Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

Japanese authorities aren’t hesitating in hunting down anyone considered a crypto tax evader. A court in Ishikawa has sentenced one of them, a 56-year-old man that will spend one year in prison, plus pay a $200,000 fine. Sentenced Man Didn’t Disclose His BTC Trading Activity of the Period 2017-2018 According to Chunichi , a judge at the Kanazawa District Court imposed a fine of over 22 million yen ($200,000) and gave a one-year-long sentence to Hideji Matsuda, an office worker in Ishikawa, for violating the Income Tax Law. The judge concluded that the man didn’t file accurate tax declarations knowingly on his bitcoin (BTC) trading activity. Per court documents, Matsuda didn’t declare the period 2017-2018. Moreover, the court stated that the office worker falsified data on his tax submissions because he claimed to had just earned 1.2 million yen ($11,000) in profits. In reality, he received a total income of 74 million yen ($678,000) and he didn’t pay any tax whatsoever. When hi...

A myriad of gold bugs like to compliment the yellow precious metal for its ostensible scarcity, as estimates say only 2,500 to 3,000 tons of new gold is produced annually. While new gold discoveries have seemingly slowed, investigative studies also show that in some areas, gold is being smuggled into the economy by the ton, and often never accounted for as far as per annum issuance estimates. Recently, reports show a whole mountain of gold was discovered in the Congo, as the Democratic Republic of the Congo is well known for being a region that sees tons of smuggled gold filtered into the global financial system unreported. Surprise Gold Deposits Continue to Crack the Precious Metal’s Scarcity Proposition It has always been said that the precious metal gold (Au) is scarce, and some reports even say that gold mining on earth will end by the year 2050 . Additionally, estimates also show that there’s roughly 2,500 to 3,000 tons of new gold that is accounted for and enters into the fin...

Crypto regulation in Spain remains on the political talks amid the current bull-run seen in the bitcoin prices. Now, the country’s Ministry of the Economy is about to create a new Financial Customer Ombudsman for crypto-related matters. Independent Financial Customer Body Will Abide by the MiCA Ruling Per La Información , Minister Nadia Calviño seeks to extend its guardianship to the financial body to cover topics such as protecting consumers in cryptocurrency services. To make it a reality, the minister will submit the initial proposal to a public consultancy “as soon as possible.” Overall, Calviño also wants to canalize all conflicts between banks and their customers through the Financial Customer Ombudsman, including all businesses in the fintech sector. However, the Ministry clarified they’re expecting to abide by the rulings of the future “Regulation Of The European Parliament And Of The Council On Markets In Cryptoassets and the Markets in Crypto-assets Regulation” (MiCA). S...

As questions circle about the network’s capacities following surging transaction costs and accelerating activity in the decentralized finance (defi) arena, Ethereum’s founder Vitalik Buterin opines that layer-2 solutions could help the network scale by a factor of 100x in mere months to meet growing demand. Sidechain Bundling Touted as Workaround to Current Network Congestion Ethereum has passed many milestones over the last 12-months and can be credited as the protocol responsible for popularizing the defi revolution thanks to its smart contract capabilities. Yet, as demand for the network’s service concurrently spiked, it created new headaches for users as surging gas costs made it much more expensive to transact. These developments have coincided with the ongoing ETH2 rollout , which effectively upgrades the original infrastructure to support better performance through improved scalability, increased efficiency, and higher transaction throughput. However, recent activity has cl...

While bitcoin’s price has neared the all-time price highs captured in February, old coins that have sat idle for many years have started to wake up from slumber. On March 4, at block height 673,162, a block reward worth 50 bitcoin from 2010 was transferred for the first time in over a decade. Also, a whale from 2013 has emerged from slumber as well, after 10,000 bitcoin that sat idle for over seven years was transferred on March 11. 2010 Block Reward Worth $2.8M Spent Last Week One thing is for sure, a great number of crypto proponents have always been fascinated by early adopters, old-school miners, and large bitcoin whales. In the crypto space, it’s not uncommon for an owner to hold coins for over five years, to even ten years without spending any amount of funds. In 2020 and into 2021, Bitcoin.com’s newsdesk with the help of Btcparser.com has been following an old-school mining whale who has transferred 9,000 bitcoins from 2010 block rewards since March 11, 2020. Bitcoin.com ha...

Gold bug and bitcoin opponent, Peter Schiff has alleged that the Digital Currency Group (DCG)’s plan to acquire GBTC shares worth $250 million could be an indication that Grayscale Investment will be reducing the value of its AUM. In addition, Schiff claims in his tweet that “Grayscale will be selling bitcoin to help raise the cash needed to fund the buyback.” Schiff Rebuffed However, the BTC opponent’s latest attacks on Grayscale are immediately rebuffed by the company’s CEO Micheal Sonneinshein. In telling off the gold bug, the CEO said: Get your facts straight — Grayscale is not selling bitcoin to fund share repurchases. In its statement that announced the plan to buy GBTC shares, the DCG revealed it will “use cash on hand to fund the purchases.” Additionally, Grayscale’s parent firm said “will make the purchases on the open market, at management’s discretion, in compliance with Rule 10b-18 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.” However, in his tweet, Schiff, who has ...

On March 12, the publicly-listed firm Microstrategy announced the company purchased an additional 262 bitcoin for $15 million in cash. The company’s CEO Michael Saylor announced the acquisition of the coins during the morning hours on Friday (ET) to his 623,000 Twitter followers. Microstrategy Tells US Regulators It Swapped $15 Million in Cash for 262 Bitcoin Seven days ago, on March 5, Bitcoin.com reported on Microstrategy leveraging $10 million in cash to purchase 205 bitcoin (BTC) . On March 12, Microstrategy announced another acquisition of $15 million worth of bitcoin in a Form 8-K Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing. The March 12 SEC filing explains the firm’s move to purchase the 262 bitcoin (BTC) . Meanwhile, bitcoin bull and Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor revealed the purchase via Twitter on Friday morning. Similar to Saylor’s prior tweets, the CEO explained how much Microstrategy purchased, the price the company paid, the number of bitcoin the company now ho...

An anonymous group has claimed that Blockfi, which has an estimated $1.8 billion in customer assets invested in Grayscale Investment’s GBTC, is facing potential insolvency issues associated with the negative premium on the GBTC shares. Using the negative premium of minus 7.89% on the GBTC shares to illustrate the extent of the problem, the anonymous group posits that Blockfi faces a loss of $232 million. Anonymous Group Alleges Blockfi Insolvency Threat According to a statement posted on the anonymous group’s website, Blockfi, which is promising its investors an annualized interest rate of 6%, can make only make a profit for its investors if the premium on GBTC shares is above 8%. This happens because Blockfi still has to pay a management fee of 2% on top of the 6% that it promises to pay its investors. Yet, as recently reported by Bitcoin.com, the premium (or discount) on the GBTC briefly dropped to a record low of nearly minus 12% on March 4. At the time of writing, however, t...

One of the biggest asset managers in Israel allocated millions of dollars into the shares of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). Altshuler Shaham is now gaining exposure to bitcoin by investing $100 million in shares, according to a local media outlet. Altshuler Shaham Currently Holds $150M Worth in BTC Per Globes Israel , the multi-million-dollar investment yielded a return of almost 100%. That’s because the exposure was made by the investment house in December 2020, when bitcoin ( BTC ) prices were hovering around the $21,000 level. Afterward, Altshuler Shaham took profits when BTC hit new all-time highs in February. According to Global, the investment house closed its position on about a third of its holdings in GBTC fund. Gilad Altshuler, CEO and co-founder of the asset manager, stated that Altshuler Shaham currently holds $150 million worth in bitcoin as of press time. He added: The $100 million investment has become $200 million, and of the $200 million we have already sold...

John Waldron, the chief operating officer (COO) of Goldman Sachs, says the financial services giant is seeing rising customer demand to own and invest in bitcoin. Nevertheless, the COO explained that his organization was still exploring ways of satisfying this demand without running afoul of regulators. ‘How Banks Should Be Regulated When Dealing With Digital Money’ In remarks made during an interview , Waldron, who is also the banking giant’s president, adds that Goldman Sachs “is in discussions with regulators and central banks about how banks should be regulated when dealing with digital money.” Meanwhile, in explaining the financial giant’s unique approach towards satisfying customer demand, Waldron said: We are regulated on what we can do. We continue to evaluate it … and engage on it. In addition to looking for ways of satisfying the growing consumer demand for cryptos, the Reuters report also reveals that “Goldman is also exploring a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) and...

Through the novel use of hardware security modules in conjunction with a communication module, a collaboration between Bluzelle and Equinix will significantly reduce the barriers preventing the equal distribution of opportunities for potential proof-of-stake (PoS) node validators. Lower Cloud Hosting Barriers Transform The Validator Landscape The gradual transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus algorithms has tackled some of the most urgent problems facing greater blockchain adoption, like scalability and energy consumption. Despite these enormous benefits over the more traditional proof-of-work (PoW) blockchains, staking accessibility has been a high hurdle for prospective node validators. For an industry bent on leveling the playing field for all stakeholders and participants, the costs for running a validator node are notoriously high due to the accompanying hosting and security requirements. These costs involve running a robust and highly performant private infrastructure,...

The controversial host of Infowars and the Alex Jones Show claims that he has lost a laptop containing 10,000 bitcoins. The laptop was given to him by popular television personality Max Keiser, who confirmed the story. Alex Jones Claims He Lost 10,000 Bitcoins Stored on Laptop Alex Jones, the founder of the right-wing media group Infowars, has revealed that he has lost the laptop containing 10,000 bitcoins given to him by television personality and bitcoin proponent Max Keiser. During the Flagrant 2 show with Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh on Tuesday, he said that Keiser gave him 10K BTC on a laptop 10 years ago. The American far-right web and radio show host is known for his imaginative conspiracy theories. He has been described by New York Magazine as “America’s leading conspiracy theorist,” and the Southern Poverty Law Center describes him as “the most prolific conspiracy theorist in contemporary America.” A long-time bitcoin critic, Jones refused to warm up to cryptocurrencie...

Gold bug Peter Schiff has revealed that his son, Spencer Schiff, has gone all-in on bitcoin. Calling his son “brainwashed” for buying so much of the cryptocurrency, Schiff added that he may need to “disinherit” his son to avoid the youngster burning through his hard-earned money. Peter Schiff’s Son Has Gone Full Bitcoin Euro Pacific Capital CEO and host of the Schiff Radio Show, Peter Schiff, tweeted on Wednesday: My son Spencer Schiff went all in on bitcoin on the last drop below $50k. 100% of his portfolio is now in bitcoin. He sold the last of his silver stocks to raise the cash. If my own son is this brainwashed imagine how vulnerable most kids are. He’s HODLing to infinity or bust. At the time of writing, his tweet has gotten 5.4K comments. It has also been liked 21.6K times and retweeted 3.1K times. The price of bitcoin currently stands at $57,983, based on data from markets.Bitcoin.com. Schiff further claimed: “The young generation likes bitcoin because most lack the kno...

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