Bitcoin Daily: India Considers Crypto For Financial Transactions; Bitcoin Makes Up Half Of Crypto Market

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in China is seeking to double down on its efforts to make a fertile environment for blockchain technology development, Cryptovest reported. To that end, the ministry said it would “will speed up pushing innovative applications of blockchain technology, with a focus on enhancing computing power and storage capacity.”

Bitcoin almost broke through a significant level this weekend: The price of the popular cryptocurrency nearly fell below $6,000, MarketWatch reported. At the same time, however, bitcoin now comprises 51.1 percent of the total market for digital currencies. Even so, bitcoin is still far way from its record market share of 95.6 percent. As of 6:45 p.m. on Monday (Aug. 13), the price of bitcoin was at $6,244.95, according to CoinDesk.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury is at work on a platform that would allow crypto exchanges to report suspicious activities, said Cryptovest. Kenneth Blanco, director of the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), said the platform will allow the private sector and law enforcement to “engage with industry developments, concerns, and share risks and threats that we are seeing.”

The Indian government is mulling rules that might let crypto tokens be used for financial transactions, noted Cryptovest. To that end, India’s finance ministry has formed a committee under the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) secretary to reportedly develop a roadmap and regulations to potentially allow the use of certain digital currency assets India.

China is seeking to encourage FinTech and blockchain technology — and has released a three-year plan to help its efforts, Cryptovest reported. The plan was unveiled by the MIIT and the Chinese National Development Commission (NDC).

A Saudi Arabian committee made up of regulators is warning would-be cryptocurrency traders that it is illegal to trade digital currency in the country, according to CoinDesk. The committee said that there are “negative consequences and high risks on traders as they are out of government supervision.”

The founders of the Nebulas project, which is powered by digital currency NAS, will wait at least a decade to receive tokens for their work, CoinDesk said. The decision, which is unusual for the industry, was made voluntarily by the team.