What is in the news these days is the Feds action to support the banking system that is severely in crisis, though this is only supporting Bitcoin.

The banking crisis with the failure of four major US banks, and others at risk. Has forced the Fed and the government to take unprecedented measures, and this indirectly brings new life to Bitcoin as well.

As also reported by Watcher Guru on Twitter with the following tweet:

JUST IN: $2 trillion could be injected into the US banking system by the Federal Reserves emergency loan program, JPMorgan says.

The Feds emergency lending consists of the ability of distressed banks to access $2 trillion in liquidity at least, JPMorgan explains.

The aftermath of the collapse of the various Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate, etc. has sunk the entire banking industry and fear is spreading like wildfire.

Many banks do not have their accounts in order and are not as solid as Silicon Valley Bank was, for example, although it also went bankrupt.

For the investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co, the program put in place by the Fed and the US government is massive.

Available funds constitute the largest economic intervention ever put in place ($2 trillion) and are only meant to buffer the crisis with an injection of liquidity.

The plan has been under consideration well before the recent industry failures but now its rushed launch was necessary to avert the collapse of the US economy.

The operation will make it unnecessary to sell loss-making securities so banks can survive.

JPMorgan has stated that the Bank Term Funding Program will be sufficient to put the accounts of the entire banking system in order except for the 5 largest investment banks.

Whether or not to use the plan is in strong doubt since it would involve untying the state with a noose around its neck.

The amount allocated on balance is equal to the amount of total existing bank bonds.

For Nikolaos Panigirtzoglous strategy team:

Utilization of the Feds Bank Term Funding Program is likely to be high.

The largest US banks, along with those subject to intervention by the Fed and government, hold $3 trillion in bank reserves.

There have been rumors for a few days now that the Fed no longer intends to raise rates by 50 basis points. There has even been talk of a rate standby.

This news, combined with the banking crisis, has led to, among other things. A drop in the yield on bots of 60 basis points in just one week.

The combination of the banking crisis and the idea of a rate standby is bringing a boost to Bitcoin. Which is up 20% in just four days.

Today Bitcoin stands at $24829 and is up 1.89% in the 24 hours.

Should Bitcoin succeed in breaking through $26.000 then the $30.000 target would be in its grasp.

Lack of confidence and losses by investors in the banking sector have brought liquidity to the crypto sector and especially to Bitcoin.

It is curious (I am being sarcastic) how the currency that was created to counter and give an alternative to the banking system as we know it appreciates in a phase of crisis in the latter.

Excerpt from:

US Fed to the rescue of banks as Bitcoin soars - The Cryptonomist

Although Bitcoin (BTC 1.13%) is often touted as a superior form of money and a premier asset to store wealth due to its scarcity and decentralization, it does have some shortcomings. The most glaring deficiencies are high costs and slowness when sending small transactions.

When sending these smaller transactions, it isn't uncommon for the transaction fee to be larger than the transaction itself. This has been one of the most well-known obstacles that has prevented Bitcoin from becoming a viable option for everyday purchases like a cup of coffee or a meal at a restaurant.

However, this might slowly be changing.

In 2018, developers released a solution called the Lightning Network which would help mitigate these high fees and slow speeds for smaller transactions. The details of how it works can be a little complex, but what is most important to know is that with the Lightning Network, transaction speeds can increase from just 10 per second to more than 1 million per second and cost just a fraction of a penny.

In its infancy, growth of the Lightning Network was slow, but by 2021 an explosion on the network took place as Bitcoin climbed to an all-time high of nearly $69,000, and users looked for cost-effective solutions to send and receive Bitcoin.

But since that peak in 2021, the Lightning Network has remained impressively resilient during the current bear market and has actually continued to grow.

On Feb. 26, the Lightning Network notched a new all-time high in network capacity. This metric measures the amount of Bitcoin locked in the network and serves as a proxy to gauge liquidity. The thinking goes that the greater the liquidity, the greater the network's capacity to process larger transactions faster and cheaper.

We can see this phenomenon in action when taking a look at the median base fee on the network. Despite Bitcoin's price fluctuating, there is a clear and evident trend of the median base fee falling with time. In late 2022, it hit an all-time low of $0.00000016. Talk about cheap.

When considering that the Lightning Network has continued to flourish even in the midst of this crypto winter, there is significant reason to believe that this growth will be sustained should a bull market arrive. As such, thenarrative that Bitcoin is too costly and slow to use for everyday payments will likely dissipate.

Should the Lightning Network continues on its current path of growth, it could lead to Bitcoin truly becoming a superior form of money that can be used not only as a store of value but also an attractive means of payment.

Although some consider it to already be in the upper echelon of all cryptocurrencies, the combination of Bitcoin's use case as a long-term investment and growth of the Lightning Network could solidify Bitcoin's position as the premier digital asset for years to come. When considering that Bitcoin's price is still down more than 70% from its all-time high, an investment today seems almost too good to be true.

RJ Fulton has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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If This Trend Continues, Bitcoin Could Grow for Years to Come - The Motley Fool

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about Bitcoin stemming from the collapse of a single bank contributed to its downward trend earlier this week.

Yet, the failure of yet another bank may have reversed the publics opinion and brought back support for the king coin. However, Bitcoin may have been affected differently by the Silicon Valley bank run that triggered a drop in USDC.

Read Bitcoin (BTC) Price Prediction 2023-24

The California Financial Institutions Control Board closed Silicon Valley Bank, a significant bank for startups with venture capital backing. It was the first bank insured by the FDIC to go bankrupt in 2023.

The California regulator has designated the FDIC as the receiver to safeguard insured savings, although the reason for the shutdown is unknown. SVB, one of the 20 largest banks in the U.S. by total assets, financed several startups focusing on cryptocurrencies.

Peoples reactions to the SVB failure suggest uncertainty is the current prevalent mood. The process of withdrawing assets for customers with $250,000 or more has sparked discussions based on a thread by Mark Cuban (an American businessman) and the following comments.

In addition, Circle announced in a statement that over $3 billion of its $40 billion was held by SVB. Another negative reaction has been the flight of USDC holders exchanging their holdings for other stablecoins and Bitcoin.

According to Santiment statistics, the accumulation of whales and sharks continued despite the FUD that was caused by the Silvergate crash.

As of this writing, addresses with 10-10,000 BTC had risen to over 67%. Looking at the data, it is clear that on 11 March, there was an upswing in whale and shark accumulation, coinciding with the time that USDC was experiencing a capital flight.

In addition, the volume metric on Santiment revealed some intriguing actions. By 9 a.m. UTC on March 11, BTC volume had already reached 45 billion, and by 17:00 UTC, it had reached 35 billion.

This volume is notable because it is the highest Bitcoin has seen since December. There is little doubt that this is a sign of a rise in business activity. There were more than 39 billion as of this writing.

Even if the amount of trades has increased, most tokens have left exchanges. More and more Bitcoin (BTC) holders are moving their coins off exchanges because of the continuing swap with USDC.

CryptoQuants Netflow measure shows that on 10 March, more BTC left the system than entered; this trend persisted as of this writing.

Looking at the spot price of BTC/USDC at the time of writing, we can see that BTC has increased in value by more than 11% on a daily timeframe. At the time of writing, one Bitcoin was worth roughly $22,600 at the current USDC exchange rate.

Yet, on a daily timeframe, the BTC/USD spot price showed that it had lost almost 1% of its value, trading at around $19,900 and $20,000.

Is your portfolio green? Check out the Bitcoin Profit Calculator

A possible indicator of the degree of interdependence between conventional finance and cryptocurrency is the publics reaction to the SVB failure, which was focused on Bitcoin and stablecoins.

Even so, Bitcoin showed that, despite its volatility, it could be a viable alternative store of wealth.

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Bitcoin: Fall of Silicon Valley Bank might be a silver lining for BTC, heres why - AMBCrypto News

Digital financial assets (DFAs) for a total exceeding $26 million have been issued in Russia in the past year. This new market has been developing since it was regulated in 2021 and the countrys monetary authority started licensing issuers in the following year.

Less than a year since Central Bank of Russia (CBR)-approved entities began issuing digital financial assets, these have issued DFAs for 2 billion rubles (over $26 million). The data was announced by Ekaterina Frolovicheva, general director of the tokenization service Atomyze.

Speaking at a round table in the Digital Financial Assets New Tool for Attracting Liquidity Public Chamber, Frolovicheva explained that the first DFA issuer was added to Bank of Russias register on Feb. 3, 2022, but the issuing of DFAs started several months later.

Quoted by the Tass news agency, she also noted that the unique features of DFAs make them extremely attractive and that demand is on the rise. For example, hybrid digital rights combine the properties of digital financial assets and utilitarian digital rights, simultaneously certifying a monetary claim and right to demand the transfer of an asset.

Stablecoins, when not intended for settlements, as well as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) can be issued as hybrid digital rights in the Russian Federation. Thats possible under the law On Digital Financial Assets which went into force in January 2021. However, the country has yet to regulate operations with decentralized cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

Atomyze is one of the platforms authorized by the CBR to issue DFAs, alongside the fintech company Lighthouse, as well as Sberbank and Alfa-Bank, Russias largest state-owned and private bank, respectively. Another entity was recently licensed Distributed Registry Systems, which operates the Masterchain blockchain platform.

Russians will soon be able to invest in DFAs along with other instruments, such as stocks and bonds, while avoiding the risks associated with traditional instruments and bypassing financial market intermediaries, commented Maxim Trofimov, CEO of a company called Digital Assets.

Do you expect the digital assets market to continue to expand in Russia? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.

Lubomir Tassev is a journalist from tech-savvy Eastern Europe who likes Hitchenss quote: Being a writer is what I am, rather than what I do. Besides crypto, blockchain and fintech, international politics and economics are two other sources of inspiration.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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Digital Assets Worth 2 Billion Rubles Issued in Russia in Less Than ... - Bitcoin News

Cryptocurrency on Binance trading app

With the tax deadline just a few weeks agoTax Day is April 18taxpayers are scrambling to finish and file their returns. One thing that may be causing some confusion this year? Cryptocurrency. While it's not a new tax topic, conflicting advice about losses and different wording on Form 1040 are resulting in some head-scratching. Here are five things you need to know about cryptocurrency before you file your tax return.

The IRS is getting serious about cryptocurrencyer, digital assets. This year, the question near the top of your Form 1040 asks, At any time during 2022, did you: (a) receive (as a reward, award, or payment for property or services); or (b) sell, exchange, gift, or otherwise dispose of a digital asset (or a financial interest in a digital asset)?

IRS Form 1040 for 2022

According to the IRS, digital assets are any digital representations of value that are recorded on a cryptographically secured distributed ledger or any similar technology. That includes non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and virtual currencies, such as cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.

And just in case there's any confusion, the IRS notes that if a particular asset has the characteristics of a digital asset, it will be treated as a digital asset for federal income tax purposes. In other words, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it may just be a duck.

Not every digital asset transaction requires you to tick the yes box. For example, just holding a digital asset in a wallet or account, or transferring a digital asset from one wallet or account you own or control to another wallet or account that you own or control doesnt result in a yes. It also doesn't include the purchase of digital assets using cash or other currency, including through the use of electronic platforms like PayPal PYPL and Venmo.

Do not leave the question unanswered. All taxpayers must tick a box, not just those who engaged in a transaction involving digital assets in 2022.

This is true no matter what the income looks like once it gets to you. That means the receipt of cryptocurrency or other digital assets in exchange for services is considered income. That includes income earned as an employee or as an independent contractor.

Income may also be recognized from mining and staking. And if a hard fork is followed by an airdrop and you receive new cryptocurrency, the IRS considers that to be taxable income.

But not all transactions result in the recognition of income. If your cryptocurrency went through a hard fork, and you did not receive any new cryptocurrency, you don't have taxable income to report. Similarly, a soft fork will not result in any taxable income.

The IRS considers cryptocurrency a capital asset. The agency issued guidance in 2014, making it clear that capital gains rules apply to any gains or losses.

For tax purposes, you figure your capital gains or losses by determining how much your basistypically, the cost you pay for assetshas gone up or down from the time that you acquired the asset until theres a taxable event. A taxable event can include a sale, gift, or other disposition.

If you hold an asset for more than one year before a taxable event, it's considered a long-term gain or loss. And if you hold an asset for one year or less before a taxable event, it's considered a short-term gain or loss.

And while cryptocurrency goes up and down, you care the most about the beginning and the endwhat happens in the middle doesn't really count. Thats because, for tax purposes, when cryptocurrency takes a dive, that doesn't equal a realized loss. Similarly, when it goes back up in value, that doesn't equal a realized gain. To realize a gain or a loss for tax purposes, you must do something with the asset, like sell or otherwise dispose of it.

At tax time, you'll report any realized gains and losses on Schedule D. You don't need to file a Schedule D if you don't have any realized gains or losseseven if the value changes, if there's no sale or disposition, there's nothing to report.

Like other capital assets, if any realized losses from digital assets exceed any realized gains, you have a capital loss. You can claim up to $3,000 (or $1,500 if you are married filing separately) of capital losses in a tax yearthe amount of your loss offsets your taxable income. However, if your losses exceed those limits, you can carry them forward to later years, subject to certain limitations and restrictions.

Here's how that works. Let's say that you realized $3,500 in net capital losses in 2022. You can deduct $3,000 in capital losses for the 2022 tax yearthe return you're filing nowand carry forward the remaining $500 in losses to use on next year's tax return.

There's been a lot of speculation about how to treat cryptocurrency that has declined quickly in value to the point of almost being worthless. Specifically, it's been suggested that if your cryptocurrency has substantially dropped in value, you can claim it as a loss under section 165.

In January, the IRS Office of Chief Counsel issued Memorandum 202302011. The non-taxpayer specific advice confirmed two things:

The memorandum references Lakewood Assocs. v. Commissioner, 109 T.C. 450, 459 (1997), claiming, The mere diminution in value of property does not create a deductible loss. In other words, if it's not wholly worthless, you still own something and theres no realized loss.

It's worth re-emphasizing that the IRS memo is a response to a request for non-taxpayer specific advice, which means that it should not be used or cited as precedent. It doesn't carry the same weight as a law or regulation. However, it does offer insight into how the IRS regards an issue, and that's valuable information.

This is a quick look at some of the most common cryptocurrency questionsthere are certainly some more complicated cryptocurrency scenarios not addressed here.

If youre seeking more information, the IRS has some links and FAQs specific to digital assets on its website. And while the internet can offer some useful advice (hey, you're reading this right now), not all cryptocurrency tax advice is created equal. If you have questions, I highly recommend consulting with a knowledgeable tax professional.

Read this article:

Five Things You Need To Know About Cryptocurrency And Taxes - Forbes

Few people understand the key technical issues currently facing the worlds dominant cryptocurrency. Andrew Chow is one of them.

Chow is one of four maintainers for Bitcoin Core (or just Core), the most popular software for connecting to the Bitcoin network.

Maintainers review changes to Bitcoin Core known as commits, which are submitted by fellow Bitcoin developers as pull requests or PRs. Chow and other maintainers then approve or merge those changes into Cores source code. The code review is critical to ensuring no buggy code gets merged.

Chow is a gamer at heart, and only got into Bitcoin in high school to pay for video games he couldnt otherwise afford. His parents wouldnt give him a credit card, open a bank account for him or even give him an allowance. He resorted to freelancing on the BitcoinTalk forum and began writing code in exchange for bitcoin (BTC).

Chow, who says he's now in his mid-20s, gets paid as an engineer at the Bitcoin infrastructure firm Blockstream, where aside from a few corporate tasks, his main priority is working on Bitcoin Core.

He says code review is one of the biggest challenges Bitcoin faces today. Most Core developers are keen on writing code for new features, but few enjoy the more mundane task of reviewing code submitted by their peers. Chow says more contributors need to focus on code review to tackle the 300-plus PRs in Cores GitHub repository. The community has a Bitcoin Core PR Review Club that meets weekly to help newer contributors learn about the review process.

Chow agreed to an interview with CoinDesk at the Advancing Bitcoin conference in London. He elaborated on why code review is so critical, explained what Bitcoin Core contributors do every day, and weighed in on the current debate over op_vault and Speedy Trial. Heres a partial transcript of that interview.

CoinDesk: How did you discover Bitcoin?

Andrew Chow: When I was younger, in high school, I didn't have a bank account because I was under 18. My parents didn't open one for me. I didn't have a credit card even a supervised credit card and I didn't have an allowance. But Steam was selling games for bitcoin. If you do PC gaming, you can download Steam and it has basically all the PC games.

Also, on purse.io, you could sell bitcoin for stuff. Well, I wanted to play games. I wanted to buy them. I mean, I'm okay with pirating but, you know, pirating things is kind of sketchy. You don't know what you're downloading. It could be complete malware.

So I was, like, this bitcoin thing is fully electronic. Maybe I can use that to buy games but how do I get bitcoin? Maybe I can do some work and get paid in bitcoin.

I know a few people who did that. So that's how I learned programming. Id go on BitcoinTalk and people would say, I will pay you however much to write me a script that does this.

Well, that seemed simple enough. I also had a friend in high school. He was, like, Hey, have you heard about this bitcoin thing? I think you might like it. He was definitely buying drugs with bitcoin.

So that's how I got into Bitcoin. And eventually I was like, Well, I'm using this wallet and I'm running into these issues. I clearly know how to write a program. Maybe I can fix this wallet. That's how I got into doing development.

I was running this thing called Armory. Which was basically not maintained. I mean, it's still kind of maintained by one guy, so barely.

By the time I was using it, it was kind of a mess and it didn't always work. I was finding that some of the problems that were happening in Armory were caused by things that Bitcoin Core was doing. So I started going into Bitcoin Core and asking whats Bitcoin Core doing? Oh, Bitcoin Core has this bug that's causing us to have a bug.

Armory was doing something not recommended, which was to read the block files directly from Bitcoin Core you're not supposed to do that. When they changed the format, it broke everything.

I was trying to reconcile the two, and then Armory just kind of fell off my map. That's how I transitioned to Bitcoin Core. I eventually stopped working on Armory because I got more done on Core.

Yesterday we talked about the ratio of Bitcoin contributors who review code versus contributors who write code. Can you share your thoughts on that?

Our main bottleneck in Bitcoin Core has been review. We have 300-plus PRs open and they need to be reviewed. Whether its just to make sure the code is good or just conceptually like, Do we even want this change?

The problem with every PR is that one person usually writes it, but we need multiple people to review it, give an approval or leave comments. Therefore, we must have more reviewers than people writing, but that's just not how it works.

Personally, I find code review to be a little bit boring. It's a little annoying and it can be kind of mind-numbing. But I still do it. I guess it's like a necessary evil and it's because I don't find it fun. If I do it enoug I start feeling like Ill burn out because it's no longer enjoyable.

So you have to find some balance between writing code and reviewing code. Its a bit of a catch-22. We have to have more reviewers than coders, but how do you become competent enough to review code if you're not writing code? It's a conundrum.

We're in a bear market and organizations like Brink that fund Bitcoin development are saying funding is down by about 50%. Why do we need to pay Bitcoin contributors and developers?

Fundamentally, every piece of software has bugs. There will always be bugs to find and bugs to fix. That's just general software maintenance that must happen.

And even then, the software that exists now cannot last forever. Operating systems will evolve and libraries will evolve and change. Eventually the software will just stop compiling on a computer; it might just stop running. And so, there needs to be constant work just to keep it up to date.

So there are always things to update, even without new features. But there are new features and we do want to improve Bitcoin. Not just the consensus rules, but also how we relay transactions, what kind of transactions we accept into the mempool and the peer-to-peer protocol.

There can be DoS vectors we want to fix or change that maybe haven't been discovered yet. There's always something.

If I'm a new Core contributor, what are some of the big issues I would need to know about?

There are currently a number of issues that exist, like pinning attacks, that are pretty well documented. It seems to be that no one exploits them, but that's not a good reason to not fix them.

There's been a lot of work on the mempool how and what transactions are accepted into the mempool, what methods there are for fee bumping, and things like that. It's relevant to Lightning and other [layer 2] networks.

Whats a pinning attack?

If both of us open a Lightning channel together, I can make it so that you can never bump the fee on that transaction. So I can make it perpetually low-fee and it never gets mined, then try to double-spend it later.

There's a bunch of attacks you can do with the existing mempool policy rules. These are documented on the mailing list and they're definitely problems. If someone tried to exploit them it would be annoying, but I don't think we've seen anyone try to exploit them.

We still want to fix them and there's been a lot of work on making improvements so that we don't have these pinning attacks, or at least, if you want to pin a transaction, it'll be really expensive.

We also discussed op_vault and Speed Trial yesterday. There have been some tensions around James OBeirnes recommendation to deploy op_vault using Speedy Trial. Any comments?

With a new proposal like that, deployment should be the last thing to think about.

Some ideas on how to deploy things are, for some reason, contentious. If you want to have a discussion about the proposal, having deployment in there kind of causes it to be derailed.

So I do think James putting that in there was probably a mistake. The Taproot deployment section wasn't defined until after Taproot. The code changes themselves were merged into Bitcoin Core but not active. It's not unusual to just say we'll deal with deployment after we figure out what we want the code changes to be.

Speedy Trial was an experiment for Taproot. We've tried different deployment methods over the years with varying degrees of success.

The rest is here:

Reviewing Code Is Mind-Numbing: Q&A With Bitcoin Maintainer Andrew Chow - CoinDesk

Henrik Zeberg, a macro expert, has given a detailed analysis of the current state of Bitcoin (BTC) and the cryptocurrency market as a whole. Zeberg is known for his negative take on cryptocurrencies, but for the time being, he maintains a constructive outlook on the state of the industry.

The economist predicted that the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will climb as long as the economy is not in a recession. According to Zeberg, this is a result of a return of liquidity to the system, and the Swissblock indicators, which the analyst mentioned about, also show the bullish nature of the current cryptocurrency market.

While the analyst has now given a positive outlook for the market, he previously cited the striking similarities between the economic growth of the present and that of the years 2007 to 2008. At the time, the recession also began with a fall in property market activity (blue line), which was followed by a sharp increase in unemployment (orange line). He asserts that there is a chance that our crash will be worse than the one from 2007 to 2009 and that it could be even worse than the crash of 1929.

The issues at institutions like Silvergate Bank and Silicon Valley Bank, which were no longer able to keep their heads above water due to the increased interest rates set by the Federal Reserve, are already the first indications of what the expert is trying to say.

What all of the current events will ultimately mean for Bitcoin is still uncertain. Its difficult to say because it would be the first time in the history of Bitcoin that the asset had experienced a worldwide economic crisis. In the most likely scenario, all risk assets will see a significant decline first, and Bitcoin will be no different.

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Bitcoin Bulls Rejoice: Henrik Zeberg Predicts Upward Trend Until This Happens - Coinpedia Fintech News

President Joe Biden yesterday dropped a $6.9 trillion budget plan. The huge blueprintwhich is expected to be rejected in the GOP-controlled Housewants to increase taxes on the wealthy and corporations to reduce a massive deficit.

And that includes crypto traders and investors. The document says it wants to close the loophole that benefits wealthy crypto investors by focusing on wash sales of digital assets. So what will that mean for the average crypto investor if this ambitious proposal is passed?

The proposal says that it wants to modernize rules, including those for digital assets and apply the wash sale rules to digital assets and address related party transactions, essentially making it so crypto assets abide by the same rules as more traditional investments.

A wash sale is when someone sells a security at a loss, only to then buy the same asset with the hope it will later go up again in value within a 30 day window. In other words, an investor can realize a loss on an asset on paper, securing a tax break for the sold asset, but still later benefit from potential gains on the same asset.

Investors currently arent able to create an investment loss for a tax deduction while still having a position in a security. But up to now, this rule has not applied to crypto assets, which has enabled crypto investors to employ tax loss harvesting strategies that are not available to traditional investors.

For example, investors now are able to benefit by buying Bitcoin at $20,000. If it then drops to $17,500 and then sell it, they can realize the loss on paper for tax purposesbut immediately buy more Bitcoin to continue having a stake in the asset.

The Biden Administration appears now to be playing catch up as regulators put digital assets in the same basket as securities and want to change the rule so it applies to digital assets like Bitcoin. But this could get complicated, according to the experts.

Wash sales apply to when you sell something but you buy something identical to something you sold, CoinTrackers Head of Strategy Shehan Chandrasekera told Decrypt. But what happens if you sell Bitcoin but buy back something like Wrapped Bitcoinits not identicalthats where things can get complicated.

Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) is a token that allows traders who want to use their Bitcoin holdings in the Ethereum ecosystem. It trades at the same price as Bitcoin but runs on a different blockchain.

Lots of different wrapped tokens exist but none are mentioned in Bidens proposal.

Director of Government Solutions at TaxBit Miles Fuller told Decrypt that the elimination of tax loss harvesting could reduce the burden on taxpayers for calculating taxes, as less transactions will need to be sorted through. But the burden would then fall on exchanges.

The burden on exchanges to track transactions that fall within the wash sale rule and make sure those are ignored for tax purposes will increase, he said, but added that software could help solve the issue.

For now, the proposal has not been passedand is likely to face hurdles in Congress. But its certain that the government is paying closer attention to digital assetsand wants to regulate them like other investments.

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Bidens Tax Hike Proposal and What It Means for Bitcoin 'Wash Sales' - Decrypt

March 14, 2023 2:45 PM | 1 min read

Bitcoin Cash (CRYPTO: BCH) andEthereum Classic(CRYPTO: ETC)aretrading higher by 4.90% to $133.60 and 5.56% to $20.77 Tuesday afternoon. Shares of several altcoins are trading higher on continuedupward momentumin cryptocurrencies.

Crypto may be trading higher in sympathy with the broader U.S. market after CPI data for February met analyst expectations. Our Benzinga team reportedthe headlineCPIrose 6% in February, downfrom 6.4% in January, according todatafrom the Labor Department.

Crypto may also be higher in sympathy with the broader U.S. market after President Joe BidenMonday morning reassured Americans about the stability of the financial sector on Monday morning following the recent collapse of SVB Financial Group,Signature Bank and Silvergate Capital Corp.

Enter your email and you'll also get Benzinga's ultimate morning update AND a free $30 gift card and more!

Our Benzinga team reported, in his address, Biden emphasized that all bank customers will have access to their funds.

"All customers who had deposits in these banks can rest assured they'll be protected, and they'll have access to their money as of today, Biden said. "No losses will be borne by the taxpayers. Instead, the money will come out of the fees the banks pay into the deposit insurance fund."

See Also:Biden Addresses FDIC Bank Takeovers: 'The Banking System Is Safe'

2023 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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Why Bitcoin Cash And Ethereum Classic Are Ripping Higher - Benzinga

The Justice Department announced today a coordinated international takedown of ChipMixer, a darknet cryptocurrency mixing service responsible for laundering more than $3 billion worth of cryptocurrency, between 2017 and the present, in furtherance of, among other activities, ransomware, darknet market, fraud, cryptocurrency heists and other hacking schemes. The operation involved U.S. federal law enforcements court-authorized seizure of two domains that directed users to the ChipMixer service and one Github account, as well as the German Federal Criminal Polices (the Bundeskriminalamt) seizure of the ChipMixer back-end servers and more than $46 million in cryptocurrency.

Coinciding with the ChipMixer takedown efforts, Minh Quc Nguyn, 49, of Hanoi, Vietnam, was charged today in Philadelphia with money laundering, operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and identity theft, connected to the operation of ChipMixer.

This morning, working with partners at home and abroad, the Department of Justice disabled a prolific cryptocurrency mixer, which has fueled ransomware attacks, state-sponsored crypto-heists and darknet purchases across the globe, said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.Todays coordinated operation reinforces our consistent message: we will use all of our authorities to protect victims and take the fight to our adversaries. Cybercrime seeks to exploit boundaries, but the Department of Justices network of alliances transcends borders and enables disruption of the criminal activity that jeopardizes our global cybersecurity.

Today's announcement demonstrates the FBI's commitment to dismantling technical infrastructure that enables cyber criminals and nation-state actors to illegally launder cryptocurrency funds, said FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. We will not allow cyber criminals to hide behind keyboards nor evade the consequences of their illegal actions. Countering cybercrime requires the ultimate level of collaboration between and among all law enforcement partners. The FBI will continue to elevate those partnerships and leverage all available tools to identify, apprehend and hold accountable these bad actors and put an end to their illicit activity.

According to court documents, ChipMixer one of the most widely used mixers to launder criminally-derived funds allowed customers to deposit bitcoin, which ChipMixer then mixed with other ChipMixer users bitcoin, commingling the funds in a way that made it difficult for law enforcement or regulators to trace the transactions. As detailed in the complaint, ChipMixer offered numerous features to enhance its criminal customers anonymity. ChipMixer had a clearnet web domain but operated primarily as a Tor hidden service, concealing the operating location of its servers to prevent seizure by law enforcement. ChipMixer serviced many customers in the United States, but did not register with the U.S. Department of the Treasurys Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and did not collect identifying information about its customers.

As alleged in the complaint, ChipMixer attracted a significant criminal clientele and became indispensable in obfuscating and laundering funds from multiple criminal schemes. Between August 2017 and March 2023, ChipMixer processed:

Beginning in and around August 2017, as alleged in the complaint, Nguyn created and operated the online infrastructure used by ChipMixer and promoted ChipMixers services online. Nguyn registered domain names, procured hosting services and paid for the services used to run ChipMixer through the use of identity theft, pseudonyms, and anonymous email providers. In online posts, Nguyn publicly derided efforts to curtail money laundering, posting in reference to anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) legal requirements that AML/KYC is a sellout to the banks and governments, advising customers please do not use AML/KYC exchanges and instructing them how to use ChipMixer to evade reporting requirements.

ChipMixer facilitated the laundering of cryptocurrency, specifically Bitcoin, on a vast international scale, abetting nefarious actors and criminals of all kinds in evading detection, said U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Platforms like ChipMixer, which are designed to conceal the sources and destinations of staggering amounts of criminal proceeds, undermine the publics confidence in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. We thank all our partners at home and abroad for their hard work in this case. Together, we cannot and will not allow criminals exploitation of technology to threaten our national and economic security.

Criminals have long sought to launder the proceeds of their illegal activity through various means, said Special Agent in Charge Jacqueline Maguire of the FBI Philadelphia Field Office. Technology has changed the game, though, with a site like ChipMixer and facilitator like Nguyen enabling bad actors to do so on a grand scale with ease. In response, the FBI continues to evolve in the ways we follow the money of illegal enterprise, employing all the tools and techniques at our disposal and drawing on our strong partnerships at home and around the globe. As a result, theres now one less option for criminals worldwide to launder their dirty money.

Together, with our international partners at HSI The Hague, we are firmly committed to identifying and investigating cyber criminals who pose a serious threat to our economic security by laundering billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency under the misguided anonymity of the darknet, said Special Agent in Charge Scott Brown of Homeland Securities Investigations (HSI) Arizona. HSI Arizona could not be more proud to work alongside every agent involved in this complex international case. We thank all our domestic and international partners for their support.

Nguyn is charged with operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, money laundering and identity theft. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison.

The FBI, HSI Phoenix and HSI The Hague investigated the case.

The U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is prosecuting the case.

German law enforcement authorities took separate actions today under its authorities. The FBIs Legal Attach in Germany, the HSI office in The Hague, the HSI Cyber Crimes Center, the Justice Departments Office of International Affairs and National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, EUROPOL, the Polish Cyber Police (Centralnego Biura Zwalczania Cyberprzestpczoci) and Zurich State Police (Kantonspolizei Zrich) provided assistance in this case.

To report information about ChipMixer and its operators visit rfj.tips/Duhsup.

A criminal complaint is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

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