Bitcoin News

India’s Finance Bill 2022, which proposes a 30% tax on crypto-income, is currently being reviewed in Rajya Sabha.

Sushil Kumar Modi, a member of Parliament, asked Monday for an increase in the tax on cryptocurrency income to 30%. He stated:

I’d like to ask the finance minister to reconsider the 30% tax you have imposed upon crypto. Please consider whether this tax could be increased in the next few days.

Modi, a member of Parliament, argued that cryptocurrency was not a commodity or an asset, good, or service and that it doesn’t have intrinsic value.

He said that stocks are backed up by companies, but crypto is gambling. He also asked, “Who is behind crypto?”

Modi also pointed out that the 18% goods-and-services tax (GST) is only levied upon crypto service providers such as exchanges. This highlights that it needs to be raised. Modi opined:

Cryptos can be compared to gambling, lottery, and casinos betting. All these activities are subject to 28% tax (GST), which is levied on the total transaction value. Therefore, I ask that you suggest to the GST council to consider imposing GST upon the total transaction value for crypto.

Modi stated that investors are attracted to extraordinary profits and added that no one knows the exact value of crypto.

Modi then gave examples of countries which have imposed higher crypto taxes. Modi stated that Japan has imposed an additional 55% tax, while France, Germany, and Australia have imposed as high as 45%.

Further, the parliament member claimed that crypto assets have been stored in private wallets since before April 1, and that ‘$8 Billion worth of crypto assets is expected to be expelled from the country.

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed that crypto transactions be subject to a 1% tax deducted from the source (TDS). The 1% TDS will be in effect from July 1, while the 30% income tax will begin levying from April 1. A member of the Indian Parliament has warned that imposing an 1% TDS on all crypto transactions will destroy the new asset class.

In an interview with CNBC, Bill Barhydt (CEO of Abra), shared his views on why he believes that Ethereum is more valuable than Bitcoin. He predicts that the price for ether ( ETH) will reach $40,000, which is a substantial increase over the current cryptocurrency price.

Barhydt explained that ‘Ethereum’s network effect is based upon the idea that it could be the world’s computers. It is being used to create stablecoins, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), defi [decentralized financing] and other purposes.

According to the CEO, staking will bring a large influx of people wanting to own ethereum. He compared the network effects of Ethereum and Bitcoin to make this comment:

Because of the new use cases, the network effects for Ethereum are more bullish in the short-term.

He said, “If the transaction fees and gas fees go down, which is the promise for the proof-of stake, then look out, because all of the obstacles to those network effects have been removed.”

The executive cautioned that there could be a sell-the news effect following the initial rush to stake in June or July. Whenever this happens, the upgrade from proof-of-stake is triggered – so there may be a sell the news pullback.

Barhydt did not mention a time frame.

It is possible to get ethereum for as low as $30,000 to $40,000

He opined: ‘It’s deflationary. The number of use cases is staggering. My opinion is that all the stars are aligned for ethereum right now.

Finder.com’s panel of fintech experts is less bullish on Abra CEO. The panel had predicted that Ethereum would hit $50,788 in 2030. This estimate was lowered to $26,338. Based on data from Bitcoin.com markets, ETH trades at $2,518 as of the writing.

Charlie Munger, a well-known investor and vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, spoke out about his thoughts on investing at Wednesday’s annual address. He harshly criticised cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and advised investors to not treat the stock market as a gambling parlor.

Munger, 98, stated that he was proud to have avoided the disease. He spoke about Bitcoin at the annual meeting for Daily Journal Corp., the Los Angeles newspaper company, where he has been chairman for many decades.

A billionaire investor who has long criticised cryptocurrencies for their volatility and lack regulation, said Wednesday that the safe assumption for investors was that Bitcoin’s price would be zero in the next 100 years.

He made these comments after Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, reached a record high last year at over $68,000. This was due to more mainstream adoption by Wall Street. However, its current price is now around $44,000 following a recent downturn.

Munger stated that they already have a digital currency (that’s called a banking account), and that people adopted crypto for its use in illegal activities such as extortion and kidnapping.

Munger said that he ‘admire[s]] the Chinese for banning cryptocurrency’ and that the U.S. had been wrong to allow them. He suggested that the U.S. should also implement a similar ban “immediately.”

The billionaire investor warned of dangerous speculation in the markets and issued dire warnings about inflation. In fact, consumer prices have risen to 40-year highs over recent months.

Important Quote

Munger stated that the great short squeeze in GameStop, and certainly the bitcoin thing, was wretched. He also said that many people view the stock market as a gambling parlor. The billionaire investor says he would tax short-term gains if he could. This would discourage frivolous speculation and increase market liquidity.

What to Watch Out For

Munger described surging inflation as the ‘biggest long-term danger’ we face, aside from a nuclear conflict. Consumer prices are up 7.5% in January’s red-hot inflation reading. The Federal Reserve now feels the pressure to increase interest rates this year.

He was asked how inflation today compares with the rise in prices during 1970s. He said that the current problems could be worse than Volcker’s and would require more work to fix.

Russian online marketplaces have observed that mining hardware is more frequently offered than sought. This trend started after the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), published a consultation document last month. In it, the regulator suggested a blanket ban of operations with cryptocurrency, including mining. It cited financial instability and investor risks.

RBC has been informed by a major online platform that while there were more ads for coin minting equipment, demand has declined. Marvel Distribution, one the most prominent Russian retailers of this type of product, also reported a drop in video card sales.

According to one source, January saw an increase in video card sales of 12% over December. However, demand for GPUs fell by 4%. The supply of mining rigs rose by 18%, but the demand for them fell by 9% over the month ending 2021. Listings for ASICs increased by 17%, while searches for specialized hardware fell by 27%.

A representative from another market confirmed the shrinking demand, noting that CBR’s report had been a turning point for consumer behavior. This is despite the fact that the monetary authority failed to get support from other institutions, and President Putin highlighting Russia’s competitive advantages as an mining destination.

The federal government offered an alternative strategy, betting that cryptocurrencies could be regulated rather than banned. Dmitry Chernyshenko, the Deputy Prime Minister, signed a regulatory map for the sector that did not initially cover crypto mining. A recent report from the daily Izvestia claims that Chernyshenko later directed several regulatory agencies and departments to include mining in the document.

Experts in the industry have doubted that it is technically possible to prohibit the extraction of digital currency. Russia, a country rich in energy, is one of the top mining hotspots worldwide. Its importance has grown since China cracked down on the sector last May. Officials in Moscow are calling for to recognize mining and tax it accordingly.

High-ranking regulators in financial services have reiterated their call for an EU-wide ban of cryptocurrency mining using the proof -of-work model. It is believed that the power-hungry model used in minting major cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, as well as ethereum, has led to increased use of renewable energy and a slowing of climate change in other sectors.

Erik Thedeen, Vice-Chair of European Securities and Markets Authority, stated to Financial Times that the regulators on the Old Continent need to consider banning proofof-work mining and steer the industry toward the less-energy-intensive proofof-stake method. According to the ESMA official this will reduce its enormous power consumption.

Thedeen is also the director-general for Sweden’s Financial Services Authority. He noted that bitcoin mining has become an important national issue. He and Bjorn Risinger (head of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency) identified proof-of-work as the primary reason for bitcoin’s high energy consumption. was the first to call for an EU ban.

Thedeen insists that proof of work should be banned. He also emphasized that proof-of stake has a lower energy profile. The regulator stated that ‘we need to have discussions about shifting the industry towards a more efficient technology.’ However, Thedeen made it clear that he wasn’t advocating for a broad crypto ban.

The environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining is being criticized. China, which had the largest share in global hashrate at the time, launched a crackdown against the industry last May following President Xi Jinping’s promise to achieve carbon neutrality. The miners have been trying to increase the percentage of renewable energy in their equipment’s power mix. Erik Thedeen claims:

It would be ironic if all the wind power from Sweden’s long coastline was used for bitcoin mining.

Companies that mine coal have moved to countries with high-tech solar and wind power generation capacities, such as Sweden or Norway. supports the Swedish proposal. Thedeen warns that authorities will not intervene if a substantial amount of renewable energy is used to mint digital currencies, rather than helping traditional services shift away from coal-powered energy sources.

While the privacy-oriented digital currency monero has experienced double-digit gains, most of the crypto economy suffered losses and has been in a consolidation period, XMR was recently in the news after a cybersecurity company warned torrent files containing the film ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ may have malicious monero mining malware.

Since years, Monero has been plagued by mining malware reports. Some applications can hijack the CPU of a victim and then mine monero. This act is also known as cryptojacking.

monero has gained 58% year-to-date against the U.S. Dollar. The crypto asset has a market cap of approximately $4.4 billion and is ranked 44th out of 12,135 crypto assets. XMR is 0.19% of $2.3 trillion crypto-economy as of January 1, 2022.

XMR trades at around $227.51 to $258.55 per unit. Tether ( USDT) accounts for 42% of all trades. This is followed by Bitcoin (18.39%) and Ethereum (7.83%). The USD (a href=”https://markets.bitcoin.com/crypto/USDT”>USDT) has a 4.2% average price range, while the EUR (3.35%), GBP (2.32%) and the JPY (1.32%) are next.

Monero ( XMR is an open-source cryptocurrency network that uses Cryptonote technology. It was created by Nicolas van Saberhagen. Although the blockchain network is believed to be obscured, Ciphertrace asserts that it has monero tracking capabilities.

Privacy techniques used by the project include IP address concealing, signatures and bulletproofs. A Monero developer revealed BTC to XMR atomic Swap capabilities at the end of August 2021. In addition, Monero (XMR), can be leveraged on several darknet marketplaces.

Monero is also up against privacy-coin rivals such as hirizen (ZEN), and dash. ZEN has risen by 438% against the U.S. Dollar, while ZEC rose 130.8% in the past year.

Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s Head of Crypto, spoke about the payments giant’s efforts to digitally asset in a Monday interview with NDTV.

He began, “At Visa the scale and extent of our work on crypto has increased dramatically,” he said. “The number of cross-functional people at Visa who are working in crypto in some capacity now exceeds the handful of employees. We’ve also more than doubled the number of partnerships we have with crypto platforms over the past 18 months, reaching 60 partnerships today. Sheffield explained:

We have partnered with over 60 top crypto platforms like FTX and Blockfi to create card programs that allow consumers to convert and use digital currency at more than 80 million merchant locations around the world.

“Crypto-linked card make it simple for consumers to convert or spend digital currencies without the need to ask coffee shops, dry cleaners or grocery stores to accept crypto at the check out,” he said. All conversions from crypto currency to fiat are done behind the scenes. It’s as simple as a Visa transaction, in-store or online.

When asked by the executive if Visa plans to launch a cryptocurrency consulting service in India, he replied that he did. The company has announced that its crypto advisory services will be launched in December.

“Visa’s goal is to offer our crypto advisory services worldwide to clients wherever there’s interest and at the moment, we offer services only in markets that permit such transactions,” he said.

The head of crypto at Visa stated:

We want to be a bridge between the crypto ecosystem and our global network of more than 80 million merchant locations, plus over 15,000 financial institutions.

He concluded that “We’ve created a lot of momentum within this space, and will continue to support crypto ecosystem in many ways,”

Bitcoin ( USD) has fallen more than 20% since its record high. It is now set for its fourth consecutive weekly decline. As always, crypto bulls are holding firm to their faith. MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor added bitcoin to the company’s balance sheets last year. He has been a vocal advocate for bitcoin since then. He doesn’t see any – at least not right now. – Long-term barriers to price increases.

He stated in an interview that the only real risk to his company was a black Swan – an unknown unknown. He dismissed potential problems like: “Has it ever been hacked?” It hasn’t been hacked. Is it going be banned? It’s not going away. It can be copied. It was copied ten thousand times. Each copy failed.

Saylor stated that bitcoin can rise forever. This sentiment he reiterated to Yahoo Finance Live. He said that technology adoption and inflation are the two main drivers.

“It’s going be driven by technology. As it gets built into Facebook, Google, and Apple, it’s also built into Square, and PayPal. He said that if you add technical utility, it will drive greater adoption.

He acknowledged recent volatility and future potential volatility. “It’s probably not going to go up uniformly in an exponential curve. But I don’t believe we’ll see technology slow down. I don’t think I’m going to see a world in which currencies don’t keep inflation.

Some crypto analysts have recognized risks. In the short-term, selling in a high-leveraged asset such as bitcoin could cascade if it falls below certain thresholds. Indebted holders will be forced to liquidate. There is some debate about whether bitcoin is an inflation hedge. The recent sell-off seems to have been caused by the possibility of higher interest rates, which is a response to rising inflation.

Still, Saylor’s bitcoin positioning has been largely a good thing. MicroStrategy shares rose 380% in the three years since Saylor first announced that in August 2020, the company would be converting cash from its corporate Treasury to bitcoin. The company has steadily built its position over the years, with purchases made using debt. Saylor announced the latest purchase via tweet earlier in this week.

MicroStrategy purchased 1,434 additional bitcoins at a price of $57.477 per #bitcoin. We #hodl had purchased 122,478 Bitcoins for $3.66 Billion at an average price $29.861 per bitcoin as of 12/9/21. $MSTRhttps://t.co/Xke8QhoYpy

– Michael Saylor (@saylor). December 9, 2021

MicroStrategy is still an enterprise software company but it has become what Saylor refers to as a digital property business. Both are complementary, he said.

“As an operating company we can generate cash flow and sweep that cash into bitcoin. He said that cash flows can be funded at a low cost of capital and that is another benefit. “Our employees are happier, customers are happier and our brand has increased one hundredfold since we adopted the Bitcoin strategy.”