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Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS) Could Issue Bitcoin-backed Loans

By
Adam Barry
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0

Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS) and other leading banks in the U.S might use Bitcoin as collateral when giving institutions loans. These banks would not involve themselves in cryptocurrency spot markets but instead focus on futures among other synthetic cryptocurrency offerings.

Sources say six other banks may issue Bitcoin-backed loans

This move offers banks a way to capitalize on the rising crypto markets without joining them.

Sources who have discussed bitcoin-backed loans with about 6 banks state that others would have implemented the new change in 3-6 months. However, others still have a long way to go before making a move. Some banks will use their balance sheet for their loan, while others plan to syndicate it.

These banks appear to be modeling their strategy after tri-party repo arrangements, which borrows capital by selling securities and repurchasing them in the future through a third-party agent.

Signature and Silvergate have announced their intention to give such loans. Goldman Sachs might soon be joining them. Fidelity Digital Assets and Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, could be offering custody services. Neither has responded to the request for comment.

Using Bitcoin as collateral will allow more integration with digital asset prime brokerage devices. Smaller banks are also considering making a move. It also shows Wall Street’s sudden acceptance of a $2.7 trillion asset class.

Brian Brooks, the chief of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) under the Trump administration, once pointed out the benefits of using Bitcoin. Brooks stated that Bitcoin was similar to cash and that banks could guard it the same way.

Regulations could make it hard for banks to implement bitcoin-backed loans

Despite banks being willing to use Bitcoin-backed loans, new crypto regulations in the U.S could make this harder to implement. The country’s stance on Bitcoin is still shaky. Regulations could depend on the bank and what it proposes. These regulations could come from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), OCC, or the Commodity Futures Training Commission (CFTC). The banks are likely to face competition from crypto banks that offer the same service. BlockFi, Crypto.com, and Vauld give loans against cryptocurrencies such as tether, bitcoin, etc. However, experts argue that it was inevitable that traditional institutions would want to join the crypto market.

India Has Put Heavy Consequences in Place For Crypto Investors and Exchanges That Fail to Comply With Regulations

By
Adam Barry
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0

The Indian government has announced that failure to comply with crypto policies could result in one and a half years in prison or fines amounting to $2.7 million. Narendra Modi, the country’s prime minister, could give crypto investors a deadline to report their assets and colony with the regulations.

Other reports have speculated that the government will expect investors to hold crypto under exchanges that comply with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). However, there is a lot of uncertainty on the matter.

Reasons the government is placing restrictions on crypto

The new legislation means that private wallets are illegal. Investors who hold them will have to deal with fines or jail time. Modi could also set a capital limit for crypto investments.

One reason the country is setting tough times for cryptocurrency is the terrorist financing, money laundering, and fraud that has increased in the last few years. Moreover, India’s plan to launch its digital rupee through the Reserve Bank of India could face competition from cryptocurrencies issued and owned privately. Therefore, the country sees the need to stop its competition.

A controversial bill has stated that the country hopes to create a framework that would enable the launch of the digital rupee by the Reserve Bank of India. It also does this to eliminate cryptocurrency in the country. Despite this, the government is willing to keep a few exchanges that comply with its regulations to use the underlying technology.

India will restrict exchange-to-exchange transactions

While the country will not ban cryptocurrency, it will restrict exchange-to-exchange transactions. Many speculate that the government will ban trade within bourses. It could also restrict wallets that hide the user’s identity and block Chrome’s extension to users to stop them from moving more than 4000 cryptocurrencies. Moreover, India could create one wallet to monitor retail transactions by crypto.

Other sources have rooted that the government is trying to find a way to track the movement of the Indian rupee on Indian exchanges. Only the government will operate within the country. As a result, exchanges would have to let India review them every quarter. This move will make crypto more similar to stock and comply with the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act.

Draftkings Inc (NASDAQ: DKNG) Announces Partnership With the National Football League Player Association to Launch an NFT Collection

By
Adam Barry
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0

Draftkings Inc (NASDAQ: DKNG) is partnering with the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) to launch an NFT collection on Draftkings for the 2022-2023 NFL season. Football fans will play NFT games featuring NFL players from 2022.

The move shows how the National Football League came from being interested in blockchain to be one of the largest indicates to support it going mainstream.

OneTeam made the collaboration possible

OneTeam, the NFLPA’s partner, arranged the deal and gave Draftkings the right to use NFL players and likeness on their games

According to the Senior Vice President of product operation at Draft Kings marketplace, Beth Beiriger, the company is among the few that can capitalize on the integration of NFT and sport to entertain sports fans. The blockchain will continue to innovate, adapt and seek partnerships with other companies like OneTeam and NFLPA to serve fans and ensure its latest products reach the mainstream.

Draftkings previously collaborated with Tom Brady

In August 2021, the marketplace went live with the launch of the Tom Brady NFT collection. Draft Kings partnered with Brady’s NFT platform, Autograph. Brady also showed his support for crypto when he gave a fan one Bitcoin to commemorate his 600th touchdown pass.

Draftkings has suggested that its latest NFT will allow users to exchange collectibles through the polygon network for games with fellow players. Sean C. Sansiveri, the general council at NFL players Inc., has stated that Draftkings goal is to give football fans an authentic experience.

This move is the latest for NFL in the NFT marketplace. NFL also partnered with Ticketmaster to tie some game tickets to NFT collectibles. It showed how well the NFL could adopt blockchain.

Draftkings’ Marketplace format applies a familiar model to Sorare, an NFT platform in Europe. Sorare recently announced that it would be joining the sports industry in the U.S. For this reason, it could be a significant competitor for Draftkings.

Regulatory concerns concerning gambling laws are in question for other sports. However, Draftkings has assured its users it can work within the regulation to serve its users in certain U.S states.

Ubisoft Entertainment SA (OTCMKTS: UBSFF) Has Partnered With Tezos to Offer NFTs to PC Players

By
admin
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0

Ubisoft Entertainment SA (OTCMKTS: UBSFF) will give Tezos’ PC players NFTs starting with the Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Ubisoft joined the NFT platform through its Ubisoft Quartz platform. They will release this new platform with Beta with the Ghost Recon Breakpoint for PC players on Ubisoft Connect.

Details of the Ubisoft offering 

Ubisoft will give the players Digits, which they can use to play Triple-A (AAA) games. Digits also operate using energy-efficient technology.

The company will launch its digital items in Canada and the U.S. These items will include in-game weaponry and vehicles in limited editions and numbers. It will also give early adaptors these items for free. Other countries that will access Quartz include Australia, Italy, Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, and Brazil.

The move could increase players’ game investments while integrating gaming with secondary markets by exchanging rare items.

Tezos will allow Ubisoft to reduce energy consumption

Ubisoft’s technical director has started its goal to reduce its global footprint. It uses Tezos, a proof-of-stake blockchain, to power its Ubisoft Quartz’s technology. The company has explained that this technology allows them to use less energy than proof-of-protocol systems while yielding similar results.

Tezos transactions are better for the environment because they amount to 39 seconds of video streaming. However, a transaction through Bitcoin amounts to a year of video streaming. Ubisoft is now making plans with Ultra, a distribution company, to utilize the UOS blockchain for its titles.

Ubisoft is the first major gaming company to support Ultra’s UOS blockchain. The co-CEO answer of Ultra, Nicolas Gilot, has stated his excitement about working with the company. Gilot states that Ubisoft has various popular games like Assassin’s Creed dedicated to quality. The gaming company had also done years of research on the blockchain, so it has the knowledge and skill to become a leading block producer

Ubisoft is one of the leading gaming firms work wide. It has a market value of about $5.8 billion. It is also one of the few AAA gaming firms to support bitcoin technologies. This move comes when Valve, another gaming company, has removed blockchain games from its platform.

Australia is Making Plans to Adopt Cryptocurrency and Launch a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)

By
Adam Barry
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0

Australia could launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The country is already supporting crypto-related proposals as part of its crypto and payments reform plan.

According to Josh Frydenburg, the Australian Treasurer, the move could place the country at the lead with other countries that have accepted CBDC. He gave. A speech at the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce where he related plans for CBDC, taxation, and crypto regulation

Government officials believe that the reform is the most significant alteration to the payments system since the 1990s. The Australian Senate Committee made some suggestions to the payment system in September.

The government backs six crypto proposals 

The Australian Financial Review reports that the government supports six of the nine proposals that the committee put forward. These include a central access point for emerging payment platforms, regulations for decentralized organizations, and issuing licenses for curio exchanges.

The government has sent two proposals that deal with financial and tax compliance to government branches that can review them. In addition, the government has recused the last proposal that grants discounts to renewable energy Bitcoin mining. This proposal gives Bitcoin miners who use renewable energy a 10% tax cut.

The Head of Corporate Development at Swyftx, Michael Harris, has stated that the tax discount is purely a political consideration. He adds that it would not make sense for the government to give tax breaks to miners who use renewable energy and not do the same for other sustainable businesses. Despite this, he applauds the government for seeing the need to introduce regulations that protect consumers while supporting innovation.

The proposals will place the government at the center of finance and crypto

An anonymous senior government official has told the media that the senate committee is considering a retail scale Reserve Bank of Australia to back cryptocurrency.

Brandenburg explains that these reforms will enable Australia to capitalize on the merging of technology and finance. Moreover, it will resolve the lack of clarity businesses can have when dealing with crypto payments and regulations that govern them. It will also enhance the interest of consumers while increasing innovation.

Australian Tax Office (ATO) Says That Most New Crypto Investors Don’t Know Cryptocurrency is Taxable

By
Adam Barry
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0

In a statement at the 14th international ATAX Conference on Tax Administration, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) stated that it couldn’t depend on crypto investors to monitor their products and transactions.

Australians do not know about cryptocurrency taxes 

According to Chris Jordan, the ATO commissioner, new crypto investors often have difficulty understanding tax reporting obligations. Unfortunately, the fast-growing market is full of new investors. The ATO cannot rely on these investors to know when to record their capital gains and investment income, thus disclosing it in their tax returns.

Jordan adds that many new crypto investors think their profits can only be taxed when converting them into Australian currency. For this reason, the ATO has been trying to come up with a way to eliminate this misinformation.

One technique they use is to pre-fill information on a tax return, so crypto users know to report their investments. It has also enhanced its trade data matching capabilities through gathering information from brokers, share registries, and cryptocurrency demand-side platforms. While the ATO is trying its best to improve data collection, sharing, management, and collection, they are not getting far.

Fortunately, Jordan noted that Australians are trying their best as tax performance or tax reporting compliance is high among small businesses and individuals, eliminating the need for the ATO to intervene constantly. The compliance in Australia is at 94%, while tax performance is at 87%.

Chainalysis offers to assist the ATO

Chainalysis country manager for New Zealand and Australia, Todd Leinfield, said that his firm is willing to give its expertise to ATO and the Australian Transaction Reports Analysis Center (AUSTRAC).

Leinfield said that they could discuss AUSTRAC on what it wants to regulate and help them draw assistance from how the IRS works. Their experience in the sector could help AUSTRAC develop a plan that meets the country’s needs.

Chainalysis, a partner of the  Commonwealth Bank of Australia, specializes in analysis blockchain for the internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the U.S Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The firm also investigated Suex OTC, a Russian crypto business. The U.S Treasury Department targeted Suex OTC for facilitating ransomware transactions in September.

Coinstore Launches in India Despite Rumours That the Country Could Ban Cryptocurrency

By
Adam Barry
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0

Coinstore, a virtual currency exchange based in Singapore, operates in India despite the Indian government planning to ban numerous cryptocurrencies. The exchange has launched its app and web platform. Moreover, it will open branches in Bangalore, Mumbai, and New Delhi that will serve as its headquarters in India and allow it to expand.

India will allow a few exchanges to run

According to the head of marketing at Coinstore, Charles Tan, the decision to expand into India was influenced by the firm having about a quarter of its customer base in the country. He defended the choice to branch into India by pointing out the constant policy changes surrounding crypto. He hopes that the government will find a good framework for cryptocurrency and that their entry into the market will be positive.

Two sources previously reported that government officials in New Delhi plan to reduce crypto trading through hefty taxes and capital gains. It will allow a few cryptocurrencies to enable the continued use of the underlying technology and the applications it could have.

Tan laid out his plans for operation in India. He stated that the exchange firm would employ 100 people in India and use $20 million to develop crypto-based services and products and facilitate hiring and marketing.

Cryptocurrency investors in India have increased

After CrossTower, which entered the Indian market in September, Coinstore is the most significant exchange to launch there. Coinbase has also joined the Indian market. All these exchanges are trying to take advantage of a large number of crypto investors in the country.

Since 2021 began, the market value of Bitcoin has doubled this attracting many Indian investors. There are approximately 25-20 million people in Indian who have invested in crypto. They have collectively amassed holdings worth $5.33 billion.

The government will address its cryptocurrency bill at the Winter Session of the Lok Sabha. The session will discuss whether a ban on cryptocurrency will be the right move for the country. Experts believe that the ban could have negative impacts. Although the legislators have not reached a decision, panic buying has gone up.

Tan also mentioned that Coinstore would branch to Vietnam, Indonesia, Korea, and Japan.

Superalgos Announces Launch of New Open-Source Platform

By
Adam Barry
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0

Superalgos has launched a platform for deploying, testing, and designing crypto trading bots. The tracing intelligence network has stated that they have been developing the platform for four years. There were several downloads in the open beta phase when the community came up with liquidity pools for $SA, Superalgo’s token, on Pancake Swap.

Features of the platforms 

The platform is a free entity that the community owns and provides tools to create advanced trading intelligence. The platform has Trading View Integration, AI model optimization, multi-machine execution, a charity system, integrated data mining, Multi-exchange, a visual strategy debugger, and designer, among other features.

The project brings together advanced technology and a model of talent acquisition that uses tokens as an incentive. The first spot in Github’s trading bits category produces top algorithm traders specialized as OS admins, hardware techs, AI engineers, data scientists, and developers.

The platform also offers services like industrial-grade trading farms and a Raspberry Pi deployment. Moreover, users can use the token to add worth to project and business development, data processing, AI models, code, and strategies. Users who contribute get rewards in the form of tokens. As a result, this helps the community come together to grow the network.

The project will encourage collaboration 

According to the co-founder and marketing leader of Superalgos, Julian Molina, the project brings more people to the crypto market. The community will act as the marketer and will create tools and choose its best recruiters.

He adds that traders surrounded by leading specialists tend to realize that they are not the best at all they do. Julian believes that having people specialized in different areas could lead to automatic collaborations among other groups.

Superalgo’s 2022 roadmap shows a new side to the platforms as crypto users could copy the trades of the community’s top team through free apps that focus on trading and trading signals spread via a permissionless censorship-free peer-to-peer network.

Lead developer and co-founder of Superalgos, Luis Molin, adds that it will take less time to mobilize the community than it did to mobiles Reddit users to take a stance in GameStop.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Announces 2% Tax on Cryptocurrency

By
Adam Barry
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0

CryproUK has warned of a 2% crypto exchange tax that could pass to investors. The warning comes after an adjustment to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) that changed the tax levied on cryptocurrency in the U.K.

Because of the updates, the HRMC no longer recognizes cryptocurrency as a financial instrument. For this reason, the digital currency will not be subject to tax exemptions, but they will instead tax it at 2%.

HRMC placed cryptocurrency under the tech tax of the Treasury on November 28. In April 2020, the authority introduced the digital services tax on revenue to target social media sites like Google and Facebook.

The HRMC explained that crypto assets come in different forms, each with its characteristics. Moreover, the digital currency does not represent money, financial contracts, or commodities; thus, crypto-asset exchanges are unlikely to be positively impacted by exemptions given to financial marketplaces online.

CryptoUK says cryptocurrency is a financial instrument

CryptoUK, which represents digital assets in Britain, has called the tax unfair. It points out that it is likely to affect traders and investors. Ian Taylor, the executive director of CryptoUK, has said that it is unjust for the regulator to treat cryptocurrency differently from financial instruments like commodities and stocks. He adds that the move will negatively impact cryptocurrency in the market.

Taylor adds that this is no different than the licensing system the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) created. The FCA now requires all crypto companies in the U.K to register with them and follow anti-money laundering AML) guidelines in January. In the same month, the FCA issued a warning to consumers on 111 companies that had not registered with the regulator.

HRMC introduced measures to fight tax evasion

The HRMC has come up with measures to prevent tax evasion by crypto holders. In April, it demanded that information on digital asset holdings be on self-assessment forms. The regulator said it had added a section of tax evasion forms that looked into cryptocurrencies like Ether and Bitcoin. It suspected that a large amount of hidden wealth was in cryptocurrency. News outlets reported that British Authorities asked many crypto exchanges to give them transaction and holdings details from customers in August 2019.

The Bank of Tanzania Announces That it Will Launch a Central Bank Digital Currency

By
Adam Barry
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0

Florens Luoga, the Governor of the Bank of Tanzania, has announced that the Central Bank is preparing for a digital shilling. The Bank of Tanzania follows neighboring countries’ footsteps by introducing a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Tanzania doesn’t want to remain behind

According to Luoga, Tanzania is following in Nigeria’s footsteps by introducing digital currency. In addition, the country will expand research on digital currency and enhance the capacity of officials at the central bank. Moreover, the bank will develop its foreign exchange reserves. For this reason, the country will purchase gold from local refineries.

Luoga stated that the gold the central bank will buy would be at least 99.5% pure. Furthermore, the governor hopes that Tanzania’s inflation rate will be at the 3%-5% target between 2021 and 2022.

Luoga detailed his plans at the 20th Conference of Financial Institutions. He explained that he didn’t want the country to remain behind as other nations adapted CBDC.

Many countries are following China after the government launched its CBDC. China has carried out many experiments on the currency in many of its cities. It plans to conduct another test during the Beijing Winter Olympics, 2022.

Countries that have launched a CBDC

Nigeria launched its CBDC, eNaira making it the second CBDC available to the public. Bahamas was the first country in the world to launch a CBDC in October 2020. Nigeria, on the other hand, collaborated with FinTech to create the currency that would complement their own Naira.

Although the Tanzanian government banned cryptocurrency in November 2019, the country is now changing the law. Experts expect that this will happen soon as, in June, President Samia Suluhu Hassan started that Tanzania should prepare for cryptocurrency. However, Luoga seemed to be inside of the currency and reminded Tanzanians that it was illegal. He also warned them to be careful when investing.

Many countries seem to have developed an interest in CBDC. Kristalina Georgieva, the Managing Director at the International Monetary Fund, reported that more than 110 countries are exploring CBDC. For instance, Ghana has announced that it will come out with its own CBDC. Meanwhile, countries such as Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa are looking into the technology.

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