The Crypto Currier, May 17th

This week in the Crypto Currier:

What we know about China's government blockchain platform. 44 countries just met in El Salvador to see how the bitcoin rollout has gone. Germany declares crypto gains tax-free after a year and Portugal reverses its stance on crypto's tax free status. What happened to Terra's $3.5 billion Bitcoin reserve and another stablecoin loses its peg. And - ?? Crypto Wars came Highly Recommended and won an award at the 2022 Business Book Awards! ??

Major US healthcare provider explores blockchain for health compliance incentive

US healthcare provider OSF Healthcare, which serves more than 900,000 people a year, is looking to see if it can use of blockchain and cryptocurrency to incentivise people to stick to medical advice. A 2014 US study estimated avoidable health costs from non-adherence to be up to?$100 to $300 billion a year. The system plans to look at using?Zero Knowledge Proofs to maintain anonymity. However, paying incentives for non-adherence of medical advice is far from controversy-free. An NHS study from fifteen years ago found that paying people to comply is an all round bad idea and open to fraud. There’s the potential for medical practitioners to falsely mark people as having a health condition to receive incentives, it would signal that compliance isn't in people's best interest and might make naturally compliant people not comply until they get incentives. (Ledger Insights)?Read More

China has been quietly building a blockchain platform. Here’s what we know

China has been quietly working on its own blockchain platform, called Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN), which it aims to use to facilitate the deployment of blockchain for companies. This follows a 2019 speech where Chinese President Xi Jinping said blockchain was an “important breakthrough in independent innovation of core technologies” and that the country needs to “seize the opportunities” blockchain presents. China aims for BSN, which has links to the Chinese government, to go global but this could face challenges. (CNBC)?Read More

NY Major Eric Adams: Using blockchain for birth certificates, deeds ‘way of the future’

New York Major Eric Adams has said that making use of blockchain is “the way of the future”. At an event he told investors “To have, to use blockchain from everything — to look at deeds, to deal with birth certificates, other records, this is the way of the future and we’re excited about it”. (New York Post)?Read More

El Salvador President announces 44 countries met there to discuss Bitcoin?

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said representatives met in El Salvador this Monday, May 16th, to discuss the benefits of the country's Bitcoin rollout. He?tweeted:?"Tomorrow, 32 central banks and 12 financial authorities (44 countries) will meet in El Salvador to discuss financial inclusion, digital economy, banking the unbanked, the #Bitcoin rollout and its benefits in our country". This follows El Salvador being the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in September. (The Block Crypto)?Read More

Germany declares crypto gains tax-free after 1 year, even if used for staking, lending

The German Ministry of Finance has confirmed that the sale of crypto assets is tax-free after one year even if the coins are used for staking and lending. Germany views crypto as a 'private asset' which means “it attracts an individual income tax rather than a capital gains tax” according to crypto tax firm Koinly. The firm said Germany “only taxes crypto if it’s sold within the same year it was bought.” Crypto gains are completely tax-exempt in Germany after holding of one year and profits on crypto sales up to €600 per calendar year remain tax-free. The tax-free holding period is a minimum of 10 years for staked crypto. (Bitcoin.com) Read More

Portugal to lose crypto tax haven status as state announces gains duties

Portugal is set to reverse a tax law set in 2016 that said that since crypto is not legal tender, gains cannot be taxed. Finance Minister Fernando Medina has confirmed that Portugal will begin taxing cryptocurrency, but has not set a date for the tax to start, or a rate. He has said that it will be?levied on investment gains?made from cryptocurrencies. Until now, Portugal has been seen as a crypto tax haven and has seen many crypto holders move there. It will be interesting to see how many recent crypto movers will now stay in Portugal in this new twist of the law. (Cointelegraph)?Read More

What happened to the $3.5 billion Terra reserve? Elliptic investigates

?What happened to the $3.5 billion Terra reserve that had been bought to supposedly hold up the now collapsed stablecoin? A report by blockchain analytics firm Elliptic shows that 52,189 Bitcoin were moved to a single account at crypto exchange Gemini and 28,205 Bitcoin in Terra’s reserves were moved to an account at Binance. One can't see what happened to those Bitcoins after these moves. These funds would make up a good chunk of the reserve….?It will be interesting to see what happens. (Elliptic)?Read More

No rescue for Terra: Swiss asset manager denies $3B LUNA/UST bail-out talks

Rumours that a Swiss asset manager would step in to invest $3 billion into a bailout of failed stablecoin project Terra have been shown to be fake news. It seems the announcement that GAM Investments would invest $3 billion to help Luna/UST recovery efforts were fabricated, even including fake quotes from GAM CEO Peter Sanderson. This comes after Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin, UST, lost its U.S. dollar peg, causing the collapse of what had been a popular decentralized finance (DeFi) project. (Cointelegraph)?Read More

Do Kwon proposes Terra hard fork to save ecosystem

Founder of the collapsed Terra Luna blockchain, Do Kwon, has announced a revised plan to try and restore the ecosystem. Terraform Labs will put the proposal up for a governance vote on 18th May. In the plan, the new chain would not be linked to the TerraUSD stablecoin, rather the old Terra blockchain would continue to exist and be renamed as Terra Classic. Under the proposal, new tokens would be airdropped to old token holders, UST holders and essential developers The Luna Foundation Guard said that it used up an overwhelming portion of its cryptocurrency reserves?trying to defend UST's peg?during market sell-off. We shall see. (Cointelegraph)?Read More

Another Stablecoin Follows LUNA $UST, Crashes Within Hours

The collapse of stablecoin Terra resulted in traders (finally) questioning the trustworthiness of stablecoins, including DEI Price, which has now also lost its dollar peg. The $DEI stablecoin dropped from its dollar peg to a low of 52 cents, according to CoinMarketCap, and as of writing was trading at 61 cents. The DEUS Finance DAO, which backs the $DEI stablecoin tweeted “Our team is working around the clock to restore the DEI peg. Mitigation measures were implemented immediately and solutions are being developed for long-term stability.” It will be interesting to see which will be the next stablecoin to collapse or lose its peg. (Crypto News)?Read More

Coinbase Witnesses Major Outage Amidst Continued Crypto Bloodbath

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase reported a major outage, with users complaining about difficulties in withdrawing their funds amidst the recent crypto market crash. Some users allegedly were unable to access the app or site, which led to investors panicking. Coinbase said that they were working on the issue and that funds were safe and tweeted “We’re seeing recovery after implementing a fix, but our teams are continuing to monitor the situation." The rush to withdraw and the network outage followed a disclosure which had warned users that if Coinbase were to go bankrupt, they might lose access to their crypto. (Bitcoinist)?Read More

UK High Court of Justice recognises NFTs as ‘private property’

The High Court of Justice in London has ruled that nonfungible tokens (NFTs) represent “private property” but added in a caveat in the court’s ruling that this private property status does not extend to the actual underlying content that the NFTs represent.?Recognising NFTs as property means that one can claim damages against theft. Judge Amanda Michaels said in the decision that NFTs are not like ordinary digital data, such as music or photos but rather are “unique and scarce digital items.” This means that artists and content creators could now register their content on their blockchain and have their ownership legally protected. This also has implications for NFT owners, such as now having to ensure that they have clear ownership title and that they transfer all rights associated with the asset, in the case of a sale. Failure to do so could leave the owner facing criminal charges. Developers may now also be liable if they fail to provide adequate security measures to protect NFTs. (Crypto Minded)?Read More