The Italian Banking Association (ABI) announced Thursday its banks are willing to pilot a digital euro. 

ABI, made up of over 700 Italian banking institutions, expressed its desire to help speed the implementation of a digital currency backed by the European Central Bank (ECB) by participating in related projects and experiments. Last year, ABI set up a working group to research digital and crypto assets.

The group shared 10 considerations for a digital euro in Thursday’s announcement, starting with, “Monetary stability and full compliance with the European regulatory framework must be preserved as a matter of priority.”
Read on: https://www.coindesk.com/italian-banks-are-ready-to-trial-a-digital-euro

Bitcoin is reporting moderate gains on Monday as gold, a safe haven asset, rallies amid renewed coronavirus concerns.

At press time, the cryptocurrency is priced around $9,430 – up 1.5% on the day – having put in lows near $9,260 during the Asian hours, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index.

Gold, however, printed a one-month high of $1,759 per ounce early on Monday and was last seen trading near $1,750.

The precious metal looks to be rising as the markets return their focus to the coronavirus pandemic, with the number of new cases rising at a faster pace in Germany, the U.S. and other parts of the world over the past few days. Investors seem worried the major economies may reimpose lockdowns to avoid a second wave of the outbreak, which could worsen an already deep economic crisis.
Read on: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-sees-small-gain-as-gold-rallies-to-one-month-high

Stock markets settling provides the background to a calmer status quo for Bitcoin, but upcoming events could soon change the mood.
Bitcoin (BTC) begins a new week trading in a familiar corridor below $10,000 — will it stay there or is volatility actually incoming?

Cointelegraph Markets’ weekly newsletter gives you five factors influencing Bitcoin’s price performance in the coming days.

Stocks recover from coronavirus worries
The start of this week marks a clear contrast from last Monday. Concerns over coronavirus have faded and with it stock market volatility.
Read on: https://cointelegraph.com/news/calm-before-the-storm-5-bitcoin-price-factors-to-watch-this-week

Price performance tends to flip bullish four months after peak whale withdrawals from exchanges — and the next cycle is almost here, data shows.
Bitcoin (BTC) investors should buy BTC when whales do one thing in particular — bull runs begin several months later.

That was the latest insight from Ki Young Ju, CEO of on-chain analysis resource CryptoQuant, who revealed that when whales withdraw Bitcoin from exchanges, it’s time to enter the market.

Analyst: Buy BTC before whale cycle is up
Uploading two charts comparing Bitcoin’s 2017 and 2019 bull runs, Ki noted that the start of each uptrend came four months after a peak in whale withdrawals.

The data came via CryptoQuant’s seven-day moving average whale exchange withdrawals metric.

“BUY #BTC when whales send bitcoins out of the exchange,” he summarized in Twitter comments.
Read on: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-whales-exchange-withdrawals-hint-at-5-digit-prices-in-july

Stock markets settling provides the background to a calmer status quo for Bitcoin, but upcoming events could soon change the mood.
Bitcoin (BTC) begins a new week trading in a familiar corridor below $10,000 — will it stay there or is volatility actually incoming?

Cointelegraph Markets’ weekly newsletter gives you five factors influencing Bitcoin’s price performance in the coming days.

Stocks recover from coronavirus worries
The start of this week marks a clear contrast from last Monday. Concerns over coronavirus have faded and with it stock market volatility.
Reas on: https://cointelegraph.com/news/calm-before-the-storm-5-bitcoin-price-factors-to-watch-this-week

The second part of a series of articles on the advantages and challenges in the usage of blockchain technology for collecting and sharing information, without violating users’ privacy.
From a technical viewpoint, blockchain is a growing records list that is cryptographically tied to and managed by a peer-to-peer network. At the same time, they join a protocol of communication among nodes to validate new blocks.

Essentially, a blockchain is a way of validating data transactions in a permanent and immutable manner to guarantee that the transaction:
Read on: https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchains-are-an-excellent-solution-for-privacy-part-2

VeChain’s medical records blockchain platform in Cyprus lets people prove, and control, COVID-19 test results.
Blockchain tracking platform VeChain announced on Twitter on June 20 that its blockchain-based medical data management platform co-developed with digital healthcare solution firm I-Dante has gone live and will store COVID-19 testing results. The platform, dubbed E-NewHealthLife, was deployed in the Mediterranean Hospital in the Republic of Cyprus.

Cyprus citizens who go to the hospital’s COVID-19 laboratory to undergo real-time diagnostic and antibodies testing, will have their medical and test records on the blockchain. The records will be encrypted, hashed and uploaded onto the VeChainThor Blockchain. The results will also be available on the E-HCert application. Adoption of E-HCert, the company said, reduces the cost of data storage and sharing.
Read on: https://cointelegraph.com/news/cyprus-hospital-ready-to-store-covid-19-test-results-on-blockchain

Racial diversity and financial inclusion are good for cryptocurrency and blockchain – and the industry has work to do.

That was the overarching conclusion of a virtual Juneteenth event put together by Cleve Mesidor, founder of the National Policy Network of Women of Color in Blockchain.

Juneteenth is the celebration of June 19, 1865, when the last group of enslaved African Americans were made aware of the Emancipation Proclamation that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln had signed two years earlier.

While America’s education system has left many ignorant of the origins of Juneteenth, there has been a revived interest in turning the day into a national holiday after protests sprung up around the world in response to the May 25 police killing of an unarmed Black man named George Floyd.
Read on: https://www.coindesk.com/satoshi-was-a-black-woman-blockchain-entrepreneurs-talk-financial-inclusion-on-juneteenth