecoin has attracted over 400 million users worldwide, and the CEO believes it is unfair to risk other users for the sake of European bureaucracy. From this, it follows that USDT will not be in Europe instead the coin will focus on other markets.
CEO also clarified that he particularly didn’t believe in Europe's requirement to keep 60% of crypto companies' reserves in European banks. This, in his opinion, is bad not only for crypto but also for those banks themselves. Tether believes that medium and small European banks will not withstand such an influx of cash.
At the same time, company is not hiding new investment project Quantoz Payments — the official issuer of EURQ and USDQ, which is indeed registered under MiCA rules. From this, we can assume that Tether does not intend to say goodbye to Europe but will split the business into several parts: USDT will operate worldwide, other coins will stay in Europe. At the conference, it was also mentioned that not everyone in the world is as lucky as Europeans, so Tether considers to care of users from all regions and meet their crypto needs too.
These are the news highlights of the current week in fintech. Follow our Telegram channel for daily updates and insides. If you yourself have something to share, we are always happy to communicate personally! Our contact details are in the footer below.
