The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the region's de facto central bank, currently has no plan to issue a central bank digital currency (CBDC), a high-level government official said on Wednesday.

During a council meeting with legislators in Hong Kong, Joseph Chan, acting secretary for financial services and the treasury, said the HKMA's research on the topic had led to a belief that a CBDC would be less useful in Hong Kong compared to other jurisdictions.

Chan told the legislators:

"The HKMA has carried out research on CBDC. At the same time, the HKMA notes that the benefits of CBDC and its efficiency gains will depend on the actual circumstances of a jurisdiction. In the context of Hong Kong, the already efficient payment infrastructure and services make CBDC a less attractive proposition. The HKMA has no plan to issue CBDC at this stage but will continue to monitor the international development."

A representative from the HKMA also confirmed the acting secretary's statement, but did not disclose further details on the agency's research on the issue.

Yet Chan's response marks a notable update on the HKMA's explorations of a CBDC prototype as part of its wider effort to gauge the potential of distributed ledger technology.

In April of last year, the HKMA first revealed, in a response to legislators, that the banking authority has started "research and a proof-of-concept work on central bank digital currency."

The HKMA said at the time that the first phase of the study would expect to be done by the end of 2017, based on which the authority would decide on the appropriate action forward.

The latest remarks came as a response to a question raised by legislator Denis Kwok on May 18. According to a document released at the time, Kwok was seeking an answer from the government on whether it will consider issuing a CBDC in a bid to keep the city's competitive edge on financial innovation.

Ethereum classic has removed its so-called "difficulty bomb."
Designed to increase the difficulty of mining its blockchain over time, the code was a feature of the original ethereum codebase (which later split into ethereum classic and ethereum) in 2016. The successful network upgrade took place at block 5,900,000, according to available network data and statements from developers involved in the project.
While it is difficult to account for exact percentages in terms of how many nodes updated their software (owing to a lack of available tools), developers involved with the project told CoinDesk that most exchange nodes and mining pools reported updating their software well before the fork.
There was no indication of any ill effects or bugs in the hours immediately after the fork. The upgrade is expected to reduce the amount of time it takes to create a block.
As such, the upgrade puts both technical and ideological distance between the ethereum classic and ethereum blockchains.
While the ethereum community remains committed to transitioning to a proof-of-stake consensus system, the ethereum classic community has elected to continue using proof-of-work, as its members contend that, of the various ways to achieve consensus over block validation, it resists centralization best.
More specifically, advocates argue that proof-of-work systems require their validators (miners) to continuously invest in hardware and therefore in the blockchain.
Deliberation on the fork started as early as 2016, and due to the extensive discussions, the upgrade was not expected to be controversial or complicated.

In a May 21 article entitled “The Old Allure of New Money,” the 2013 Nobel laureate of Economics Robert Shiller calls crypto the newest iteration of alternative currency ideas.
Shiller outlines the various types of alternative currency that have existed throughout history, saying that, “New ideas for money seem to go with the territory of revolution, accompanied by a compelling, easily understood narrative.” Shiller first refers to Josiah Warner’s “labor notes” of the Cincinnati Time Store in 1827, that sold merchandise in units of hours of work.The currency did not last long, as the store closed in 1830.
The Yale economist also mentions Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who proposed that the communist condition under which private property was eliminated, would necessarily result in the “Communistic abolition of buying and selling.”
Getting closer to the modern day, Shiller references the Great Depression movement called “Technocracy,” which proposed to replace the then gold-backed US dollar with a measure of energy. Their book “The ABC of Technocracy” proposed the idea of founding an economy on the basis of energy.
Reaching the contemporary period, Shiller writes that crypto, like its predecessors, is coupled with “a deep yearning for some kind of revolution in society.” He also states that the public's general lack of understanding of how cryptocurrencies function creates an allure:
“Practically no one, outside of computer science departments, can explain how cryptocurrencies work, and that mystery creates an aura of exclusivity, gives the new money glamor, and fills devotees with revolutionary zeal.”
Shiller recognizes that the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies is a primary draw for those who see governments as “the drivers of a long train of inequality and war.” He concludes, however, in saying that “None of this is new, and, as with past monetary innovations, a compelling story may not be enough.”
Robert Shiller, Eugene Fama, and Lars Peter Hansen were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2013 for “their empirical analysis of asset prices.” Shiller developed the Case-Shiller index with his colleague Karl Case, that is now used by Standard and Poor’s Financial Services.
In recent weeks, cryptocurrencies have been publicly criticized by giants in the tech and finance worlds such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger compared trading and dealing in crypto to “freshly harvested baby brains.”
In an expert take with Cointelegraph, international business lawyer Andrea Bianconi said that such pessimistic and hyperbolic criticism should be dismissed. Expecting Wall Street to understand and embrace crypto, would be like “asking a rugby player to dance the ballet's classic ‘pas des deux.’”

U.S.-based mobile stock trading app Robinhood has announced a $363 million Series D funding round that it says will help the firm expand to become possibly the largest cryptocurrency platform.
According to a statement published on Thursday, the funding round values the firm at $5.6 billion and was led by DST Global, with Iconiq, Capital G, Sequoia Capital and KPCB also participating.
With its coffers now full, the firm said it is now looking to expand its cryptocurrency trading service, which is currently available in 10 U.S. states to eventually cover the whole country as soon it receives the necessary licenses.
In an interview with Fortune, Robinhood's co-founder and co-CEO Baiju Bhatt said he expects that to happen by the close of 2018.
In its announcement, the firm said the new funds will be spent on product expansion, infrastructure and operations and growing its team. Following that, Bhatt said he expects Robinhood to "be either the largest or one of the largest crypto platforms out there" by end of 2018.
The notable funding round comes just months after the company announced its move into cryptocurrency trading.
As reported by CoinDesk at the time, the firm officially revealed its commission-free Robinhood Crypto service in February - enabling the trading of bitcoin, ethereum, as well as the tracking of 14 other cryptocurrencies, initially for users in five U.S. states: California, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana and New Mexico.
Today's announcement also indicates that the service has now expanded to five more states, opening up crypto trading for users in Colorado, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan.

Pakistan's central bank issued a statement barring financial companies in the country from working with cryptocurrency firms, becoming the latest institution of its kind to bar the activity.

In a statement posted to its website (and circulated via social media), the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said:

"...all Banks/ DFIs/ Microfinance Banks and Payment System Operators (PSOs)/Payment Service Providers (PSPs) are advised to refrain from processing, using, trading, holding, transferring value, promoting and investing in Virtual Currencies/Tokens. Further, banks/DFIs/Microfinance Banks and PSOs/PSPs will not facilitate their customers/account holders to transact in VCs/ICO Tokens. Any transaction in this regard shall immediately be reported to Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) as a suspicious transaction."​
The central bank did not respond to a request for comment. But as of press time, the announcement is already having an impact on the local cryptocurrency scene.

Urdubit, a cryptocurrency exchange that first launched in 2014 with the goal of building a base of support in the region, said in the wake of the statement that it will shut down. Urdubit was the first bitcoin exchange platform to open its doors in the country.

The decision was announced via Facebook, with the startup urging its customers to "please withdraw your funds as soon as possible."

Urdubit's Facebook post included a link to correspondence from the central bank, which including the warning about transactions being tagged as suspicious.

Speaking to CoinDesk, Rodrigo Souza, the co-founder of BlinkTrade (which provided the open-source software that Urdubit has used) argued that the central bank move is aimed at putting the brakes on cryptocurrency investment.

"Governments and Banks are going to fight Bitcoin because investing Bitcoin means a bank run on the central bank," he said, going on to add:

"We are working hard to return all PKR to all our customers before our bank shutdown our accounts."​
The move comes a day after India's central bank blocked banks from doing business with cryptocurrency exchanges. But as CoinDesk subsequently reported, exchanges in that country are eyeing a legal challenge that could see the dispute argued before India's highest court.

Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange OKEx has pushed back against allegations that it manipulated its bitcoin futures market last week.

As CoinDesk previously reported, OKEx rolled back futures trades due to what it called an "irregular" sell-off on Friday. At the time, futures prices sharply diverged from the underlying price of bitcoin, leading to a series of liquidations and the eventual rollback, which was initiated that afternoon. At one point, the futures price dropped to as low as $4,755 after an earlier fall to around $5,200.

Yet the developments also sparked widespread criticism across social media, which included allegations that OKEx played a role in manipulating the market. In a statement published Tuesday, OKEx rebutted the claims, stating that "we are not directly involved in the trades" and that it undertook the rollback in an effort to protect its customers.

OKEx said:

"We, as a trading platform, do not make profit from the price volatility, but generate income from trading fees. We have no reason to, and have never and will not, manipulate the prices of any of our market."

In the blog, the exchange highlighted several images circulated via social media that it claimed were fake. The images, OKEx said, were used in an effort to make it seem like the exchange was engaging in manipulation.

OKEx also clarified that it put new rules in place to prevent a similar sell-off from occurring, which went into effect on March 30.

"In light of this problem, new 'price limit rules' were immediately launched to prevent similar incidents from occurring," OKEx said. "We deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused."

The price of ether, the cryptocurrency of the ethereum network, fell below $400 on Thursday for the first time since November.
Ether hit a low of $387.85, according to CoinDesk data, and as of press time is trading at roughly $394. On GDAX, the cryptocurrency exchange operated by startup Coinbase, ETH is currently trading at around $392.
The cryptocurrency's price hasn't been below the $400 level since November 23, according to data from CoinMarketCap. At the time, the price had nearly reached an all-time high and would go on to surpass $1,200 as the broader cryptocurrency market shot to its peak.
As previously reported, ether is one of several major cryptocurrencies to take a hit during Thursday's trading session. Others in the top-10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, including bitcoin cash and Ripple's XRP token, also hit lows for 2018.
Ether isn't the only cryptocurrency to see significant moves in today's session. In the last hour, bitcoin's price dropped to a low of $7,016.53, according to the Bitcoin Price Index (BPI), only to leap back to $7,165.26 as of press time.