“Her Majesty’s Treasury has reportedly decided to go ahead with regulating stablecoins as legal tender.
Economic Secretary JohnGlenUK announced today that stablecoins will be brought into UK payments regulation. This places the UK financial services sector at the forefront of technology, creating conditions for stablecoin issuers and service providers to operate and invest.
While the recent crash of the Terra ecosystem — which saw an unrecoverable downfall of LUNA and UST — was expected to raise red flags among the regulators, the U.K. Treasury maintains its course ‘to ensure the U.K. financial services industry is always at the forefront of technology and innovation.’
However, the Treasury’s plan does not involve legalizing algorithmic stablecoins and instead prefers 1:1 fully-backed stablecoins.”
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“B3, the Brazilian Stock Exchange, confirmed that within six months it intends to launch its first official product aimed at the cryptocurrency market — Bitcoin (BTC) futures trading. In addition to BTC and ETH futures, B3 also intends to offer services to national cryptocurrency exchanges and to be a kind of “centralizer” of custody and settlement operations.
We are identifying points of friction that we can help resolve to face up, such as helping our customers provide the best access to their end customers.
Currently, in Brazil, institutional and retail investors can trade 11 ETFs through B3 with exposure to cryptocurrencies. In addition, there are more than 25 investment funds approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) that offer different types of exposure to the crypto-assets market.”
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“LFG notes that it has almost entirely depleted its BTC reserves from around 80,000 bitcoins to 313. The remaining assets [roughly $80M], which mostly comprise the crashed UST and LUNA tokens, will apparently be used to compensate investors.
LFG denied accusations that it bailed out whales with the bitcoin trove: ‘there was never any deal for ‘insiders’ to exit. LFG funds were merely used squarely within its mandate to help protect UST peg.‘ LFG said it sold off most of the BTC in its reserves for UST as Terra’s ecosystem was beginning to collapse early last week.
Monday’s statement from LFG comes amid criticism that Terra’s reserve funds, which were supposed to belong to the “decentralized” Terra community, were handled with a lack of transparency by Terra’s centralized leaders and investors.
UST’s price plummeted further in response to Monday’s announcement – from 15 cents to 7 cents.”
See Also: What Happened to the $3.5B Terra Reserve?
See Also: Kwon Proposes Forking Terra, Nixing UST Stablecoin in ‘Revival Plan 2’
See Also: CZ: “This won’t work.”
“Portuguese Minister of Finance Fernando Medina said cryptocurrencies will be subject to taxation in the near future, according to comments in the nation’s parliament on Friday. While she confirmed the new policy will include a capital gains tax, the government has not yet explained how staking or yield farming might be affected.
The government has said that [it] will move forward with the taxation of crypto.
Portugal was previously considered a tax haven for cryptocurrency investors, in part due to an effective capital gains rate of zero.”
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“Bitcoin (BTC) has had seven straight weeks of losses for the time first in its history amid a downturn in broader markets, stricter crypto regulations, waning retail interest and systemic risks in the crypto sector, data shows.
Adding to the downside is the bleak outlook for U.S. monetary policy, where no light at the end of the tunnel with rate hikes can be seen yet.
In April, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note that the Fed’s aggressive measures to control inflation could result in a recession. The investment bank put the odds of an economic contraction – a phase of the business cycle in which the economy as a whole is in decline – at about 35% over the next two years.
Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein reiterated that sentiment over the weekend, stating the U.S. economy was at a “very, very high risk.” Such an environment could cause a drawdown in U.S. equities, which may spread to bitcoin and cause further sell-offs in the coming weeks if the current correlation continues.“
See Also: Analysts flag Bitcoin price levels to watch after LFG sells 80K BTC
“The joint U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council will collaborate on the research and development of technology to track carbon emissions, and will look at blockchain technology as a potential tool for measuring and utilizing lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) assessments.
The working group will examine the potential of several “emerging technologies,” including blockchain technology, to track emissions more reliably.”
The Disrupt 