weekly roundup – Bitcoin Surpasses the $40,000 Level | Decentraland Hosts First Metaverse Wedding | Crypto Ads Set to Invade Super Bowl 56
Here’s our roundup of the top stories from the past seven days in crypto.
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BITCOIN BREAKS FREE OF ITS MALAISE TO SURPASS $40,000 LEVEL
Following a more than six-month low, Bitcoin prices broke through the $40,000 price point on Friday, up more than 20% from late January.
These gains come after the latest US jobs report, mentioned in articles published by MarketWatch and CoinDesk, which stated that employers added 467,000 positions in January 2022.
Since reaching past $40,000, Bitcoin has managed to stay above that barrier, trading in a relatively tight range.
Source: Forbes
META-MARRIAGE: DECENTRALAND HOSTS FIRST METAVERSE WEDDING
Phoenix couple, Ryan and Candice Hurley, tied the knot with their digital identities over the weekend, in the first wedding to take place in the metaverse.
The ceremony was attended by virtual crowds of 2,000 guests, officiated by Supreme Court Justice officiant Clint Bolick, and organised by Rose Law Group.
Jordan Rose, founder and president of Rose Law Group, stated that: “Unlike the real world, the metaverse isn’t limited by physical constraints that restrict your perfect wedding. Only in the Metaverse can your wildest, most imaginative dream wedding be a reality”.
Source: Cointelegraph
ANON CRYPTOPUNK OWNER LAUNCHES NFT FUND, BETTING ON ABILITY OVER IDENTITY
An anonymous CryptoPunk NFT owner with an influential Twitter following has launched a fund that invests in NFTs on behalf of institutional investors.
Punk 6529, the owner of a slew of other rare, valuable NFTs, has more than 240,000 followers on Twitter, where they expound on everything from the future of the metaverse to regulation by the SEC to wealth inequality.
The account is also building a virtual museum, 6529 Museum, and operates a number of virtual galleries for viewing NFTs and digital photographs.
Source: Blockworks
SHIBA INU’S SHIB ROCKETS 26%, LEADS MEMECOIN GAINS
Shiba Inu-themed tokens were the top gainers during early Asian hours on Monday gaining as much as 26% in the past 24 hours.
The move came amid a broader recovery in the crypto market as bitcoin and ether regained the $42,000 and $3,000 price levels respectively.
Price-charts showed SHIB hit resistance at the $0.000029 level, causing a sell-off during the Asian morning hours that brought prices lower.
Source: CoinDesk
CONGRESS INTRODUCES A RADICAL CRYPTO BILL TO ‘UNLEASH INNOVATION’ AS THE PRICE OF BITCOIN AND ETHEREUM SUDDENLY SOAR
The U.S. House of Representatives has reintroduced a bill that would exempt people from paying taxes on bitcoin and crypto payments under $200, called “an important step forward” by one congressman.
“Virtual currency is reshaping our everyday lives, and the United States needs to recognise this and work to treat these currencies fairly in our tax code. This legislation is an important step forward, and it lays the groundwork for growing the digital economy,” congressman David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) said in a statement.
Designed to simplify tax burdens on daily crypto users who must now report even the smallest capital gains, the Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act was announced this week and would retroactively apply to all qualifying transactions from 31st December 2021 if the legislation becomes law.
Source: Forbes
CRYPTO ADS SET TO INVADE SUPER BOWL 56
Super Bowl LVI will take place on 13th February in LA and will see the Cincinnati Bengals face off against the Los Angeles Rams.
It will also see more crypto ads than ever before.
FTX and Crypto.com, who have both embarked upon similar sports marketing spending sprees in the past six months, have both purchased a Super Bowl ad, which costs $6.5 million and lasts just 30 seconds.
“Going into different sports just allows me to reach everybody where they are. Super Bowl is just one more step into that, where it’s as mass as you get,” said Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek.
Source: Decrypt
INDIA’S CRYPTO TAX MAY CURB EXCESSIVE SPECULATION, BRING INSTITUTIONAL DEMAND
Last week, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that profits from the sale of virtual assets would be taxed at a flat rate of 30% without any deductions or exemptions. The rate is on par with the highest income tax band, which applies to individuals earning more than 1.5 million rupees ($20,000) a year. The government also introduced a 1% tax, deducted at source (TDS), on cryptocurrency trading.
Observers said the steep tax rate might deter the gambling and excess speculation seen during the bull market frenzy of April, October and early November last year.
While several publicly listed companies in the U.S. have added bitcoin to their balance sheets, the Indian corporate world has stayed on the sidelines, perhaps due to regulatory uncertainty. That might change now.
“After clarity on taxation, we note that a lot of Indian institutions would look favourably at investing balance sheet money in the crypto markets”, Suraj Ramakrishnan, a chartered accountant and member of the founding team at Mumbai-based crypto asset management firm MintingM, said.
Source: CoinDesk
AN IP LAWYER EXPLAINS WHAT COUNTS AS NFT THEFT WHEN ‘STEALING’ IS AS EASY AS RIGHT-CLICK AND SAVE
Eamon Barrett from Fortune speaks to Adrian Lawrence, head of law firm Baker McKenzie’s Asia Pacific technology, media, and telecommunications group, about what counts as theft in the NFT marketplace.
“Certain uses, particularly noncommercial and not-for-profit uses, won’t necessarily be an infringement…Whereas monetising [a copied NFT] to put on T-shirts, for example, probably would be”.
Read more: Fortune
BUZZFEED OUTS BORED APE YACHT CLUB FOUNDERS: DOXXING OR JOURNALISM?
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), the collection of 10,000 ape avatars, have become the most prestigious and expensive NFT collection out there. But the identity of the people behind them was unknown to most, until last week.
BuzzFeed published an investigation revealing the identity of two of the four BAYC co-founders, who until now have been known simply by their ape personas, Gordon Goner and Gorgamel. It turns out these apes are two fairly ordinary 30-somethings from Florida named Wylie Aronow and Greg Solano, who once had literary aspirations but then got into crypto.
The reaction on Crypto Twitter to the investigation has been ferocious. Numerous members of the crypto community lashed out at the online publication, accusing it of invading the men’s privacy through “doxxing”—a term that typically refers to publishing personal details about a person in order to subject them to harassment or punishment.
Outside of the crypto world, however, people offered a very different perspective.
Gabe Rivera, founder of the popular Silicon Valley site Techmeme, described the BuzzFeed piece as standard business journalism, and asked why only a handful of insiders should get to know who is behind a company that is worth billions of dollars.
Source: Decrypt
SOUTH KOREA’S LARGEST MOBILE GAMING COMPANY MAKES METAVERSE PLAY
South Korea’s largest mobile game developer, Netmarble, said it was developing a sequel to its monopoly-styled board game titled “Everybody’s Marble: Metaworld” under its subsidiary Netmarble F&C. The new game is part of the company’s broader pivot into the virtual world.
Netmarble’s metaverse game will feature all the trimmings of what game enthusiasts have come to expect from a title based on the virtual world including NFTs and digital avatars, as well as the capability to buy and sell virtual land plots.
The international version is expected to be set up under a “play-to-earn” model, allowing users to earn virtual currency for real money, per the report. Play-to-earn games are currently banned in South Korea, and, as such, Netmarble’s domestic version will only feature NFTs.
Source: Blockworks
BANK OF ENGLAND IS ‘HIGHLY UNLIKELY’ TO DEVELOP A RETAIL WALLET FOR CBDC, SAYS OFFICIAL
A senior manager at the Bank of England has said that it is “highly unlikely” that the institution will develop a retail-facing wallet that could be used to store and spend digital currency.
The Bank still plans to publish a consultation paper setting out its assessment of the merits of what some have dubbed the ‘Britcoin’ later this year, but while CBDC issuance remains an open question, the launch of an accompanying wallet appears to have been ruled out.
“I think it’s safe to say it’s highly unlikely that the Bank would issue a retail wallet,” said Katie Fortune, a senior manager in the central bank’s CBDC unit. Fortune said it is more likely that wallets that could support a British digital currency will be produced by the private sector.
Source: The Block
$320 MILLION CRYPTO HACK IS NO BIG DEAL FOR THE TRADING FIRM BEHIND WORMHOLE – IT REFUNDED CUSTOMER LOSSES IN A DAY
This week’s $320 million blockchain hack gives a tantalising hint at just how huge a presence Jump Trading Group has become in cryptocurrencies. Its quick decision to fully refund all the losses from Wednesday’s hack suggests quite a lot.
The firm’s Jump Crypto division is a leading force behind the development of Wormhole, which acts as a bridge between crypto ecosystems like Ethereum and Solana. On 2nd February, someone took advantage of a software bug in Wormhole to steal 120,000 Ether worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Jump took action almost immediately, fully refunding the losses.
Source: Fortune
BOSTON FED MAKES DIGITAL DOLLAR CODE PROGRESS
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and MIT researchers investigating the technicalities of a CBDC have designed a system capable of handling 1.7 million transactions a second, without using distributed ledger technology.
The partners have published research describing a theoretical high-performance and resilient transaction processor for a CBDC that was developed using open-source research software.
Last month, the Federal Reserve published its long-anticipated discussion paper on the risks and benefits of a digital dollar and invited public comment – but has studiously avoided giving any hints on its plans.
While it inches ahead with policy questions, the Boston Fed and MIT researchers will continue their technical work, moving onto phase two exploring new functionality and alternative technical designs.
Source: Finextra
PROTESTERS MIGRATE TO CRYPTO FUNDRAISING PLATFORM FOLLOWING GOFUNDME BAN
Truckers protesting the COVID-19 vaccine mandate in Canada have turned to Bitcoin-based crowdfunding platform Tallycoin, following a barrage of mounting political pressure from all sides that culminated in GoFundMe axing their “Freedom Convoy Campaign.”
“Legacy financial infrastructure can sometimes be politicised and clamped down upon, whereas Bitcoin is a truly censorship resistant method of communicating value,” stated the new fundraising page.
Source: Cointelegraph
WEBINAR: BATTLING FINANCIAL CRIME IN THE METAVERSE
On 16th February, our Transaction Monitoring Officer, Kamran Choudhary, will take part in an expert panel to discuss the intricacies of financial crime in the metaverse, and what financial institutions can do to combat it effectively.
Kamran will be joined by Karyn Kenny, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Overseas Prosecutorial, Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT), SE Europe Regional Resident Legal Advisor, Joshua Foo, Regional Director (ASEAN and Central Asia) at Chainalysis Inc., Jessica Chuah 蔡詩萍, Principal, Compliance of Green Packet, and Robin Lee 李显龙, Head of APAC, Napier.
? Date: Wednesday 16th February
⏰ Time: 10am
COME AND MEET OUR TEAM
Our Head of Yield, Gareth Turner, will be attending ACT Middle East on the 16th February 2022 – come and meet him at the BVLGARI Resort, Dubai.
Find out more about the event here.
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