Francisco Rodrigues

Francisco is a reporter for CoinDesk with a passion for cryptocurrencies and personal finance. Before joining CoinDesk he worked at major financial and crypto publications. He owns bitcoin, ether, solana, and PAXG above CoinDesk's $1,000 disclosure threshold.

Francisco Rodrigues

Latest from Francisco Rodrigues


Tech

Block's new voice AI sounds eerily human, sparking awe and scam fears

Reactions split between amazement at how human it sounds and fears it could fuel scams and deception, with CZ eyeing uses in children’s education.

Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Block (CoinDesk)

Finance

Argentina drops criminal probe into President Milei over crashed memecoin LIBRA

The judge found that Milei's promotion of LIBRA did not constitute fraud, despite the attention his support drew to the token.

Argentine President Javier Milei (Vox Espana/Wikimedia Commons)

Finance

HSBC rolls out its first stablecoin to over 3 million everyday app users

HSBC and Standard Chartered-led Anchorpoint received Hong Kong’s first stablecoin issuer licenses in April. Anchorpoint began rolling out HKDAP in August.

HSBC building in South East Asia (Chuck Eugene/Unsplash)

Finance

Sweden’s central bank revives e-krona debate as stablecoins and digital euro loom

The Riksbank sees an e-krona as critical to securing national payments and monetary control.

Sweden flag (CARTIST/Unsplash)

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Policy

Why centralized exchanges refuse to list legacy crypto tokens without explicit SEC immunity

Vault12 raised $17.45 million selling VGT in 2018 and says it met or dropped every promise, yet the token has never traded on a centralized exchange.

Photo of the SEC logo on a building wall

Finance

Japanese visitors may be able to pay with yen stablecoins in South Korea under Shinhan-SBI pact

The collaboration will explore card-linked merchant payments for Japanese visitors in South Korea and peer-to-peer wallet transfers among broader cross-border trade remittances.

A plastic card is held near a payment terminal.

Tech

Solana’s Alpenglow, its biggest network overhaul since 2020, goes live Wednesday

Alpenglow will replace the voting system Solana has used since 2020, targeting roughly 150-millisecond finality after months of testing that included a failed migration and rollback.

A Solana sign at a crypto conference. (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)

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Finance

Kazakhstan court bars Coinbase, five others from unlicensed crypto services in Astana International Financial Centre

The court injunctions apply strictly to users within the AIFC and do not extend across the rest of Kazakhstan.

Astana, Kazakhstan

Policy

France's parliament approves vote to hit stablecoin trades with 31% capital gains tax

Amendment I-3898 removes tax deferral for MiCA-compliant stablecoins starting January 2027.

Paris, France (allewollenalex/Unsplash)