Russians have seemingly moved to change their rubles for popular stablecoin USDT as a refuge during the short-lived mercenary rebellion that saw the Wagner group move against Moscow over the weekend.

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced it will keep on supporting trading of several privacy-focused digital assets in the European market, in a move that comes after the firm said it would drop these assets in May.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is on the cusp of launching a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC) pilot project, according to the bank’s chair Thomas Jordan, who was quoted saying the project will start “soon.”

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Russian Traders Sought Refuge in Tether Amid Mercenary Rebellion
• Binance to Keep Supporting Some Privacy Coins in EU Markets
• Swiss National Bank to Launch Wholesale CBDC Pilot Project
• Chart of the Week: Bitcoin Cash Repricing Amidst EDX Markets Listing

Russian Traders Sought Refuge in Tether Amid Mercenary Rebellion

Russians have seemingly moved to change their rubles for popular stablecoin USDT as a refuge during the short-lived mercenary rebellion that saw the Wagner group move against Moscow over the weekend.

According to CCData, ruble-denominated trading volume in Tether’s USDT surged over three times, reaching around $15 million on June 24 across various digital-asset exchanges that still facilitate trading of the Russian currency.

The primary platforms supporting ruble transactions this month included Binance, Cryptonex, HitBTC, and Coinsbit. The stablecoin rush came in the aftermath of financial sanctions imposed on Russia last year by the US and its allies in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

An increase in trading volume does not necessarily mean investors were buying Tether, but rather that market participants were looking toward less volatile assets during the rebellion, as a similar trend wasn’t observed for Bitcoin volumes.

Binance to Keep Supporting Some Privacy Coins in EU Markets

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced it will keep on supporting trading of several privacy-focused digital assets in the European market, in a move that comes after the firm said it would drop these assets in May.

The exchange has said it will modify its categorization of privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies, in a move that will spare several assets from being delisted in France, Italy, Poland, and Spain. These include Decred, Dash, Zcash, PIVX, and Verge, among others. Coins still included in the restrictions include Monero, MobileCoin, Firo, and Horizon.

The decision to continue offering these privacy-centric cryptocurrencies was warmly welcomed by their respective communities, who had previously expressed their discontent over Binance's initial plans to delist them.

Privacy coins employ techniques such as zero-knowledge proofs to obscure the details of transactions, which makes them harder to track. These features have raised significant regulatory concerns, particularly in the European Union.

Binance's decision in May to delist these coins was in line with local regulations demanding that exchanges should have the capacity to monitor transactions for all listed coins.

Swiss National Bank to Launch Wholesale CBDC Pilot Project

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is on the cusp of launching a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC) pilot project, according to the bank’s chair Thomas Jordan, who was quoted saying the project will start “soon.”

At the Point Zero Forum in Zurich on June 26, Jordan divulged that the wCBDC will be issued on the Swiss SIX digital exchange for a fixed period. The SIX Group, which also operates Switzerland's primary stock exchange, will oversee the execution.

According to Jordan the move isn’t “just an experiment,” and will rather “be real money equivalent to bank reserves and the objective is to test real transactions with market participants.”

This development signifies a significant departure from the stance articulated a year earlier by SNB chief economist Carlos Lenz, who dismissed blockchain as an unsuitable platform for CBDC and said that the nation had no plans to issue such a currency.

Chart of the Week: Bitcoin Cash Repricing Amidst EDX Markets Listing

EDX Markets, backed by Charles Schwab, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Citadel Securities, has listed Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which triggered a significant repricing event. The exchange, which also lists BTC, ETH, and LTC, has been drawing significant institutional attention.

The Bitcoin Cash repricing event saw the cryptocurrency witness a dramatic surge in value, doubling in price in merely a week.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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