Portugal and cryptocurrency news: Central Bank is considering 12 applications submitted by companies that intend to provide cryptocurrency services in the country. These include the Binance exchange.

Final decisions on the applications are expected by the end of this year, unless the regulator asks the companies to provide additional information. 

Among the applicants for the license is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance. The company has already started recruiting staff in the country, posting six vacancies on its website. 

Portugal is still considered one of the most favorable countries for digital asset businesses in Europe. Among those already approved are Mind the Coin, Criptoloja, Digital Luso, Bison Digital Assets and Utrust.

However, major Portuguese banks Banco Comercial Portuguesa and Banco Santander, as well as two smaller local banks, have recently suspended services to several cryptocurrency exchanges, including CriptoLoja and Mind the Coin. This probably happened because of the situation in the cryptocurrency market.

During the Korea Blockchain Week 2022 conference, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said that the network’s move to Ethereum PoS algorithm could increase the popularity of cryptocurrencies for everyday payments.

Buterin recalled that previously using cryptocurrencies for payments was more common, but most blockchains faced scalability issues and high fees. So now everyday payments using digital assets are not as popular.

“Cryptocurrency payments somehow lost popularity after 2018. And, naturally, transaction fees were one of the reasons for this. In the future, after the implementation of rollups, after all the efficiency improvements, transaction fees may come down to 5 or even 2 cents,” Buterin stressed.

Recall that Ethereum is to switch to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm in mid-September. This will increase the bandwidth of the network. In the future, with the introduction of sharding and other technologies for scaling, the figure will grow even more. Accordingly, transaction fees will also decrease.

Urgent Hodlnaut news: Cryptocurrency lending site Hodlnaut has unilaterally frozen cryptocurrency withdrawals. This is reported in the blog of the service. Representatives of the project claim that the reason for the stop was the need to “stabilize liquidity.” What exactly hit Hodlnaut’s liquidity remains unclear.

Meanwhile, the company “can’t” give an exact date for the resumption of cryptocurrency withdrawals because the details have not yet been agreed upon between “all stakeholders.” However, Hodlnaut hinted that the process will not be quick, as the company has begun work to “restructure” the business.

“We believe that stopping the withdrawal of funds will give us the necessary respite to explore possible restructuring options and recovery plans with our legal advisors,” Hodlnaut said.

At the same time, the media revealed that Hodlnaut had withdrawn its application for a Singapore license that would have allowed the project to provide a token conversion service. Users who were receiving interest payments on deposits before the freeze will continue to receive rewards until the service expires.