The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has said the tokens will be issued on May 8.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) invited individuals and financial institutions in the country to subscribe to its upcoming gold-backed digital token in a Thursday notice.

Applications for the tokens must be for a minimum of $10 for individuals and $5,000 for financial institutions and corporates, according to the notice.

RBZ announced in April that the tokens, meant to combat its volatile local currency, will be issued on May 8. In March, inflation in Zimbabwe stood at 87.6% after hitting a high of 285% in 2022.

The central bank has split up the issuance and usage of the token into two phases. In the first phase, tokens will be issued for investment purposes and available for sale through banks. Tokens will be held in digital wallets or cards and available for person-to-person and person-to-business transactions in the second phase, the notice said.

“Holders of physical gold coins, at their discretion, will be able to exchange or convert, through the banking system, the physical gold coins into gold-backed digital tokens,” the bank said.

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Source: Vietnam Insider

“The crypto sector has grown too big to be ignored by traditional finance”, one of the ANZ bank’s senior executives has told a Blockchain Australia forum.

“When you look under the hood on that, we’ve concluded that this is a major protocol shift for financial market infrastructure,” said Nigel Dobson, ANZ’s Banking Services Portfolio Lead.

The comments came a day after rival Commonwealth Bank announced that it would roll out crypto trading services for 10 digital assets via its Commbank app, Crypto Insider reported.

Related: Why the regulators are now turning attention to decentralized finance

The “State of Play” forum was held by Blockchain Australia on Nov. 4 and featured representatives from organizations including Mastercard, ANZ and NAB offering their take on the crypto sector in the wake of CBA’s play.

Nigel Dobson, ANZ’s Banking Services Portfolio Lead stated that the growth of the crypto and blockchain tech over the past 12 to 18 months has put the sector firmly on the bank’s radar:

“There’s this sort of weight of money that you just simply at some point can’t ignore right? And you know, in the DeFi world that we’ve been watching for a while or even in just the currency space, it’s just the weight of money and the quality of money that’s moving into these venues that it makes us think, well, what is happening here?”

“When you look under the hood on that, we’ve concluded that this is a major protocol shift for financial market infrastructure,” he added.

Dobson is a senior banker with more than 30 years of experience at Barclays, Citibank and ANZ. He likened the technological advancements brought about by blockchain tech to the transformative effects the Internet had on global commerce in the early 2000s.

“We’re seeing the same kind of shift occurring here. We’re shifting to more decentralized, arguably more trusted, more secure, faster, cheaper, better — yet to be proven —but if that’s the thesis that these protocols can generate better outcomes and new business models, then they can’t be ignored,” he said.

None of the other members of Australia’s big four banks has announced any immediate plans to follow CBA in enabling crypto trading. Dobson stated that it was unclear how CBA’s trial would go, but implied that the ANZ is likely to join the party at some stage.

“I think the move that the CBA made yesterday was bold and it is yet to be seen whether those customers will embrace that. But certainly all of what we’ve been talking about today, particularly in this section of the commentary, is that that the ship has sailed. And so what it is that we need to do is to navigate our path towards utilizing these networks,” he said.

The bullish comments mark a significant change from the bank, which recently settled a case with Canberra-based Bitcoin trader Aaron Flynn after he took legal action against ANZ over de-banking between 2018 and 2019 due to his work as a Digital Currency Exchange (DCE), according to Crypto Insider.

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Source: Vietnam Insider

The State Bank of Vietnam will be in charge of studying and trialing the use of virtual money from this year until 2023 as part of key objects in mastering core technologies, according to a government decision.

The government does not give a clear definition of virtual currency and assets, VNExpress reported.

For now, cryptocurrencies remain an illegal means of transaction in Vietnam. However, the trading of Bitcoin and the like is popular with many investors using foreign platforms and social media to make money from this asset.

Related: Why Vietnam ranked top among countries use cryptocurrency the most?

There is no definition of cryptocurrency under the laws of Vietnam. Vietnam has the second highest rate of cryptocurrency usage among 74 economies, according to a survey by market researcher Statista.

Cryptocurrency is referred to a wide array of technological developments that utilize a technique better known as cryptography. In simple terms, cryptography is the technique of protecting information by transforming it (i.e. encrypting it) into an unreadable format that can only be deciphered (or decrypted) by someone who possesses a secret key.

Cryptocurrency is secured via this technique using an ingenious system of public and private digital keys. However, no generally accepted definition has been agreed so far.

What are the risks associated with cryptocurrency trading in Vietnam?

Currently, the Government of Vietnam has not yet issued license to any organization wishing to do cryptocurrency business in Vietnam.

Doing cryptocurrency business in Vietnam without license shall be subject to administrative sanctions in accordance with the laws of Vietnam. Specifically, any investor doing cryptocurrency business in Vietnam without license shall be subject to an administrative penalty of VND50,000,000 to VND100,000,000 and the foreign exchange operations of the credit institution shall be suspended for three to six months.

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Source: Vietnam Insider