India’s central bank restated its hesitation when it comes to digital currency on the heels of informing financial institutions that they should set aside a 2018 ban on trading, Bloomberg reported on Friday (June 4). The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently told lenders not to cite a 2018 circular from the central bank as a rationale to prevent digital currency trades. A court had since struck down the order. “There is no change in RBI’s position,” RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said to the media, as per Bloomberg. “We have major concerns around cryptocurrency, which we have conveyed to the government.”
In other news, Unchained Capital, Inc. unveiled the “initial closing” of a $25 million Series A capital raise that was headed up by NYDIG in addition to Stone Ridge Holdings Group, according to a Friday (June 4) announcement. The Austin, Texas-based company is developing a financial services system for companies and people that keep long-term wealth in bitcoin and want private key ownership. “Historically, there has been a lack of investment in bitcoin-dedicated infrastructure … but we expect this raise to be the first of a growing trend of bitcoin-only businesses attracting capital investment at the scale which has long been deserved,” Unchained Capital Head of Business Development Parker Lewis said in the announcement.
On another note, Progressive Care Inc. is now letting people pay with bitcoin for its COVID-19 rapid testing services at the firm’s PharmcoRx locations, according to a Friday (June 4) announcement. Management pointed out in the release that the decision comes just before “the largest Bitcoin conference in the world” set to take place over the weekend, “drawing over 50,000 visitors to Pharmco’s core marketplace in the Miami metropolitan area.” According to the announcement, most international air carriers require COVID-19 PCR-based testing, which PharmcoRx provides, as a “travel prerequisite.”
And Anchorage Digital has unveiled institutional Ethereum-backed loans via Anchorage Financing, according to a Medium post. To that end, institutional customers can now harness a U.S. dollar line of credit “backed by Ethereum” by the way of a BankProv partnership. “We’re pushing our full-service offering for the cryptocurrency community to the next level,” BankProv CEO David Mansfield said in the announcement. BankProv is among the oldest banks in America, as it ran for more than two centuries as The Provident Bank prior to its “modern rebrand” last year.