It seems that at this time, more of the world’s countries are acknowledging the potential of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. While the regulatory trend is still underway, several nations are taking things one step further, and preparing for a world where crypto and blockchain play an active role in everyday life.

According to recent reports, the Brazilian Diplomatic Academy, named the Rio Branco Institute, has made several changes to its admissions policy, thus also introducing the requirement for candidates to be well-versed with digital currencies and blockchain technology.

While China has actively iterated its negative opinion on cryptocurrencies, the Asian nation is actively looking for ways to implement blockchain technology in its daily financial operations.

According to recent reports, not long ago, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has developed a blockchain-based financial trading solution that would be used to process a variety of transactions, with the focus being put on foreign currency exchanges. Now, the system has been in use for a while, and the PBoC recently issued a press statement, mentioning that the blockchain platform has processed over $4.36 billion-worth of foreign exchange transactions.

The worldwide cryptocurrency and blockchain regulatory framework is undergoing constant changes, backed by big perspective differences, resulting in friendly and anti-crypto laws.

As such, this article will cover 3 recent developments on the crypto regulatory trend, being carried out in Iran, Russia and Malta.

Iranian Crypto Miners Are Threatened with Power Cuts

Not long ago, Iran’s Deputy Energy Minister has shared his opinion on digital currency mining, and states that miners should be charged higher rates for their power usage. At that time, he also mentioned that subsidies should be cut to zero.

Unfortunately, the situation has gotten worse. Based on this, Iran’s state-sponsored power company, Tavanir, has warned cryptocurrency miners that they will be detected and that power cuts will be carried out. The argument behind this threat is that Iran’s power consumption has reportedly increased by 7% on a yearly basis, due to the vast increase in local crypto mining operations. Additionally, a new framework that makes utilizing the national power grid for mining operations has been implemented.

Blockchain technology has often been well-praised for its ability to facilitate instant cross-border transactions. However, at this moment in time, while most banks are researching the benefits of blockchain, no system of this kind has been implemented yet.

A recent announcement made by SWIFT, the world’s biggest global interbank messaging platform, may make blockchain-based bank-supported cross-border payments a reality. As such, the SWIFT announcement mentions that blockchain firms will soon be able to leverage the Global Payments Innovation (GPI) platform to carry out instant payments.

At this moment in time, many of the worlds countries have opened up to the cryptocurrency market, whereas some have also introduced laws meant to regulate the industry. As such, the number of crypto-friendly countries is steadily growing.

Despite this aspect, recent reports indicate that India’s stance against digital currencies is slowly, yet surely getting worse. With this in mind, an inter-ministerial panel, put in charge with drafting up a regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency market, has reportedly proposed 10 years jail punishment for anyone connected to Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

Despite the increased popularity of cryptocurrencies, the mining industry is still struggling in several countries. As part of this article, we will cover two recent developments that have taken place in Russia and Iran.

Russia Planning to Introduce Administrative Penalties for Crypto Miners

With this in mind, recent reports indicate that the Russian State Duma is currently debating whether administrative responsibility should be introduced for the local digital currency mining market. According to Anatoly Aksakov, the chairman of the Duma’s Financial Market Committee: “I note that any operations with cryptocurrency that are contrary to the Russian legislation will be considered illegitimate. This means that mining, organizing issuance, circulation, creating exchange points for these tools will be prohibited. Administrative liability in the form of a fine will be incurred for such actions. We believe that cryptocurrencies created on open blockchains such as bitcoins, ethers, and others are illegitimate tools.”

During the last couple of years, the cryptocurrency market has grown exponentially. Yet, this increase in popularity brought along several new fintech trends, including the emergence of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), tokens, and now, social media cryptocurrencies.

Recent reports indicate that Facebook has been actively working on its cryptocurrency ambitions for a while. Rumours discussing an internal crypto-related project have first appeared last year, when it was revealed that Facebook was seeking a $1 billion funding for Project Libra, the social network’s digital currency.

The cryptocurrency mining market has been pretty volatile over the last couple of years, granted massive price swings, updated regulatory frameworks, and fluctuating difficulty rates. Despite this aspect, tens of thousands of people throughout the world have invested in purchasing mining hardware, to help mine their favourite cryptocurrency, and turn a profit.

At this moment in time, most popular digital currencies rely on miners to dedicate their hardware resources to authenticate transactions, and ensure the fulfilment of the proof-of-work protocol, which in return, rewards them with newly-minted coin. Mining represents an immensely profitable market, especially when access to low-cost electricity is available, and when volatility brings coin prices up.

Since its inception, the Ethereum blockchain has been backed by the Proof-of-Work algorithm, similarly to Bitcoin. Yet, Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, has often talked about his plans of ditching PoW, in favour of Proof-of-Stake (PoS), which he believes to be better suited for Ethereum’s purposes.

Now, recent reports indicate that the PoS blockchain code will be finalized sometime in June. The news comes from Justin Drake, a researcher for the Ethereum Foundation, who stated: “I’ve been continuing to fine comb Phase Zero in preparation for the spec freeze which we’re targeting for the 30th of June (…) we’re still very much on track. Still, code simplifications are coming through which is great and the process of fine combing is also for finding final bugs.”

Lately, apart from attempting to regulate the digital currency and blockchain markets, governments throughout the world are actively looking for ways to get a slice of the crypto cake. So far, the effort has mostly taken the shape of central bank-backed digital currencies.

As such, numerous countries have announced commencement of work on their very own CBDC projects. Pakistan represents one of the latest examples, since the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), has stated that they’re planning to launch a CBDC by the year of 2025.