1. Iran Punks Trump With Historic Gold-Backed Crypto Scheme
Days after President Trump slammed bitcoin and the very idea of crypto, geopolitical foe Iran revealed that it is ready to unveil its own gold-backed cryptocurrency.
Gold held in reserve by the Middle East country’s central bank will back the value of tokens on the blockchain of Iran’s new central bank “cryptocurrency” — which might be a generous term. The crypto will be mined by a small consortium of private Iranian tech companies
[Source: CCN] ✩✩✩✩
2. Congressional leaders have drafted a bill that would ban Big Tech from launching a digital asset
A draft discussion bill titled, “Keep Big Tech Out of Finance Act,” has surfaced ahead of Facebook’s slated congressional hearing this week.
The bill aims to prevent tech colossuses from becoming financial institutions. It also seeks to prohibit these companies from “establishing, maintaining, or operating a digital asset that is intended to be widely used as a medium of exchange, unit of account, store of value,” as defined by the Board of Governors of the Fed.
[Source: TheBlock] ✩✩✩✩
3. Chinese police crack down on bitcoin miners over $3m of stolen electricity
Police in eastern China have cracked down on a ring of illicit bitcoin miners who stole nearly $3m (£2.4m) worth of electricity to generate the digital currency, prompting a local power company to tip off investigators, authorities said.
[Source: TheGuardian] ✩✩✩✩
4. Binance Destroys $26 Million Worth of Its Team’s BNB Tokens
Binance, the world’s top exchange by trading volume, says it has completed the eight quarterly “burn” of Binance coin (BNB) tokens.
The exchange posted Friday that the burn — the industry term for destroying tokens — comes in accordance with its white paper and involved 808,888 BNB previously allocated to the Binance team.
[Source: Coindesk] ✩✩✩✩
5. Japan sets up working group on the impact of Facebook’s Libra
Japanese authorities have set up a working group to discuss the impact Facebook’s proposed Libra digital coin could have on monetary policy and financial regulation, government sources said, ahead of a G7 finance leaders’ gathering where the topic will be high on the agenda.
The working group, consisting of the Bank of Japan, the Ministry of Finance and the Financial Services Agency, have begun meeting and will seek to coordinate policies to address the impact Libra could have on regulation, monetary policy, tax and payments settlement, the sources said.
[Source: JapanToday] ✩✩✩✩
6. Bitpoint cryptocurrency exchange loses $32 million in hack
With Bitcoin’s price having more than tripled this year, regulators and politicians are tightening oversight of online exchanges. Users are increasingly being required to submit information such as IDs and addresses. The shift is giving a boost to a cottage industry of sites that typically don’t ask for any personal data: peer-to-peer exchanges.
[Source: TheVerge] ✩✩✩
7. Oops! Tether ‘Accidentally’ Created $5 Billion in Crypto Out of Thin Air
Due to human error and fat fingers, Tether accidentally printed $5 billion of its fiat-pegged cryptocurrency out of thin air. Oops.
The mistake occurred when the Tether team was in the process of moving tokens from the Omni Layer to the Tron blockchain. What was meant to be a $50 million transfer became $5 billion after someone misplaced a decimal point.
[Source: CCN] ✩✩✩
8. Bitcoin exchange owner gets 14 months in jail for lying about hack to SEC
A crypto criminal case that dates back to 2013 has finally come to an end.
The founder and operator of the now-defunct Bitcoin exchange Bitfunder, Jon Montroll, was sentenced yesterday to 14 months in jail for lying to federal regulators about a hack that cost his customers more than 6,000 bitcoins — worth nearly $70 million at today’s prices.
[Source: DecryptMedia] ✩✩✩
9. Georgian Government To Exempt Bitcoin From Value-Added Tax (VAT), No Income Tax For Traders
Georgia is not the first country to introduce such tax exemptions for its crypto holders. In the past, other nations such as Slovenia, Estonia and Switzerland too have allowed their citizens to freely trade crypto assets without having to pay any taxes on their gains.
[Source: BitcoinExchangeGuide] ✩✩✩
10. Veil Crypto-Derivatives Platform to Close Just Six Months After Launching
Cryptoasset derivatives platform Veil is to close just six months after launching the company said in a blog post on Thursday.
Veil, designed to make the Augur predictions platform more accessible, said on Medium that trading would be disabled in two weeks on July 24. It said it would continue to host the Veil product until Augur v2 launches.
[Source: CryptoGlobe] ✩✩✩
To keep up with Talenta’s frequent updates, follow its social media sites:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/talentasg/
WeChat: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/mp/profile_ext?action=home&__biz=MzUzNDk0OTAxOQ==&scene=124#wechat_redirect
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalentaSG
Telegram: https://t.me/TALENTA
