any specific long-form article on how will LFD operate and how will the BTC reserves will used.

Hitting out strongly against the crypto taxation, former MP and well-known economist, Subramanian Swamy, has also said that crypto tax will lead to flight of talent from the country.

According to Swamy, the government’s stance of supporting blockchain technology but being against crypto is just like being in the favour of a car but not for the steering wheel.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting the Union Budget 2022-2023 announced that all gains on digital assets, including cryptocurrency, will be taxed at 30 per cent. And the government’s decision to tax the crypto has stirred up the debate about the rationality of the decision, mostly among crypto enthusiasts. But former member of Parliament and well-known economist Subramanian Swamy, in an exclusive conversation with Business Today, has said that the imposition of 30 per cent tax on crypto is nonsensical and absurd.

“You [government] first don't recognise it but you say you will tax it, which is absurd. Either you recognise it or you don't recognise it. If you don't recognise it, then go after them, but you say no whatever earnings they make -- which means you allow them to make [those] earnings -- and if you tax the earnings how can you call that illegal anymore?” Swamy said.

According to him, the government’s stance of supporting blockchain technology but being against crypto is just like being in the favour of a car but not for the steering wheel.

“When civilisation began or the human beings started making progress, the first thing was he started with barter trade then over a period of time, this gold coin came, then paper currency came in, but it had a gold backing. Then now we have a paper currency altogether. Now this is going again, back to barter exchange, because the transactions are between the two of us and no money is physically changed. That's our computer age.  It is a computerised version of the old age bartar system,” Swamy pointed out.

Swamy, as a matter of fact, believes that crypto is the future. He further highlighted the pitfalls of having a crypto tax at this stage. According to him, not only does the tax rate act as a disincentive, but can also lead to a flight of talent from the country.

“If you will not allow [crypto] then people will do it in black. And also it will lead to a flight of talent from our country,” Swamy said.

Coinshots

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has allowed NYSE Arca and Teucrium to issue a bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund.

The SEC announced the approval Wednesday in a filing on its website, adding Teucrium to a host of other bitcoin futures ETF issuers.

Notably, Teucrium and NYSE Arca filed the application under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, filing a 19b-4 form with the SEC. The already-approved bitcoin futures ETFs filed by other companies were under the Investment Company Act of 1940, which follows a slightly different regulatory pathway to approval.

An approval under the Securities Act of 1933, under which Teucrium's filing falls, may potentially open the door for a spot bitcoin ETF, Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart said on Twitter earlier this year. Proponents of crypto ETFs have argued that "like situations must be treated alike," he said, citing an argument from crypto company Grayscale, which filed to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Fund (GBTC) to an ETF.

The SEC has, to date, disapproved all spot bitcoin ETF applications, citing concerns about market manipulation and a lack of a surveillance-sharing agreement between an ETF issuer and a sizable market that trades the underlying asset. That has not stopped various companies from trying to bring a bitcoin ETF to market.

ProShares, Valkyrie and VanEck are among those approved to list and trade bitcoin futures ETFs in the U.S. so far.

Valkyrie has also filed to launch a 33 Act bitcoin futures ETF. Its application is outstanding.

Bryan Solstin, an aerospace engineer and a developer, is running for the U.S. Senate on a platform of making Bitcoin legal tender. He insists that political resistance is going to fade away, and technology is going to win.

El Salvador was the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender. Since then, the national project of Nayib Bukele has become the prototype for any other country that might be tempted to go in the same direction.

Speculation of new countries adopting bitcoin as legal tender has arisen, hinting it will occur once again in Latin America. Surprisingly, the United States has several politicians advocating for bitcoin at different levels. Recently a new candidate for the US Senate, Bryan Solstin, has a primary objective to make bitcoin a legal tender at the federal level.

Bryan Solstin, a privacy advocate, went viral on crypto Twitter when he introduced his candidacy for the US Senate, where he stated clearly that his main objective would be to make bitcoin legal tender throughout the United States.

LINK:https://www.coinshots.com/news/bryan-solstin-us-senate-candidate-i-will-make-bitcoin-legal-tender

Nigeria’s central bank fined several lenders for failing to comply with regulations that bar customers from transacting in cryptocurrencies.


The penalties are part of efforts by the central bank to ensure commercial lenders implement a February 2021 order to block trading in cryptocurrencies because of the threat that it says they pose to Nigeria’s financial system. In November, it ordered lenders to close the accounts of two individuals and a company for allegedly trading cryptocurrencies.

The West African nation accounts for the largest volume of cryptocurrency transactions outside the U.S., according to Paxful, a Bitcoin marketplace. Africa’s most populous country also has the largest proportion of retail users conducting transactions under $10,000, according to Chainalysis.

The Central Bank of Nigeria fined Stanbic IBTC Bank, the domestic unit of Standard Bank Group Ltd., 200 million naira ($478,595) for two accounts alleged to have been used for crypto transactions, Chief Executive Officer Wole Adeniyi said Tuesday during an investor conference call in Lagos.

Access Bank Plc, the country’s biggest lender by assets, was fined 500 million naira for failure to close customers’ crypto accounts, according to a filing with the Nigerian Exchange Ltd. United Bank for Africa Plc incurred a 100 million naira penalty for digital-currency transactions by a customer, it said.

While Stanbic IBTC followed the central bank directive, the transactions it was sanctioned for may have passed through its system undetected, Adeniyi said. The central bank was able to detect the relevant transactions using an “advanced capability” that Nigerian lenders don’t have access to, and they’ve asked the central bank to share the technology, he said.

“It doesn’t seem that they are going to entertain a refund, but they are now sharing intelligence with us to be able to kind of deter clients.”

LINK:https://www.coinshots.com/news/nigeria-penalizes-lenders-for-shielding-crypto-transactions

Its not the 30% that you need to worry about, the more pressing concern is that you cannot set off losses make in Crypto with your other income, specifically, you can even offset losses in 1 pair eg BTCUSDT to ETHUSDT.
another major concern is 1% TDS on every trade, this is a death cross for day traders.

As the Government plans to conduct trainings for law enforcement on cyber and forensic technologies, WazirX delivered a training session to Bhopal Cyber cell.

One of India’s largest crypto exchanges, WazirX has collaborated with Bhopal Cyber Crime Cell.

It conducted a day-long training program for the department, reported The Pioneer. The program training was conducted by Aritra Sarkhel, Director, WazirX, and Anuj Chaudhary, Senior Blockchain & Crypto Analyst, WazirX. More than 30 officers attended it including Sachin Atulkar, the Police Commissioner of Bhopal.

Lauding the training module, Mr. Sachin Atulkar, Police Commissioner, Bhopal, said,

“We appreciate the initiative of WazirX to impart commendable training sessions for our officers. The learning for this session will certainly help our able officials to unearth crypto scam-related cases efficiently. We would look forward to more of such sessions from the crypto experts, which will be a win-win for the public-private partnership in this segment.”

WazirX has devised a training module for the law enforcement community, pan-India. The training includes knowledge of the basics of the blockchain, on-chain analysis to flag off suspicious trading activities as per regulatory frameworks, and education on using tools that can prevent such crimes and also identify fraudulent and fair transactions.

In recent weeks the spurt in crypto crime being busted shows Indian law enforcement agencies’ commitment to cracking down on such crimes. On Monday, during a discussion in the Lok Sabha, the Minister of Finance, State, Mr. Pankaj Chaudhary revealed that the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) have unearthed the payment of approx. Rs. 2.2 crore through crypto-currency in 11 cases linked to drug trafficking.

Government is also conducting training for the field officers on cyber and forensic technologies.

Maybe this year, crypto scams and crimes will reduce in India.

LINK:https://www.coinshots.com/news/wazirx-collaborates-with-bhopal-cyber-cell-training-them-in-crypto-cyber-forensics

SEC Chair Gary Gensler on Monday announced several initiatives to expand investor protections in the $2 trillion cryptocurrency market.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler said on Monday that his agency is aiming to exercise greater regulatory oversight of the $2 trillion cryptocurrency market to protect investors from an onslaught of scams.

In a speech delivered virtually, Gensler said the SEC plans to register and regulate crypto platforms, including working to separate out the custody of assets to minimize risk.

"These crypto platforms play roles similar to those of traditional regulated exchanges," Gensler said, at the Penn Law Capital Markets Association's annual conference. "Thus, investors should be protected in the same way."

Gensler is providing details about his plans to address the crypto market almost a month after President Joe Biden signed an executive order calling on the government to examine the risks and benefits of cryptocurrencies. Last year, crypto assets worth more than $14 billion were stolen through a host of scams as well as cyberattacks.

The SEC, Gensler said, will partner with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to address platforms that trade both crypto-based security tokens and commodity tokens, as the SEC currently only oversees those that trade securities.

Gensler compared crypto-asset platforms to alternative trading systems, which are used in equity and fixed income markets. The critical difference, he said, is that the latter is used primarily by institutional investors while crypto platforms "have millions and sometimes tens of millions of retail customers directly buying and selling on the platform without going through a broker."

He said the SEC will look into whether crypto platforms should be treated by his agency more like retail exchanges.

Gensler also addressed what the SEC can do in the areas of stablecoins and crypto tokens.

Stablecoins are digital currencies designed to be less volatile than cryptocurrencies by pegging their market value to an outside asset like the U.S. dollar. Gensler said the $183 billion stablecoin market presents concerns, such as the potential use in illegal activity. Crypto-to-crypto transactions, he said, allow users to skirt the traditional banking system, making it harder to track money laundering, taxes and compliance.

Stablecoins are also often owned by crypto platforms, creating potential "conflicts of interest and market integrity questions that would benefit from more oversight," Gensler said.

With respect to crypto tokens, the SEC chief said most of them involve entrepreneurs raising money from outside investors with the hope of creating a profitable business. Traditional companies raising capital from the public in such a fashion have to take the added step of filing significant disclosures with the SEC.

Gensler reiterated comments made by his predecessor, Jay Clayton, who said "most crypto tokens are investment contracts under the Howey Test." He was referring to a 1946 Supreme Court ruling that a transaction is an investment contract when people are putting money into a "common enterprise with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the efforts of others," Gensler explained.

He added that regulators have long had effective ways to regulate financial markets, and the emergence of new technologies doesn't mean we throw out the playbook.

"We ought to apply these same protections in the crypto markets," Gensler said. "Let's not risk undermining 90 years of securities laws and create some regulatory arbitrage or loopholes."


Link:https://www.coinshots.com/news/sec-plans-to-register-regulate-crypto-platforms-to-protect-investors

German authorities seized $25 million in bitcoin (BTC) as they shut down Hydra Market, saying they had closed one of the world's largest darknet markets.

The Hydra Market's bitcoin privacy mixer complicated the investigation, police said.

The cybercrime office of the Frankfurt prosecutor's office and federal criminal police confiscated 543 BTC as they "secured" the site's servers, according to a federal police statement on Tuesday.

Federal police found 17 million customers and 19,000 seller accounts. Hydra Market probably had the highest turnover among illegal marketplaces in the world, according to the statement. In 2020, the marketplace had €1.23 billion ($1.35 billion) in revenue, the police said.

The Russian-language marketplace also had a built-in bitcoin privacy mixer, which complicated tracing the transactions, said the police statement.

Hydra Market had been operating since 2015 and was accessible via the Tor browser. The site has been taken off the internet.

The market was mainly used for narcotics, and served Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Moldova, according to blockchain forensics firm Ciphertrace.

The investigation started in August 2021 and also involved U.S. authorities, the police said.

Link:https://www.coinshots.com/news/german-authorities-shut-down-russian-darknet-market-seize-25m-in-bitcoin

In an attempt to defraud potential users, scammers hacked major crypto market data provider CoinMarketCap's CrypTown social network and published links to a fake token sale.

According to screenshots shared by users, the Binance-owned CoinMarketCap's verified account shared a post teasing the crypto data aggregator's token presale. "Official CoinMarketCap Presale," the post read, before asking users to click on a seemingly fake link to buy "CMC" tokens.

While CoinMarketCap has not directly addressed the incident, the data aggregator did issue a notice, warning users that it would never ask for money, private keys, or any other personal information.

"CoinMarketCap is a data aggregator media service. We are NOT hosting a Pre-Sale for CoinMarketCap Tokens. Beware of scammers impersonating us," the data aggregator said.

Meanwhile, technically, analysts argue that the scam was easy to spot.

"Intruders offered to just send money to some third-party address," Dmitry Mishunin, founder and CEO of a smart contract audit company HashEx said, adding that:

"It is unlikely that such a large company would conduct a sale without a smart contract and connecting a wallet on the site."

So far, the year has seen its fair share of the seemingly rising crypto crime trend. This can be observed in the number and the size of the recent hacks, such as the over USD 600m theft from the gaming-focused Ronin Network's, which can be categorized as one of the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) hacks ever.

Source:https://www.coinshots.com/news/scammers-impersonate-coinmarketcap-to-sell-fake-cmc-tokens

Dogecoin’s DOGE tokens spiked 10% on Monday as Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk was revealed to hold a 9.2% stake in social media company Twitter(TWTR), worth around $2.88 billion.

Data shows that DOGE jumped from $0.143 to over $The bump had a correlated effect on some other meme coins. Shiba Inu’s SHIB jumped 5% alongside the move in DOGE.

Musk holds more than 73.5 million Twitter shares, valued at over $2.89 billion at current prices as reported.

Musk is one of the most famous backers of cryptocurrencies. His electric car company Tesla reportedly held over $2 billion worth of bitcoin at the end of 2021. Tesla additionally started accepting bitcoin for its cars in 2021 but later ended the project, citing climatic concerns.

Tesla also accepts DOGE payments on its online merchandise store. The news had previously sent prices of DOGE flying 11% in January.

Musk has previously lent support to dogecoin development and adoption. Last May, he tweeted that he was working with dogecoin developers to improve system efficiency. That sent dogecoin prices up by 22%.

Then in June, he tweeted it was “important to support” a proposal that sought to reduce dogecoin fees – one that would make dogecoin more competitive compared to other cryptocurrencies.several minutes after the reports of Musk’s stake came out at 10:30 UTC. At the time of writing, prices fell slightly to $0.154.

Source:https://www.coinshots.com/news/dogecoin-spikes-10-after-news-of-musks-3b-stake-in-twitter

According to data provided by blockchain security firm PeckShield, DogeMother, one of the countless Dogecoin offshoots, is actually a scam.

DogeMother is a honeypot scam that has trapped buyers, according to blockchain security firm PeckShield.

PeckShield has urged cryptocurrency investors not to fall prey to the sham. Ironically, DogeMother was pitched by its developers as “the most caring” new coin that was “unruggable.” It has a total supply of 1,000,000 tokens. The developers claimed that all decisions would be made by the community. People were promised to receive guaranteed rewards for purchasing the token.   

The project, however, had many red flags. On its official website, it misleadingly claimed that one would be able to buy his or her mom a Lambo with profits made from investing, a promise that is typically made by scammers.

The Telegram channel of the token is no longer available after an apparent rugpull.

Honeypot scams typically cajole users into buying a certain cryptocurrency with big promises only to prevent them from selling. As the name of the sham suggests, their withdrawals get stuck in a contract since only whitelisted users are allowed to withdraw their funds. Most of such tokens typically appear on BNB Chain, which allows easily creating new tokens because of cheap fees.

Even though the memecoin frenzy has completely died down, scammers are still attempting to capitalize on it by luring new investors with dubious tokens that often end up being blatant scams.

Source: https://www.coinshots.com/news/dogecoin-knock-off-ends-up-being-a-scam

Lawmakers in Oklahoma have advanced legislation in recent days that, if finalized, would extend a tax break to bitcoin and cryptocurrency miners that set up shop in the state.

The Commercial Digital Asset Mining Act of 2022, sponsored by state senator John Montgomery and state representative Ryan Martinez, aims to reduce the expenditures related to hardware and electricity used by commercial mining operations.

"The original intent of the Legislature that the Oklahoma Tax Code recognize the continuing development of new and advanced manufacturing and industrial processing technologies has led to new industrial processes," the bill states. "Blockchain technology used in the commercial mining of digital assets is an industrial process that should be taxed in a manner similar to historical forms of manufacturing or industrial processing in order to encourage the location and expansion of such operations in this state rather than in competing states."

A report by regional news outlet KOKH indicated that incentives worth a maximum of $5 million are being eyed, citing comments from Sen. Montgomery.

Public records show that the legislation cleared the Oklahoma Senate on March 22 in a 29-16 vote. The bill moved to the legislature's lower chamber on March 23 and was referred to its technology committee on March 30.

Oklahoma is among a growing crop of US states eyeing the expanding bitcoin mining sector. States like Illinois and Georgia are weighing similar measures, and Kentucky's government approved such tax incentives last year.

Meanwhile, New York lawmakers are pushing for restrictions on the state's mining sector, citing environmental concerns.

Source: https://www.coinshots.com/news/oklahoma-lawmakers-to-introduce-tax-incentives-for-crypto-miners

Crypto trading volumes in India have plummeted following the new tax law entering into force. The new rules impose a 30% flat tax on crypto income and do not allow losses to be offset against gains.

The new crypto tax rules entered into force on April 1 after the country’s parliament approved Finance Bill 2022. A flat tax of 30% now applies to crypto income with no deductions or loss offsets allowed.

On April 1, crypto exchanges in India began seeing sharp declines in trading volumes. Aditya Singh, who runs the Youtube channel “Crypto India,” posted screenshots on Twitter showing a sharp decline in trading volume at four major cryptocurrency exchanges in India: Coindcx, Bitbns, Zebpay, and Wazirx.

“This is just the start of the decline of such a great ecosystem that we had in India,” Twitter user Shivam Chhuneja commented. “Our government must think about taxation rules that bolster the industry and their tax revenue at the same time. Many people earn their living form crypto trading.”

India’s finance ministry explained in Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, last week that “no deduction in respect of any expenditure (other than cost of acquisition) or allowance is allowed.” Furthermore, losses from crypto transactions cannot be offset against gains.

Ashish Singhal, co-founder and CEO of crypto trading platform Coinswitch, commented:

"A flat 30% tax that does not differentiate short-term capital gains from long-term gains, with no provision for deducting expenses incurred or offsetting losses is not in tune with the tax framework for other asset classes and is discriminatory."

Crypto supporters in India have petitioned on Change.org for the government to introduce reasonable crypto tax policies. At the time of writing, the petition has garnered more than 103K signers.

On July 1, another damaging tax provision will come into effect. A 1% tax deducted at source (TDS) will be imposed on crypto transactions. An Indian parliament member recently explained why this is detrimental to the crypto industry.

Source: https://www.coinshots.com/news/indias-crypto-trading-volume-plummets-as-new-tax-rules-enter-into-force

A Twitter account has revealed that the U.S. trading app, Robinhood is currently holding almost $6 billion in Dogecoin on behalf of its customers. The specific number held by Robinhood is $5,847,347,000.


The specific number held by Robinhood is $5,847,347,000. This amount of DOGE held by the app is 31.42% of the entire circulating supply, that is 41,687,447,478 coins.

In addition, it has been revealed that Robinhood has moved 48,086,697 DOGE tokens worth $6,676,165 to an anonymous address.

Regarded by some as the world’s most valuable parody, Dogecoin is a Shiba Inu-themed cryptocurrency that was started by software engineers, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer as a way to joke with and satirise the momentum surrounding cryptocurrencies.

Dogecoin differs from Bitcoin (BTC) in that it is considered inflationary, not deflationary. This means that there is no hard limit on the total supply of coins, unlike Bitcoin which has a ceiling on the number of coins that will be created.

According to Cryptwerk, a total of 2,053 merchants now accept DOGE as payment. The billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban also announced last year that U.S. basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks, will accept online Dogecoin payments for the Mavs’ merchandise and tickets.

In another boost for the coin, the Bitcoin ATM operator, Bitcoin of America has added DOGE to its machines in 1,800 locations across the United States.

Wallet Investor predicts that DOGE’s price could reach $0.29 in a year’s time and treble to $0.86 in five years.

Source: https://www.coinshots.com/news/robinhood-is-holding-5-8-billion-in-doge-on-behalf-of-its-customers

Indonesia plans to charge value-added tax (VAT) on crypto asset transactions and an income tax on capital gains from such investments at 0.1% each.

Indonesia plans to charge value-added tax (VAT) on crypto asset transactions and an income tax on capital gains from such investments at 0.1% each, starting from May 1, a tax official said on Friday, amid a boom in digital asset trading.

Interest in digital assets has surged in Southeast Asia's largest economy during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the number of crypto asset holders jumping to 11 million by the end of 2021.

Last year's total crypto asset transactions in commodity futures markets reached 859.4 trillion rupiah ($59.8 billion), up more than 10 times from 2020's transaction value, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency showed.

Indonesians are allowed to trade crypto assets as a commodity but not to use them as a means of payment.

"Crypto assets will be subject to VAT because they are a commodity as defined by the trade ministry. They are not a currency," the official, Hestu Yoga Saksama, told a media briefing. "So we will impose income tax and VAT."

Source: https://www.coinshots.com/news/indonesia-to-impose-vat-income-tax-on-crypto-assets-from-may

We are a news aggregator and we distribute crypto news as and when it happens, earlier we were just posting the snippets but some BTCtalk users asked us to post links too hence we are adding links.
do let us know if posting links is against forum rules.
Our mission is to distribute updates as they happen.

The Ronin Bridge and Katana Dex have been halted as the Ronin Bridge has been exploited for 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC.

Statement From Ronin Network:

There has been a security breach on the Ronin Network. Earlier today, we discovered that on March 23rd, Sky Mavis’s Ronin validator nodes and Axie DAO validator nodes were compromised resulting in 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC drained from the Ronin bridge in two transactions (1 and 2).

The attacker used hacked private keys in order to forge fake withdrawals. We discovered the attack this morning after a report from a user being unable to withdraw 5k ETH from the bridge.

Sky Mavis’ Ronin chain currently consists of 9 validator nodes. In order to recognize a Deposit event or a Withdrawal event, five out of the nine validator signatures are needed. The attacker managed to get control over Sky Mavis’s four Ronin Validators and a third-party validator run by Axie DAO.

The validator key scheme is set up to be decentralized so that it limits an attack vector, similar to this one, but the attacker found a backdoor through our gas-free RPC node, which they abused to get the signature for the Axie DAO validator.

This traces back to November 2021 when Sky Mavis requested help from the Axie DAO to distribute free transactions due to an immense user load. The Axie DAO allowlisted Sky Mavis to sign various transactions on its behalf. This was discontinued in December 2021, but the allowlist access was not revoked.

Once the attacker got access to Sky Mavis systems they were able to get the signature from the Axie DAO validator by using the gas-free RPC.

We have confirmed that the signature in the malicious withdrawals match up with the five suspected validators.

Actions Taken

We moved swiftly to address the incident once it became known and we are actively taking steps to guard against future attacks. To prevent further short term damage, we have increased the validator threshold from five to eight.

We are in touch with security teams at major exchanges and will be reaching out to all in the coming days.

We are in the process of migrating our nodes, which is completely separated from our old infrastructure.

We have temporarily paused the Ronin Bridge to ensure no further attack vectors remain open. Binance has also disabled their bridge to/from Ronin to err on the side of caution. The bridge will be opened up at a later date once we are certain no funds can be drained.

We have temporarily disabled Katana DEX to due to the inability to arbitrage and deposit more funds to Ronin Network.

We are working with Chainalysis to monitor the stolen funds.

Next Steps

We are working directly with various government agencies to ensure the criminals get brought to justice.

We are in the process of discussing with Axie Infinity / Sky Mavis stakeholders about how to best move forward and ensure no users' funds are lost.

Sky Mavis is here for the long term and will continue to build.

Source: https://www.coinshots.com/news/security-breach-on-the-ronin-network

Paul Tang, a member of the E.U. Parliament, believes that transferring cryptocurrencies should require information about the sender and the receiver, just like bank transfers.

Paul Tang, a member of the E.U. Parliament, believes that transferring cryptocurrencies should require information about the sender and the receiver, just like bank transfers.

Tang, who heads the E.U. Parliament’s Subcommittee on Tax Matters, called the pushback against the upcoming crypto AML regulation “another social media storm by crypto bros.”

The crypto industry in Europe is set to fight yet another battle in its war against stifling regulation. This time, the fight is aimed against the European Commission and its latest proposal to extend AML requirements for cryptocurrency wallets.

The revision of the Transfer of Funds Regulation (TFR), first proposed in July 2021, will extend the obligation of financial institutions in the E.U. to accompany transfers of funds with information about who is sending and who is receiving the transaction. The proposal itself represents the practical implementation of the existing FATF travel rule that requires crypto service providers to KYC their customers and is set to be amended in a vote on Thursday, March 31st.

As the bill provides no guidance as to how a crypto service should verify unhosted wallets, this will mean that many will decide to forego transacting with them altogether. Those that continue transacting with unhosted wallets will be required to report all transactions over €1,000.

This caused a stir in the crypto community, with many calling this a blatant violation of privacy. Those backing the bill, however, seem undeterred by this.

Paul Tang, a member of the E.U. Parliament serving as the chair of its Subcommittee on Tax Matters, called the public outcry “another social media storm by crypto bros.”

“Just like bank transfers, transferring crypto like Bitcoin should be accompanied with information about the person sending and receiving the funds,” he wrote on Twitter earlier today.

Tang compared holding cryptocurrencies to holding cash, saying they’re both stored without the involvement and knowledge of anyone else—including the government. But, unlike cash, cryptocurrencies are extremely mobile and operate in a borderless world, which increases the likelihood they’ll end up “in the wrong place,” he explained.

“So the identity of unhosted wallet-holders needs identification—just like you need to identify yourself when you deposit money at the bank. And we want authorities to be notified in case any one person receives a total of €1,000 from unhosted wallets. That is a red flag.”

He said that the threshold of €1,000 in total is an attempt to disable “smurfing” when tracking crypto transactions. Smurfing refers to the act of sending transfers smaller than the limit required by AML regulation, which usually stands at around $10,000. The varying price of cryptocurrencies means that thresholds like these are hard to enforce, which is why the E.U. believes it would be more productive to cover basically all crypto transfers.

Tang says that despite what members of the crypto industry say, these are important tools to fight money laundering and terrorist financing.


However, the future of the crypto industry in the E.U. might not become as bleak as Tang wants it to. Previous attempts to introduce regulation as stifling as this one was rejected by the E.U. parliament and there’s a high likelihood we could see this happening again.

Source: https://www.coinshots.com/news/member-of-the-e-u-parliament-says-crypto-transactions-shouldnt-be-anonymous

Lionel Messi has signed an agreement worth more than $20 million to promote digital fan token company Socios.com.

Lionel Messi has signed an agreement worth more than $20 million to promote digital fan token company Socios.com, a source close to the deal told Reuters on Tuesday.

Messi becomes the latest global sports personality to enter the crypto world following NFL quarterback Tom Brady and NBA star LeBron James and the deal is part of a growing wave of tie-ups between crypto firms and soccer. Paris St Germain and Argentina forward Messi, whose move from Barcelona in August included a cryptocurrency payment, will be involved in a publicity and promotion campaign for Socios in the build-up to the Qatar World Cup, which starts in November.

The 'ambassador' deal for Messi does not include crypto payments and is a three-year agreement, the source said. Socios have signed deals, including creating tokens, for over 130 sports organisations including a number of top soccer clubs such as PSG, Barcelona, Juventus and Manchester City.

Fan tokens are a type of cryptocurrency that allow holders to vote on mostly minor decisions related to their clubs. The tokens are increasingly seen by clubs as a source of new revenue but have been criticised by some supporters groups who see their introduction as superficial participation that adds to the already growing costs of following their teams.

Brady last year took an undisclosed equity stake in crypto exchange platform FTX Trading Ltd and became an ambassador for the company. In January, James announced a multi-year partnership with Crypto.com, a company who recently signed a sponsorship deal with world soccer's governing body FIFA.

Source: https://www.coinshots.com/news/messi-signs-20m-deal-to-promote-crypto-fan-token-firm-socios