Bitcoin and Ethereum hit new all-time highs, Russia approved in the first reading a bill on taxing cryptocurrencies and will begin tracking transactions in them. This and other events of the week—in the Sunday digest.
Bitcoin market cap tops $1 trillion, and Ethereum price clears $2,000
On Tuesday, February 16, the price of the leading cryptocurrency breached the $50,000 mark and by Saturday had risen above $57,000.
After breaking the $53,000 level on Friday, February 19, Bitcoin’s market cap surpassed $1 trillion. By that evening the price was above $55,000.
By the end of the workweek, Ethereum price rose above the psychologically important $2000 mark.
Over the week the sharpest rise among leading cryptos was shown by the exchange token Binance Coin, which vaulted into third place by market capitalization (per CoinGecko).
Data: CoinGecko.
With Bitcoin and other coins rising, the market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market approached $1.8 trillion. The Bitcoin dominance index remains around 60%.
Draft law on taxing cryptocurrencies in Russia approved in the first reading
On February 17, the Russian State Duma approved in the first reading as a basis the bill on taxation of cryptocurrency operations.
The document was supported by 375 deputies. 13 abstained.
The bill “On amendments to the first and second parts of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation” recognises digital currency as property and taxes income from transactions with it under corporate profit tax or personal income tax (PIT).
For the second reading, the Russian Ministry of Finance may consider lowering the threshold.
Rosfinmonitoring developed a service to track crypto transactions
Rosfinmonitoring, together with law enforcement and the Academy of Sciences developed a service, which will allow tracking cryptocurrency transactions. At a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, the agency head Yuri Chikhanin said.
«This will give us the ability to track these transactions in cryptocurrency, and most importantly, we are currently refining the indicators and criteria that in the general flow of transactions could show us where there is a crime. There are already criminal cases», — said Chikhanin.
The project is planned to be completed by the end of the year, he added.
Elon Musk returns to Dogecoin topic, spurred a MarsCoin pump and commented on Tesla’s Bitcoin investment
Founder of SpaceX and Tesla Elon Musk proposed to pay large holders of Dogecoin to cancel their accounts. In his view, wealth concentration in the meme-cryptocurrency network is the “only real problem.”
In the media the largest Dogecoin whale is considered to be Robinhood, though this is not confirmed by them.
The co-founder of the company Vlad Tenev this week testified before the US Congress on the question of halting trading of GameStop shares during the Reddit-driven rally. He said there was no collusion with hedge funds.
Musk also said that together with his children he installed “a few Dogecoin mining rigs.”
I just set up some little Doge mining rigs with my kids. It was fun.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2021
Tesla CEO responded with a hint on Twitter that it wasn’t his decision, and called the investments “quite risky” for a company from the S&P 500.
He then added:
«However, when real yields on fiat currencies are negative, only a fool wouldn’t look elsewhere. Bitcoin is almost as nonsense as fiat money. The key word is «almost».
The well-known Bitcoin critic and gold bug Peter Schiff agreed, but said that the best money is precious metal, which in this regard outperforms both Bitcoin and fiat.
An email claiming you own gold does not imply physical ownership of the metal, Musk parried. In the same way you can own cryptocurrency, he added.
«Money is only data that allow us to avoid the inconveniences of barter. These data, like everything, are subject to delays and errors. The system will evolve to minimise both», concluded the Tesla chief.
He also backed on Twitter a Bitcoin-enthusiasts’ flash mob, confident that the asset’s price would rise to $100,000 in the short term.
Earlier, during discussions of Musk’s plan to buy part of Dogecoin, a user suggested that he launch his own cryptocurrency, ElonCoin.
“CZ” proposed the MarsCoin name, which Musk approved. However it turned out that a token with the same name already exists, and traders did not miss the chance to pump it by more than 2500%.
Ripple and the SEC doubt prospects for pre-suit settlement
Lawyers for the California-based Ripple and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) did not see prospects for a pre-suit settlement in the case over the sale of unregistered securities.
The plan and process for handling the claims were sent to the Southern District of New York court. Lawyers noted that negotiations took place under the previous leadership of the SEC. On January 18, the post of the regulator’s head was taken by Gary Gensler.
«The parties will promptly notify the court if any principled decision on the matter is reached», the lawyers said.
Meanwhile the SEC filed an amended complaint against Ripple. The regulator’s main focus was on the actions of individual defendants — Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen.
Attorney Jeremy Hogan called the SEC’s decision to single out individual liability unusual. In his view, Ripple’s lawyers’ chances are slim in light of the regulator’s statements about the personal involvement of the company’s executives.
Vitalik Buterin presented details of the first hard fork in Ethereum 2.0
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared information about the first hard fork in the zero phase of ETH2. The update will add support for light clients, simplify the specification, improve overall performance, and reduce penalties for validators’ inactivity.
The hard fork carries the working title “HF1”.
The update is also aimed at testing the progression of the hard fork in ETH2 ahead of more significant changes (sharding, the merge with the first version of the protocol).
MicroStrategy raised more than $1 billion in debt financing to buy Bitcoin
MicroStrategy closed the previously announced round of senior convertible notes sales for $1.05 billion with a zero coupon and a maturity in 2027.
The offering included notes worth $150 million, issued under a purchase option that the initial purchasers could exercise within 13 days after issuance. They completed it on February 19, 2021, according to the statement.
According to the company, net proceeds from the notes sale would be approximately $1.03 billion after discounts and commissions to purchasers and placement expenses.
MicroStrategy intends to use the proceeds from the note issue to acquire additional Bitcoin.
Litecoin creator predicted NFT crash
Litecoin creator Charlie Lee is confident that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) will lose value over time due to the “zero cost” of their creation.
«Unlike NFTs, genuine works of art have value. Their creation requires effort and time. This, in essence, is Proof-of-Work», wrote Lee.
He believes NFT issuers deliberately “create artificial scarcity.” The current climate will drive more artists to try to profit amid the hype around non-fungible tokens.
«Supply will prevail over demand. Prices will ultimately collapse», Lee predicted.
Nvidia will significantly limit the hash rate of GeForce RTX 3060 GPUs
Nvidia will significantly limit the mining capabilities of GeForce RTX 3060 GPUs, due to ship on February 25.
«The RTX 3060 software drivers are designed to detect the specific attributes of the mining algorithm for Ethereum and limit the hash rate by about 50%, which affects mining efficiency,» Nvidia said.
«This approach is intended to ensure that GeForce GPUs end up in the hands of gamers,» the company emphasised.
Bill Gates on his stance toward Bitcoin
The Microsoft co-founder and one of the world’s richest people, Bill Gates told CNBC in an interview that he does not own Bitcoin and takes a neutral stance on the asset.
«I don’t own Bitcoin, and I don’t have a short position in it,» Gates said.
He also pointed to the volatility of digital gold and said he cannot forecast its future trajectory.
ForkLog also wrote:
- The EXMO exchange was subjected to a DDoS attack.
- In the Fed Bitcoin was described as a competitor to gold, not to the dollar.
- «Bond king» Jeffrey Gundlach called Bitcoin the best investment.
- In Canada the second Bitcoin ETF was approved, and the first such fund in the country attracted $421 million in the first two days of trading.
- Mark Cuban: Bitcoin is not a currency, but a store of value.
What else to read and watch?
Glassnode experts released the third series of Bitcoin Uncharted, in which, based on the service’s data, they argued that the Bitcoin market has left the initial phase of accumulation of a bull market.
In ForkLog’s traditional digests, the magazine discussed the main events of the recent weeks in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology.
On Monday, February 15, on ForkLog Max Bit, Max Krupyshev, CEO of CoinsPaid and Cryptoprocessing.com, spoke about Bitcoin and the latest developments in the crypto market.
On Thursday, February 18, on ForkLog’s YouTube channel, Enecuum Network CEO Mikhail Saifullin held a workshop on “How to build healthy tokenomics for decentralized applications?”.
Also this week we released a video about regulation in the crypto industry.
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