Tag: cryptocurrency

CoinDCX Report Claims Lower TDS on Crypto Could Improve Compliance, Tax Transparency

CoinDCX has released a report that attempts to highlight issues with India’s crypto tax policies, while seeking reforms from the government in order to improve compliance and tax transparency in the country. The FIU-registered crypto exchange is the latest of many firms that have attempted to appeal to the government to reduce the taxes on cryptocurrencies in the country — including the one percent tax deducted at source (TDS) for crypto transactions, and 30 percent tax levied on incomes generated by crypto activities.

In its report titled ‘Redesigning TDS for Transparency and Compliance’, the Indian crypto firm claims that the one percent TDS on all crypto transactions was initially envisioned as a transparency and compliance tool but its application is not aligned with the nature of digital asset markets, spelling losses for the industry players and participators.

“A large body of modern economic literature suggests that the marginal tax rate is inversely correlated with reported income and positively correlated with evasion, as observed with the imposition of one percent TDS on VDAs in India,” the firm said in the report.

According to CoinDCX’s latest report, a study of India’s crypto tax regime revealed that individuals who have evaded taxes in the past may have done so because of the higher marginal tax rate. The firm also claims that the one percent TDS has led to a 90 percent drop in trading volumes, which would lead to a drop in income for investors.

This is not the first time that crypto firms and related organisations have asked the government to lower the taxes on crypto transactions in India. Earlier this year, social media posts sought lower the 30 percent tax levied on incomes generated by crypto activities and lower the TDS rate of one percent to 0.01 percent.

These requests were made before Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the interim budget for this year, which did not introduce any changes to the crypto tax regime.

The finalised budget will be announced after the ongoing general elections, but it is currently unclear whether any new changes related to taxes on crypto activities will arrive in the coming months.

CoinDCX and the Bharat Web3 Association have urged the government to consider a revision in crypto TDS.

“For revenue collection, a tax rate of between 0.01 percent and 0.05 percent should be sufficient to collect all income tax due from market makers, while allowing market makers to maintain competitive spreads. Alternatively, a scheme can be introduced that does not provide for withholding tax on transactions, such as Annual Information Returns (AIR), which in combination with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 (PMLA) can ensure sufficient oversight,” the firm states in its report.

Gadgets360 has reached out to the finance ministry for comment on the report, and this article will be updated with a response when it is received.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Humanity Protocol Raises $30 Million as Blockchain-Based Digital ID Startup Hits Unicorn Status

Humanity Protocol, a decentralised identity solution, has raised $30 million (roughly Rs. 250 crore) from a fresh funding round led by Kingsway Capital and the startup has hit unicorn status with its valuation surpassing the $1 billion (roughly Rs. 8,350 crore) mark. Over 20 other venture capital firms participated in the seed funding round, including Animoca Brands, Blockchain.com, Hashed, and Shima Capital. The startup competes with Worldcoin, a rival service that has faced legal challenges in several regions.

Decentralised identity solutions (DIDs) aim to authenticate users and entities without a central authority. In order to record the uniqueness of each individual, Humanity Protocol collects the palm scans of individuals. These scans are stored on a blockchain, and a proof-of-humanity is issued that verifies that the holder of this identity is genuinely a human and not a bot.

“Proof-of-Personhood is a powerful concept but the solutions that exist today haven’t seen adoption because onboarding is invasive and high friction,” Terence Kwok, Founder of Humanity Protocol wrote in a blog post. “The world needs a truly self-sovereign identity framework that is built on first principles of inclusivity, privacy, and decentralisation.”

Humanity Protocol’s Proof of Humanity (PoH) consensus mechanism aims to mitigate the risks of identity frauds and Sybil attacks. This brings a layer of trust and credibility on human individuals within decentralised networks in the real world.

Explaining why the proof-of-personhood is a promising concept, Kwok’s Medium post said, “The PoH allows users to perform various transactions, such as asserting their ownership of real-world assets, accessing restricted services, or proving their education and employment history, without having to disclose their personal information to third parties.”

The blockchain ID project also claims that deploying PoH could make activities like the distribution of Universal Basic Income more equitable because these transactions are linked to real human beings.

In recent times, however, these controversial decentralised identity projects have garnered criticism and concerns from several governments from around the world.

One similar such project is Worldcoin founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Using the scans of people’s irises, Altman plans to generate a unique global identification of individuals, that would eliminate the need for them to present their IDs like names or email ids to interact with computers and machines while also ensuring that the holder of this ID is genuinely human. The project has been perceived as intrusive and is currently facing legal hurdles in countries like Nairobi and Italy.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Binance Registers With FIU as It Seeks to Resume Operations in India

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has registered with India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), a senior FIU official said on Friday, as the exchange seeks to resume operations in the country.

The exchange was barred from operating in India in December for non-compliance with local regulations as part of the financial watchdog’s crackdown on offshore crypto exchanges that were operating in the country without registration.

India requires virtual digital asset service providers, like crypto exchanges, to be registered with the FIU as a reporting entity and comply with obligations mandated under the country’s anti-money laundering rules.

While Binance has registered with the FIU, it can resume operations only after paying a penalty for previous non-compliances, which is yet to be determined, Vivek Aggarwal, director of the FIU said.

The FIU had issued show cause notices to 9 offshore cryptocurrency exchanges in December 2023 for non-compliance with local rules.

The financial watchdog had also asked the ministry of electronics and information technology to block online access to the exchanges.

Offshore crypto exchange KuCoin has also registered with the FIU and has resumed operations after paying a fine of 3.45 million rupees ($41,313), Aggarwal said.

Kucoin had announced the registration in March, but had not shared details of the penalty.

Binance and KuCoin did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

© Thomson Reuters 2024

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Binance Fined $4.4 Million in Canada for Violating Anti-Money Laundering Laws

Binance has been fined by Canada’s anti-money laundering agency for violating the country’s anti money laundering laws. The largest crypto exchange in the world was previously probed by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) for flouting regulations last year. The action against the firm comes shortly after CEO Changpeng Zhao was sentenced to four months in jail and directed to pay $100 million (roughly Rs. 835 crore) in penalties after pleading guilty to violations of US anti money laundering laws.

The FINTRAC on Thursday released a statement following the punitive action on Binance. The post disclosed that the crypto exchange is being fined for breaching two Canadian rules that were identified over the course of a compliance activity last year.

In its first violation, Binance, headed by Richard Teng, has been accused of failing to register itself as a foreign money services business (FMSB) in Canada. “It should be noted that Binance Holdings Limited was deemed to be an FMSB and was required to be registered with FINTRAC up until September 25, 2023, when it officially ceased all operations in Canada. Up until that day, Binance Holdings Limited was in violation of its registration requirements,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, Binance is also facing action for failing to report 5,902 accounts of large virtual currency transactions between 2021 and 2023, as is expected from crypto firms in Canada under the anti-money laundering laws.

“Binance failed to report the receipt from a client, of an amount in virtual currency of $10,000 (roughly Rs. 8.5 lakh) or more in the course of a single transaction, together with the prescribed information that occurred on 5,902 separate occasions during the period of June 1, 2021 until July 19, 2023,” FINTRAC said in its statement.

Binance is yet to publicly respond to the fine imposed by FINTRAC following the probe into violation of anti-money laundering regulations in Canada.

The exchange is currently embroiled into a legal tussle with regulatory authorities in Nigeria. Nigerian authorities summoned Binance authorities last month and asked the firm to establish a physical office in the country.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Bitcoin ‘Halving’ Software Update Cuts Supply of New Tokens in Threat to Miners

A highly anticipated Bitcoin software update called the “halving” has been completed, dealing a potential blow to the companies that make money by ensuring that the digital currency functions smoothly and securely. 

The once-every-four-years event cut in half the so-called mining reward, which is the amount of Bitcoin released from the network to compensate companies known as miners for validating transactions. The modification went into effect as of 8:10 p.m. Friday evening New York time, according to data from analytics website mempool.space and Blockchain.com. The price of Bitcoin was little changed near the $64,000 level following the halving.

This change to the rewards was all by design and preordained by the code that runs Bitcoin’s blockchain. The supposed anonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, sought to use the halving mechanism to maintain an eventual hard cap of 21 million Bitcoin in order to keep the original cryptocurrency from being inflationary. As a result of this halving, the fourth since 2012, the daily reward paid to miners will drop to 450 Bitcoin from 900.

Bitcoin advocates expect the halving to be a positive catalyst for the latest bull market since it further reduces the supply of new tokens at a time when demand for them has risen from new exchange-traded funds that directly hold the digital asset. Proponents of the original cryptocurrency such as MicroStrategy Inc. Chairman Michael Saylor have touted it is a better store of value than traditional fiat currencies, which they say are more vulnerable to inflation. 

Still, while Bitcoin has rallied to records following past halvings, market watchers including analysts from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Deutsche Bank AG had predicted that the event was pretty much priced into the market.

“As expected, the halving was fully priced in so price movement was limited,” said Kok Kee Chong, chief executive officer of Singapore-based AsiaNext, a digital-asset exchange for institutional investors. “Now the industry will have to wait and see whether a rally will occur in the coming weeks amid sustained institutional interest.”

Notably, the dilutive effect of Bitcoin mining decreases with each halving. While the number of tokens mined in the cycle that followed the first halving amounted to 50% of Bitcoin outstanding at the time the halving took effect, new supply in the upcoming cycle will only amount to 3.3%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Bullishness toward Bitcoin in the near term may be dampened by macroeconomic influences, such as signals from the Federal Reserve that interest-rate cuts are on hold and conflict in the Middle East, according to Edward Chin, co-founder of Parataxis Capital.

“We are likely to chop a bit over the coming quarter until there is clarity on the macro front,” Chin said. “During that time, the primary driver of price will likely continue to be ETF fund flows.”

The main impact from the halving is expected to be on Bitcoin mining companies rather than the actual price of the cryptocurrency.

The blockchain update is poised to wipe out billions of dollars in annual revenue for miners, though the effect will be mitigated if the cryptocurrency’s price continues to rise. 

Bitcoin mining is an energy-intensive process, in which miners use specialized computers to validate transactions on the blockchain. Large-scale miners such as Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. and Riot Platforms Inc. have spent billions of dollars on acquiring energy, purchasing mining equipment and building out data centers. 

JPMorgan expects the sector to consolidate, with publicly-traded firms gaining market share. 

“Publicly-listed Bitcoin miners are well positioned to take advantage of the new environment, mainly due to greater access to funding and in particular equity financing,” JPMorgan analysts wrote in a note this week. “This helps them to scale their operations and invest into more efficient equipment.”

Past halvings have been completed with no discernible disruption to the functioning of the Bitcoin blockchain. 

The next halving is set to take place in 2028 and the reward will be reduced to 1.5625 from 3.125 for a miner that successfully processes a block of transaction data. The average time to finish a block is around 10 minutes. There are expected to be 64 Bitcoin halvings before the 21 million cap is reached sometime around 2140, at which point halvings will cease and the blockchain will stop issuing new tokens.

When that happens, Bitcoin miners will have to rely on transaction fees, their other revenue source besides mining rewards. Rising transaction fees may help some miners stay afloat as the rewards continue to dwindle, yet those fees are currently only a small portion of total revenue for miners.

© 2024 Bloomberg L.P.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Adidas and Stepn Grant Limited Genesis NFT Sneakers to Web3 Customers via Mooar Marketplace

Adidas has entered into a partnership with Stepn, a Solana-based move-to-earn application, to offer generative NFTs to users. As a product of this partnership, a new NFT collection featuring Adidas sneakers was launched on Wednesday. For Adidas, creating digital avatars of their popular sneakers as NFTs is a way of connecting with the newer and emerging generation of consumers.

Called the Stepn x Adidas Genesis Sneakers series, this NFT collection has been made available on Mooar — a marketplace associated with Stepn. The collection offers 1,000 NFTs inspired by the brand’s designs.

Commenting on the development, Stepn CEO Shiti Manghani said the brand wishes to promote the concept of ‘move-to-earn’ in both, physical and digital worlds. Sneaker-inspired NFTs from Adidas could bring brand loyalists to play ‘move-to-earn’ games, making their digital avatars also wear Adidas shoes. She also noted that customer rewards are now entering a new era.

“Physical and digital – or ‘phygital’ – partnership between the most widely used lifestyle app and a global brand like Adidas underscores how powerful it is when you can move-and-earn in both the virtual and real world simultaneously. It also indicates the direction lifestyle rewards are going towards,” Manghani said in a press statement.

The collection is dropping in a two-stage raffle on Mooar, starting Wednesday. In the first stage, 200 NFTs will be reserved for Stepn’s userbase of five million customers. They can try to bag an NFT by depositing 10,000 tokens of Stepn’s native token, GMT. Those who fail to grab one of these NFTs will get full refunds, according to the company.

Stepn is attempting to gain some awareness and engagement for its GMT tokens, thanks to the partnership. Presently, the GMT token is trading at $0.2312 (roughly Rs. 19.34) as per CoinMarketCap.

In the second stage, Mooar will open a public raffle sale for the other 790 NFT pieces. Winners will be announced every 24 hours between April 18 and April 21. Stepn could also use this as an opportunity to drive customers to Mooar for a week.

Adidas previously partnered with a Web3 artist known as ‘Fewocious’ to be part of its new sneaker collection last year. The shoes from this collection were tied to an NFT redemption pass each of which brought benefits for the holders.

The brand had also announced the launch of its ALTS Dynamic NFT collection in April 2023, as part of expanding its ‘Into The Metaverse’ initiative that it kickstarted in 2021.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Metaverse Experience Centre With VR, AR and Immersive Technologies Launched in Noida

A Metaverse Experience Centre (MEC) has been established in Noida by Indian metaverse research and advisory firm Metaverse911. On Tuesday, the firm officially announced the launch of this experience centre, inviting industry leaders as well as other Web3 enthusiasts to discover the potential of the technology. Through the centre will let visitors indulge in immersive technologies that include Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) — all of which make for key components that brings the digital ecosystem to life in the metaverse.

A fully functional virtual universe, a metaverse is a hyper immersive virtual reality experience that is already making inroads in advanced video games and corporate regimes. Market analysts believe that as this technology enters more advanced stages, it could prove to be game changing for the sectors of healthcare, education, as well as advertising and media.

Built on blockchain networks, the metaverse ecosystem allows players across industries to connect with global audiences and buyers – increasing the trend of creating digital representations of physical objects.

In a recent report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), industrial metaverse is projected to be a $100 billion (roughly Rs. 8,29,018 crore) market globally by 2030.

With the technology showing promise and adoption, the Metaverse0911 team is aiming to create awareness about this technology – that is compatible with several Web3 elements including digital collectibles or non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as well as cryptocurrencies.

This centre is also being projected as a hotspot for dialogue and research around metaverse technologies. The centre’s website also reveals that it offers access to popular devices such as the Apple Vision Pro, Oculus Quest 2 and 3, the HTC Vive Focus 5K, Vuzix Smart Glasses, Pico VR Headset, Microsoft HoloLens as well as high-end simulators,

“We want to provide a platform for industry leaders to explore solutions that can be implemented to solve their organisational challenges; ushering in a new era of digital innovation in the country,” Rahul Sethi, Founder and Chairman, Metaverse911 said in a prepared statement.

The company claims that the MEC is India’s first such experience centre catering to metaverse-curious people. The firm plans to replicate this centre in other Indian cities as well as in Dubai and Singapore in the future.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

KuCoin Failed to Comply With Money Laundering Rules, Used for $9 Billion in Suspect Crypto Trades, US Says

US prosecutors charged KuCoin, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, and two of its founders for failing to comply with American anti-money laundering rules.

Since KuCoin’s inception in September 2017, the exchange “willfully failed” to establish and maintain a program to keep the platform from being used for illicit activity, including terrorist financing, federal prosecutors in Manhattan alleged Tuesday. The company also didn’t put proper controls in place to verify customers’ identities or file reports on suspicious transactions on the exchange, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

“In failing to implement even basic anti-money laundering policies, the defendants allowed KuCoin to operate in the shadows of the financial markets and be used as a haven for illicit money laundering,” US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. He added that the exchange received more than $5 billion and sent more $4 billion of suspicious and criminal funds.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees derivatives markets, also brought a case against the firm on Tuesday.

The news caused a stampede to pull money from KuCoin. The exchange had a net outflow of $278 million in stablecoins on Tuesday, the most in a day since the November 2022 collapse of FTX, based on data from CryptoQuant data.

“KuCoin is operating well, and the assets of our users are absolutely safe,” the company said in a statement in response to the allegations. “We are aware of the related reports and are currently investigating the details through our lawyers.” KuCoin also said it respects “the laws and regulations of various countries and strictly adheres to compliance standards.”

The prosecutors said the company took steps to conceal that a large number of American customers used the platform in order to claim it was exempt from US requirements, the prosecutors said. “Today’s indictment should send a clear message to other crypto exchanges: if you plan to serve US customers, you must follow US law, plain and simple,” Williams said.

KuCoin is one of the largest spot crypto exchange in the world with a daily trading volume of more than $2 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

© 2024 Bloomberg L.P.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

BlackRock Files With SEC to Offer Fund With Tokenization Firm Securitize

BlackRock Inc. is preparing to offer a fund through a partnership with digital-asset specialist Securitize, making it the latest Wall Street behemoth to experiment with putting money on blockchains.

The world’s largest asset manager said it plans to launch “BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund Ltd.” with Securitize, a digital-asset firm specializing in tokenization, according to a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission dated on March 14 that was listed on the agency’s website Monday.

The minimum investment accepted from any outside investors is set at $100,000, according to the filing. There are few details in the filing regarding the fund, but Securitize already is working with KKR, Hamilton Lane and others for tokenized funds. Crypto sleuths say they’ve already found an unconfirmed digital wallet on the Ethereum blockchain marked as for BlackRock’s tokenized fund. Representatives at BlackRock and Securitize did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Tokenization is a method of purchasing securities in the form of digital assets using blockchains. The process has been promoted heavily recently as one of the few viable use cases for blockchains. Before BlackRock, other financial heavyweights including Brevan Howard, and KKR all have announced efforts to tokenize certain parts of their funds. Citigroup has estimated the tokenization market could swell to $5 trillion by 2030.

© 2024 Bloomberg L.P.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who’sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.


Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Tipped to Feature Same Processor as International Galaxy S24 Series Models



Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Bitwise Says Its Bitcoin ETF Collected Highest Inflow on First Trading Day

Crypto asset manager Bitwise said on Friday that $240 million (roughly Rs. 1,990 crore) flowed into its spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), the most of the 10 such products that began trading on Thursday.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved 11 spot bitcoin ETFs this week, including BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, and ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, among others, after a decade-long tussle with the digital asset industry.

On the first day of trading, $4.6 billion (roughly Rs. 38,100 crore) worth of shares changed hands across all the products, according to LSEG data from Thursday which tracks total trading activity, including inflows and outflows. Reuters could not immediately verify Bitwise’s data.

Grayscale, BlackRock and Fidelity dominated total trading on Thursday, the LSEG data showed.

The products mark a watershed moment for the cryptocurrency industry that is set to test whether digital assets – still viewed by many professionals as risky – can gain broader acceptance as an investment. The market is closely watching inflows during their first few days of trading.

“We think that this will become a market measured in the tens of billions of dollars,” said Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise.

The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, the first bitcoin futures ETF approved by the SEC in 2021, accumulated $1 billion (roughly Rs. 8,300 crore) in assets within its first days of trading.

“Matching BITO’s first-week performance would indeed signify a significant success, especially given the current state of the market cycle,” said Anthony Rousseau, head of brokerage solutions at TradeStation.

Grayscale was approved to convert its existing bitcoin trust into an ETF on Thursday, overnight creating the world’s largest bitcoin ETF, with more than $28.6 billion (roughly Rs. 2,37,101 crore) in assets under management. Its product had outflows of $95 million (roughly Rs. 787 crore) on Thursday, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The SEC had previously rejected all spot bitcoin ETFs on investor protection concerns. SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement on Wednesday that the approvals were not an endorsement of Bitcoin, calling it a “speculative, volatile asset.”

Still, the regulatory nod sparked intense competition for market share among the issuers. Franklin Templeton on Friday slashed the fee for its bitcoin ETF to 0.19 percent – the lowest yet – and waived fees entirely on the product’s first $10 billion (roughly Rs. 82,900 crore) in assets under management until August. After its ETF started trading on Thursday, Valkyrie cut its fees a second time to 0.25 percent. Its Valkyrie Bitcoin ETF saw $29.44 million (roughly Rs. 244 crore) flow in during its first day of trading, the company said. Reuters could not immediately verify that number.

Valkyrie CEO Leah Wald, speaking to Reuters after the market close on Thursday, called it “a good successful trading day.”

The price of bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, was last down 5.32 percent at $43,696 (roughly Rs. 36,22,514).

© Thomson Reuters 2024

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Catch the latest from the Consumer Electronics Show on Gadgets 360, at our CES 2024 hub.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Exit mobile version