Latest news with #CNAD
Coin Geek
11-08-2025
- Business
- Coin Geek
Bolivia taps El Salvador for guidance; Algeria bans 'crypto'
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... The South American nation of Bolivia lifted its decade-long ban on digital assets a year ago, and since then, trading has skyrocketed. It's now seeking to regulate the sector and has tapped neighboring El Salvador for guidance. While Bolivia warms up to digital assets, Algeria is moving in the opposite direction. The North African country has announced a sweeping ban on 'crypto,' criminalizing all digital asset activities. Bolivia taps El Salvador for 'crypto' guidance The Central Bank of Bolivia (BCB) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with El Salvador's National Commission for Digital Assets (CNAD) to share knowledge and exchange regulatory and technical expertise. The MoU took effect immediately and will remain in force indefinitely, the two revealed in their announcement. The regulators will share their experience in blockchain intelligence tools, data analytics, risk analysis, and market oversight. They'll also jointly train their staff and exchange information on virtual asset service providers (VASPs) operating in both countries. BCB Acting President Edwin Rojas Ulo, who signed the agreement with CNAD's Juan Carlos Reyes García, says it's part of the Bolivian government's ongoing efforts to promote digital asset adoption in the country. However, Bolivia is keen to ensure this growth is within the existing legal framework and protects investors while preserving monetary stability. CNAD reiterated its commitment to promoting digital assets in the region, with Garcia pledging the agency's support to any South American country expanding its 'crypto' presence. El Salvador was the first country globally to adopt BTC as legal tender (although it didn't pan out as President Nayib Bukele expected); Garcia says this has equipped it with experience in managing digital assets, and it's willing to lend this expertise to its neighbors. The MoU is Bolivia's latest effort to boost digital asset adoption after lifting its decade-long ban in June 2024. While announcing the ban in 2014, it claimed it was protecting its official currency, boliviano, from depreciation and preventing 'crypto' use in illegal activities like money laundering and tax evasion. Ten years later, the government changed tune as adoption peaked in other Latin American nations like Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, and El Salvador. According to BCB data, digital asset transactions soared over 500% in the first six months of this year to hit $294 million. Source: BCB Digital assets 'have facilitated access to foreign currency transactions, including remittances, small purchases and payments, benefiting micro and small business owners across various sectors, as well as families nationwide,' the central bank said. For Bolivians, digital assets offer the best alternative amid a steep depreciation of the local currency and peak inflation. This year alone, the boliviano has lost half its value against the USD in the black market, with official dollar reserves plummeting to near zero. Algeria bans digital assets As Bolivia opens up to digital assets, Algeria is heading the other way. The North African nation has enacted a new law that criminalizes any use, exchange or mining of digital assets. According to a local report, the crackdown was enacted through Law No. 25-10 of July 24, 2025, and takes effect immediately. Under Article 6A, Algerians are prohibited from issuing, purchasing, selling, possessing, using, or promoting digital assets. It's also illegal to develop or operate trading platforms or digital wallets, individually or through third-party online platforms. Beyond trading, Algeria has also banned block reward mining. The country's mining activities are insignificant compared to other African countries like Ethiopia, but it is gaining ground in the southern provinces where electricity is much cheaper. Algerians who violate the new law face a prison sentence not exceeding one year, a fine ranging from 200,000 dinars ($1,500) to 1 million dinars ($7,700), or both. These penalties could be heightened if the 'crypto' usage is linked to other forms of organized crime, like money laundering. The new ban was unexpected and bucks a global trend where governments are racing to enact the friendliest laws to boost adoption and attract global capital. It also comes against the backdrop of rapid adoption in Algeria. According to a Chainalysis report last September, the country was the fourth-fastest growing by value received in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, outpacing titans like the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and Egypt. Source: Chainalysis Watch: Is your company ready to ride the wave of blockchain adoption? title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="">
Crypto Insight
10-08-2025
- Business
- Crypto Insight
Bitcoin investment banks coming to El Salvador — Gov regulator
Regulated Bitcoin investment banks are coming to El Salvador, following Thursday's approval of El Salvador's Investment Banking Law, which classifies investment banks under different regulations than commercial banks. Investment banks will now be allowed to hold BTC and other digital assets on their balance sheets and offer crypto services to 'sophisticated' investors, the equivalent of accredited investors in the United States, Juan Carlos Reyes, president of El Salvador's Commission of Digital Assets (CNAD), the government's crypto regulatory agency, told Cointelegraph. He added: 'The new Investment Banking Law allows private investment banks to operate in legal tender and foreign currencies for 'Sophisticated Investors' and to engage in digital assets like Bitcoin with a Digital Asset Service Provider (PSAD) license. With a PSAD license, a bank could choose to operate entirely as a Bitcoin bank.' The law encourages foreign investment in El Salvador and positions it as an emerging hub for finance, proponents of the newly adopted law say. Institutional investors have been a major driver of El Salvador's crypto adoption, as the Central American country attracts crypto companies and financial firms with its pro-crypto regulatory climate. However, critics say that BTC adoption in the country and the regulatory policies are not helping the average person and mainly benefit the government and large businesses. El Salvador forges international partnerships to drive crypto growth President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, met with Bilal Bin Saqib, Pakistan's state minister of crypto and blockchain, to share strategies for nation-state-level Bitcoin adoption and energy policy to foster crypto mining. 'The cooperation is essentially based on how emerging economies that are both under the IMF program can leverage technology and other financial instruments for national growth,' Bin Saqib told Cointelegraph in an interview. On July 30, Bolivia's central bank signed a memorandum of understanding with CNAD to promote the use of cryptocurrencies as an alternative to traditional fiat currencies. The agreement came amid a currency crisis in Bolivia, where US dollars are scarce and difficult to acquire, making international trade difficult. This has led to the growing use of US-dollar-denominated stablecoins as a medium of exchange, according to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino. Source:
Yahoo
31-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bolivia Looks to El Salvador for Help Building Its Crypto Regulatory Framework
On Wednesday, Bolivia's central bank announced that it had signed a formal agreement with El Salvador's digital asset regulator, marking a significant step toward developing a legal and technical framework for cryptocurrency adoption in the Andean nation. The Central Bank of Bolivia (BCB) and El Salvador's Comisión Nacional de Activos Digitales (CNAD) will collaborate on a broad range of crypto policy initiatives under the terms of a newly signed memorandum of understanding. The agreement includes joint work on blockchain intelligence tools, regulatory frameworks, and risk analysis models. It is open-ended and takes effect immediately. The policy shift comes as crypto use accelerates in Bolivia. According to figures released by the BCB, digital asset transaction volume grew from $46.5 million in June 2024 to $294 million in June 2025, a more than sixfold increase following the passage of Decree No. 082/2024, which authorized broader use of cryptoassets across the country. The new agreement draws on El Salvador's experience as the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender and build a formal digital asset regulatory system. The CNAD, established after El Salvador's 2021 Bitcoin Law, oversees the authorization of token offerings, the registration of digital asset service providers, and the supervision of crypto-related platforms. BCB Acting President Edwin Rojas Ulo and CNAD President Juan Carlos Reyes García signed the agreement in La Paz. The two institutions will share best practices aimed at supporting Bolivia's goal of building a transparent, inclusive, and well-regulated digital asset ecosystem, particularly for populations underserved by traditional finance. While Bolivia has historically taken a cautious stance on crypto, the agreement signals a move toward gradual regulatory engagement rather than restriction. Officials emphasized that cooperation with El Salvador will help Bolivia modernize its financial infrastructure while safeguarding stability and promoting innovation. The deal aligns Bolivia with a growing number of countries exploring tailored crypto regulations in response to rapid adoption, especially in Latin America. It also reinforces El Salvador's role as a regional reference point for crypto integration at the institutional level. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
White House Crypto Chief Bo Hines Met With El Salvador's Bukele to Discuss Bitcoin
El Salvador and the United States are looking to ramp up their crypto partnership. Bo Hines, the executive director of the White House's Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets, met with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Wednesday. 'The aspiring Bitcoin Superpower came to meet with the OG Bitcoin Country to discuss areas of mutual interest and possible collaboration relating to bitcoin, stablecoins and digital assets,' Stacy Herbert, director of El Salvador's Bitcoin Office, told CoinDesk. 'Over the coming months, I believe we will see some extraordinary things happen for both partners as a result of this meeting,' she added, without elaborating further. Hines is an important player in Washington when it comes to crypto policy, working alongside David Sacks, who chairs the crypto council and took on the role of AI and crypto czar. The two countries have gotten closer since U.S. President Donald Trump's inauguration in January. Bukele was welcomed by Trump at the White House in April, where they discussed security agreements. El Salvador has agreed to take custody of some of the illegal immigrants deported by the U.S. in the country's maximum security mega-prison, CECOT, built in 2022 as part of the government's crackdown on violent gangs. El Salvador's crypto regulation agency, the National Commission of Digital Assets (CNAD), has also already met with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the purpose of establishing a cross-border regulatory sandbox. The idea, according to CNAD President Juan Carlos Reyes, is for the U.S. to take advantage of El Salvador's experience in regulating digital assets to evaluate streamlined regulatory approaches for its own framework. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
El Salvador's Top Crypto Regulator Meets With U.S. SEC: 'It Was Very Refreshing'
El Salvador's Comisión Nacional de Activos Digitales (CNAD), the agency in charge of regulating digital assets in the Central American nation, is seeking to establish a cross-border regulatory sandbox with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 'We want to create international collaboration,' Juan Carlos Reyes, president of the CNAD, told CoinDesk in an interview. 'Our biggest message is that digital assets don't have any geographical barriers. Collaboration with regulators should not have international barriers either.' El Salvador is in a unique situation in that it did not boast of strong financial institutions, or even of an existing ecosystem of developers, when President Nayib Bukele made bitcoin legal tender in 2021. That means the CNAD was able to start with a blank slate when it introduced a regulatory framework tailored to crypto. Almost two years later after Reyes took over the agency, El Salvador's advanced regulatory framework has incentivized crypto giants such as Tether, Bitfinex and Binance to open shop in the country. The idea, Reyes said, is for the U.S. SEC to now use El Salvador as a live, real-world case study to evaluate streamlined regulatory approaches for digital assets — in other words, for the SEC to learn from El Salvador's experience as it revamps its own regulatory framework in a post-Gensler world. The pilot program proposed by the CNAD involves different scenarios: a U.S.-licensed traditional finance broker obtaining a digital asset license under CNAD regulations, and the development of two small-scale tokenization offerings facilitated by a CNAD-licensed tokenization company. Each scenario would be capped at $10,000. These initiatives would support some of the objectives laid out by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce in February, when she wrote that the SEC Crypto Task Force, which she now leads, would take a very different approach towards crypto regulation from here on out. 'CNAD really looked at [Pierce's document] with a critical eye as to how we can help,' Erica Perkin, owner of The Perkin Law Firm and a member of CNAD's advisory group, told CoinDesk. 'We're here. There's data [the SEC] might want to collect. It's difficult to collect in the U.S. … We've built a framework that's nimble enough to work on the exact issues that the SEC is looking at, and we're here to help and collect information on how we can best do that.' The CNAD met with the SEC's Crypto Task Force on April 22 to discuss the initiative. The meeting was constructive, according to Reyes and Perkin. 'They asked good questions,' Perkin said. 'They're in an information-gathering phase. They were engaged and open to discussion.' Reyes has already signed regulatory cooperation agreements with countries such as Argentina and Paraguay. In his view, the SEC seems to be ahead of the curve when it comes to understanding the regulatory needs of digital assets, whereas regulators in other jurisdictions have tended to see crypto regulation from a traditional finance perspective. 'The quality of people that make up the SEC Crypto Task Force is quite impressive. They get it. They understand the technology,' Reyes said. 'We were able to have discussions that were on point about what's needed in order to regulate the technology… It was very refreshing.' Sign in to access your portfolio
