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Bank of Russia Proposes Regulating Taxation of Digital Assets, Exchange, Still Opposes Cryptocurrency

The Central Bank of Russia supports the development of digital financial assets but remains opposed to the legalization of cryptocurrency payments, its top management reiterated. The monetary authority is now working on a set of regulatory proposals that will be presented to parliament at the end of the year.

Central Bank of Russia Takes Legislative Initiative on Regulation of Digital Assets

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR) intends to present a legislative package on the regulation of digital financial assets (DFA) in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. Under current Russian law, the term DFA refers to coins and tokens with an issuing entity, as opposed to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

Speaking during Finopolis, a forum dedicated to financial innovations, the bank’s vice president, Olga Skorobogatova, explained that the proposals pursue three main goals: improve taxation and eliminate tax arbitrage, develop exchange platforms, and regulate smart contracts.

The CBR executive highlighted the great interest in the development of DFA in Russia. “We think this is a very good new tool for financial market participants,” she said, quoted by cryptocurrency news site Forklog.

Skorobogatova revealed that the monetary authority is currently reviewing nine applications from companies seeking a license to issue and circulate digital financial assets. Three “information system operators” (Sberbank, Atomyze and Lighthouse) have already been authorized to do this, she noted.

The Bank of Russia maintains its opposition to the legalization of cryptocurrency deals

Meanwhile, speaking in the Duma, CBR Governor Elvira Nabiullina stated that while the Bank of Russia supports the development of digital financial assets, it is against the use of private cryptocurrencies in deals. Quoted by the Tass news outlet, she also insisted that digital financial assets are not just limited to cryptocurrencies and emphasized:

We have not changed our position that private cryptocurrencies, for which it is unclear who and how is responsible, which are opaque and carry high volatility risks, should not be used in liquidations.

Discussions about the state of cryptocurrencies and the regulation of the cryptocurrency market in Russia have been ongoing for more than a year. The CBR has traditionally maintained a strict stance, proposing a blanket ban on related activities such as mining and trading in January.

However, sanctions over the war in Ukraine, including restrictions on international payments, have softened his stance. In September, the monetary authority agreed with the Ministry of Finance that, under current conditions, it would be impossible for Russia to dispense with cross-border cryptocurrency deals.

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Has the FTX Exchange finally reopened withdrawals for clients?

According to on-chain data provider Nansen, the indebted FTX has finally reopened withdrawals for its clients. According to the data, one user was able to withdraw $2.6 million worth of ETH, while another was able to withdraw $1.3 million worth of USDC from the exchange.

Strangely, the data also shows that a user deposited $21,000 on the exchange to try to arbitrage odd prices on FTX and withdraw to some other niche asset.

Hearing rumors FTX reopened withdrawals and it seems to be true: one address got just over $2 million

Follow him here: https://t.co/YnE8gJPyvo pic.twitter.com/lp1Arag5vk

— Andrew T (@Blockanalia) November 10, 2022

FTX stopped withdrawals earlier this week due to liquidity issues with its sister company Alameda Research. Rival exchange Binance stepped in and signed a non-binding letter of intent to buy FTX only to pull out of the transaction 24 hours later.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said in a tweet on Thursday:

“We spent the week doing everything possible to increase liquidity”
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Brazilian Bitcoin Nonprofit Vinteum Announces Utreexo Developer Grant

Fellow Davidson Souza will continue to develop various Bitcoin projects after a Summer of Bitcoin internship, including Utreexo.

Vinteum, a Brazilian non-profit organization dedicated to promoting Bitcoin research and development, announced its second recipient of donations for protocol development, in a statement sent to Bitcoin Magazine.

Davidson Souza will receive the second Vinteum grant to continue providing wallet-enabled implementations for the Rust Utreexo library. Souza will then integrate the library with Spiral’s Bitcoin Development Kit (BDK). Additionally, Souza will develop bitcoin improvement proposals (BIPs) around implementations, assist with protocol development, and contribute to other projects such as Rust Bitcoin.

Utreexo is a Bitcoin hash accumulator initially proposed by Tadge Dryja, co-author of the Lightning Network white paper. The hash accumulator serves as an alternate database used to represent unspent transaction output (UTXO). The alternate dataset allows nodes to obtain and verify information related to UTXOs. By doing this, the information provided to nodes enables scalability benefits, decreasing the amount of storage needed by full nodes without changing anything regarding the security of the Bitcoin protocol. The process can also make running a node cheaper, speed up initial block downloads, and be used as an oracle for pools of UTXOs for different projects.

Souza initially attended some unofficial Venteum seminars that led him to participate in the Summer of Bitcoin, where he met his future mentor Calvin Kim, who is a Bitmex beneficiary. Kim began guiding Souza to port the Go Utreexo library to Rust so that anyone could validate Utreexo tests against Rust code.

“Davidson performed strongly during the Summer of Bitcoin program, demonstrating his understanding of Bitcoin at the protocol level and was productive in understanding and implementing the Utreexo algorithms,” Kim said.

Vinteum launched in August with a mission to train and fund open source developers for the Bitcoin ecosystem in Brazil. The nonprofit organization announced its first member at the launch, Bruno Garcia, who also joined the group as a founding member.

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Moneygram allows customers to buy and sell cryptocurrencies through its money transfer app

Moneygram has launched a new cryptocurrency service to allow customers to buy, sell and store cryptocurrencies using its mobile money transfer app. Initially, three cryptocurrencies are supported, including bitcoin and ethereum.

Moneygram’s New Encryption Service

Moneygram International Inc. (Nasdaq: MGI) announced the launch of a new cryptocurrency service on Tuesday. Moneygram’s official Twitter account tweeted:

Moneygram announces the launch of a new service that allows consumers to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies through the Moneygram app. This feature gives customers in almost all US states the ability to exchange and store BTC, ETH and LTC.

The company is expected to expand its selection of supported cryptocurrencies in 2023, the announcement adds. According to Moneygram, the new service is available in all US states (except Hawaii, Idaho and New York) and the District of Columbia.

“Moneygram allows instant access to over 120 currencies around the world, and we see cryptocurrencies and digital currencies as another entry and exit option,” said the company’s President and CEO Alex Holmes. He continued:

As consumer interest in digital currencies continues to accelerate, we are uniquely positioned to meet this demand and bridge the gap between blockchain and traditional financial services.

Moneygram describes itself as “a global leader in the evolution of P2P digital payments” and “a pioneering leader in blockchain-enabled settlement and cross-border payment innovation”. The company says it has served more than 150 million people in the last five years.

The ability to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies using the Moneygram money transfer app is made possible by the company’s existing partnership with Coinme, a US-licensed cryptocurrency exchange.

The two companies announced a partnership in May last year “to enable cash financing and payment for purchases and sales in digital currency”. Coinme’s website claims the service is “available at 12,000 Moneygram locations”. In January of this year, Moneygram announced that it had “completed a strategic minority investment in Coinme”, giving the money transfer company an approximately 4% stake in the cryptocurrency exchange.

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Flipkart, the Indian commerce giant, will allow customers to buy items in the metaverse

Flipkart, the Walmart-backed Indian e-commerce giant, has launched a pilot program to let its customers experience shopping in a metaverse environment. The company announced the launch of its own metaverse, called Flipverse, in which different brands will be able to offer their own shopping experiences.

Flipkart to Launch Flipverse: A Shopping Metaverse

Flipkart, one of the largest e-commerce companies based in India, has announced that it will test its own shopping experience in the metaverse. Called Flipverse, this metaverse will allow customers to experience shopping as if they were physically present in an online store through their smartphone.

According to the company, the experience wants to bring gamification and loyalty points to the shopping experience, allowing customers to accumulate supercoins and digital collectibles from different brands that are already accredited to be part of this pilot program.

To create the new platform, Flipkart partnered with eDAO, a company incubated by Polygon, to prepare the metaverse experience for launch this month. The company has already signed up several key partners, including Puma, Noise, Nivea, Lavie, Tokyo Talkies, Campus, VIP, Ajmal Perfumes, and Himalaya, who will be able to offer their own custom booths and experiences in the Flipkart metaverse.

A Flipkart executive stated:

The idea is to get millions of users to experience Flipverse and open the door to the future of shopping. Fifteen years ago, we were the first Indian company to launch Web 2.0-based commerce. And I feel that today we are the first company to launch Web 3.0 commerce.

Retail and the metaverse

While metaverse retail experiences have been fairly limited so far, with video from 2017 resurfacing this year showing an example of how shopping would be done in a hypothetical Walmart-themed metaverse, Flipkart and Polygon believe there is a great opportunity in the future for that. type of virtual shopping experience.

Sandeep Narwal, co-founder of Polygon, stated:

While we're just beginning to scratch the surface of what's possible in the metaverse, we see e-commerce as one of the defining use cases. Combining top brands with Flipkart's eCommerce expertise in a virtual environment revolutionizes online retail as we know it.

Walmart, which owns 72% of Flipkart, already made its first metaverse move into the Roblox universe in September, launching two experiences called “Walmart Land” and “Walmart’s Universe of Play.”