Bitcoin Daily: Public Blockchain Cardano Developing Chip That Creates Cash-Like Crypto; Brazil Probes Banks Turning Away Crypto Firms; Albania Proposal To Regulate All Crypto

With new microchip tech by Cardano, cryptocurrency users would be able to access payment services without an internet connection.

Cardano’s idea could create a fiat-like experience for users, and it could open up possibilities like authenticating and managing luxury goods, like the ability to identify a Louis Vuitton bag, for instance.

But it could also find a larger use worldwide by giving people without access to the internet the ability to use cryptocurrency — such as African farmers, only 2 percent of whom have smartphones.

Charles Hoskinson, founder of IOHK, which makes Cardano, said in a recent Cointelgraph interview that the crypto-native chip is being created at the IOHK lab at the University of Wyoming.

Albania’s Parliament has signed a comprehensive law to regulate the conditions for licensing all activity of cryptocurrency in the country.

The bill, introduced by Albanian Minister of Finance and Economy Anila Denaj, will monitor digital tokens and DLT.

It will also “prevent abusive practices in the market, where severe fines are stipulated for anyone who violates the provisions of the law,” according to Denaj, Cointelgraph reported. She said she wanted to allow for the best use of the technology, but also prevent against harmful violations like fraud or the funding of terrorism or other crimes.

Albania is now the third country, following Malta and France, to put framework into law regarding cryptocurrency.

Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) is launching an investigation into banks that aren’t working with cryptocurrency, a report from Folha de São Paulo reads.

The case stems from a 2018 lawsuit by Sao Paulo-based blockchain nonprofit Associação Brasileira de Criptoativos e Blockchain (ACAB), which alleged that Banco de Brasil had acted wrongly by closing the account of crypto exchange Atlas. Banco de Brasil, in that case, cited an “administrative decision.”

The bill also mentions other Brazilian banks: Santander, Itau Unibanco, Sicredi and Banco Inter.

The case was denied in 2019 after the banks said there was nothing that forced them to provide the service in question. But CADE now says there was no reasonable evidence to deny the cryptocurrency services.