The creation of a United States digital dollar would “crowd out” the cryptocurrency ecosystem and protect the national security of the U.S. according to a former top advisor in president Joe Biden’s administration. Daleep Singh — a former Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics in the Biden administration — made the comments at a Feb. 28 Senate Banking Committee hearing, suggesting that cryptocurrencies facilitate ransomware attacks and contribute to the evasion of U.S. sanctions. Singh believes the U.S. government embracing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) “is the single best step that we could take [to protect national interests] because it would crowd out the ecosystem of crypto.” (Cointelegraph)

Institutional investors may have gotten the jitters on crypto in the wake of the regulatory crackdown in the United States, with digital asset investment products seeing the largest weekly outflow of 2023. On Feb. 20, institutional crypto fund manager CoinShares reported that digital asset investment products saw outflows totalling $32 million last week, the largest outflow of the year. (Cointelegraph)

The world’s biggest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), is connecting more countries as the government of El Salvador is opening a “Bitcoin Embassy” in the United States.

Three financial watchdogs in the United States have issued a warning to investors considering certain individual retirement accounts with exposure to cryptocurrencies.