Weekly Crypto News for 8/30/21 to 9/5/21 — Curated by BearTax
From SEC investigating Uniswap, MetaMask user count surging by 1800%, and El Salvador getting ready for $BTC law, here’s your crypto digest for 8/30/21 to 9/5/21!
BONUS: This week, we have a curation from the NFT world in the end!
1/ Enforcement News:
a. SEC Is Investigating Uniswap Labs
- Uniswap is Ethereum blockchain’s largest decentralized exchange by trading volume.
- SEC is inquiring on how investors use the exchange & how it’s marketed
- This shows SEC wants to get deeper insights into DeFi
b. SEC Charges BitConnect With $2B Fraud!
BitConnect operated globally as a crypto lending platform.
- $2B worth of its native crypto token $BCC was sold to retail investors using commission-based promoters
- Investors were promised up to 40% ROI generated via a trading bot
- But the bot was non-existent & the whole system was a Ponzi scheme
- Company has shut down; BCC value has dropped
To avoid such scams, investors must know to do fundamental research on crypto they wish to invest in. Don’t know how?
(Learn here: https://bit.ly/38JUPOx)
2/ DeFi Wallet MetaMask’s User Count Surges By 1800%
- No. of monthly active users increased from 545,080 to 10.4M b/w June 2020 — Aug 2021
- This growth is fueled by the launch of its mobile version & boom in NFTs
- The wallet is used to access decentralized applications
3/ El Salvador To Create $150M BTC Trust!
- Sept 7th: El Salvador’s bill recognising $BTC as legal tender takes effect. It requires merchants to accept $BTC for payments. However, there’s no penalty if they don’t accept
- $150M trust allows them to instantly convert $BTC to $USD
- Though the govt. is getting ready for the bill to come into affect, citizens are protesting.
A survey done among El Salvadoreans show:
- 67.9% either disagree/strongly disagree with the $BTC Law
- 9 in 10 participants don’t have a clear understanding of how $BTC works
4/ Four CBDCs To Trial For Cross Border Payments!
BIS Innovation Hub is working with the central banks of Australia, Malaysia, Singapore & South Africa to develop prototype platforms that can support international payments with CBDCs issued by multiple central banks
5/ FTX To Acquire Ledger
LedgerX is a crypto derivatives trading platform regulated by the CFTC. If the acquisition is closed, FTX will leverage Ledger’s relationship with CFTC to offer $BTC & $ETH futures contracts for retail & institutional traders.
⭐ Bonus Section : NFT News ⭐
1/ Binance NFT Marketplace:
State Hermitage Museum — one of the largest museums in the world launched a premium NFT auction on the Binance NFT Marketplace from 8/31 to 9/7. NFTs in this auction event was recreated from the museum’s art masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet and more. There were a total of 5 NFTs for auction, each with a starting bid of 10,000 BUSD.
2/ A Single Dogecoin NFT is Now Worth >$225 Million!
June: Photo of the shiba inu dog was minted into an NFT & was selling for $4M in $ETH at the time. A group of early NFT collectors & digital artists by the name ‘PleasrDAO’ bought the NFT. The group then split that NFT into billions of individual fractional shares. About 20% of the 16,969,969,969 NFT shares were put up for auction, bringing in approx $45M in $ETH. That puts the value of 100% of the sub-NFTs — known as $DOG — at $225 million.
3/ OKEx Launched DeFi Hub, Featuring NFT Marketplace!
The platform supports buying, selling, & importing of NFTs. Anyone can mint their own NFTs only on OEC & Ethereum blockchain currently.
4/ FTX Launched An NFT Minting Platform!
- Previously, to list NFTs, creators would have to contact the exchange.
- NFTs will be built cross-chain on Solana & Ethereum
- Deposits, including those of NFTs not built on FTX, & withdrawals will open up in a couple of weeks
5/ NFT Taxes!
It’s tempting to jump into the market head-first, but FOMO can be disastrous for your tax bill.
In our latest guide, we dive deep into how NFT activities are taxed, & tax rates for NFT traders, collectors & creators.
🔗 Check it out: https://bit.ly/38HnR1n
