The Ministry of Economy and Finance of South Korea, is considering levying a 20% tax on the incomes made through cryptocurrency transactions.
According to a news report published by The Korea Times on the 20th of January, 2020, the ministry had reportedly ordered its income office to review cryptocurrency taxation. The Korea Times cited an anonymous official who reportedly said that the ministry has not finalized its plan, but noted that the government may impose a 20% tax on crypto income.
“A government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the finance ministry has not finalized its plan to tax cryptocurrencies.” stated The Korea Times article.
Some have speculated that the government may categorize gains obtained through cryptocurrency trading as “other income” and not capital gains. The other income category also includes gains made from lectures, lottery purchases and prizes.
A clear scheme for crypto cryptocurrency taxation is much needed in South Korea. This became particularly apparent when, at the end of December, major local cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb announced that it was considering administrative litigation over an $68.9 million tax bill that it believes has no legal basis. More recent reports indicate that the firm decided to follow through and take tax authorities to court.
As an article on Cointelegraph exemplified, South Korea’s cryptocurrency guideline has seen noteworthy progress since Park Yong-jin, a member of the National Policy Committee from the ruling Democratic Party, presented the first-ever taxation policy for crypto in 2017.
In 2019, the National Assembly’s national policy committee approved a bill that would give more legitimacy to digital assets by subjecting them to more scrutiny and government oversight.
A Montreal resident, age 18 if facing 4 criminal charges connected to a $50 million SIM Swap scam that targeted cryptocurrency holders.
“Eighteen-year-old hacker Samy Bensaci is accused of being part of a crime ring that stole millions of dollars in crypto-currency by gaining unauthorized access to the cell phones of crypto-currency holders in America and Canada.” — Infosecurity Magazine. 17th January, 2020
“We can confirm that last year a hacker attempted steal crypto assets from our company and its employees,” Don Tapscott said in an email to ‘The Star’. “That attempt was unsuccessful. We cooperated with the police (and) have been impressed with their determination to bring those responsible to justice.”
Bensaci was arrested in Victoria, British Columbia, in November and charged with fraudulently obtaining computer service, committing fraud over $5,000, identity fraud, and illegally accessing computer data. In December, the teen was released on $200,000 bail and ordered to live with his parents in northeast Montreal until his next court hearing.
While staying at his parents’ residence, Bensaci is prohibited from accessing “any computer, tablet, mobile phone, game console, including PS3, PS4, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, or any other device capable of accessing the Internet,” and barred from holding or trading any form of cryptocurrency.
A SIM-swapping attack befalls when the hackers are able to trick the telecom company to transfer the victim’s phone number to the attacker’s SIM card. Though it is possible to do this by imitating the victim with the telecom’s customer service, the companies are overwhelmed by insiders that use their access to facilitate this type of crime. With a SIM-swap, aggressors can evade most authentication and password recovery devices that rely on phone numbers.
In general, the agency drew a line between trading platforms that make an immediate delivery of a crypto assets to its users, and those that hold the transaction of crypto assets until the user makes a later request.
Following an analysis of trading techniques on different platforms, the CSA concluded that some of them only provide their users with a contractual right or claim to a crypto asset, and do not immediately transfer it to a user. Such crypto trading platforms are subject to securities legislation, and thus fall under derivatives laws.
The CSA will not apply securities laws to crypto exchanges on which the underlying crypto asset is not a security or derivative, and crypto assets are delivered to the user immediately.
Previously, state and provincial securities regulators in the United States and Canada launched probes into potentially fraudulent crypto investment programs as part of the North American Securities Administrators Association’s (NASAA) “Operation Crypto Sweep.” The initiative resulted in hundreds of investigations of initial coin offerings and crypto-related investment products.
In late December 2019, the NASAA said that cryptocurrency investment is among the top five investor threats for 2020.
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As we’ve already explored in the last blog, Web 3.0 is slated to be the new paradigm in web interaction and will mark a fundamental change in how developers create websites.
To recap, on Web 3.0 Every time you buy something on Amazon, the website’s algorithm will look at the other items that people who have purchased your product went on buy and then recommends that to you. So, think about what is going on here. The website is learning from other users what your preferred choices can be and then use it to recommend to you what you may like. In essence, the website itself is learning and becoming more intelligent.
That, in a nutshell, is the very philosophy behind web 3.0. Web 1.0 was primarily driven by content that came from the business or the institution for its customers. Web 2.0 took things a little bit further by allowing users to upload and share their content on the website itself. Web 3.0 allows online applications and websites to receive information that’s on the Web and give new information/data to the users.
Let’s look at some of the biggest challenges of Web 3.0 implementation:
Vastness: The internet is HUGE. It contains billions of pages and the SNOMED CT medical terminology ontology alone includes 370,000 class names, and existing technology has not yet been able to eliminate all semantically duplicated terms. Any reasoning system which can read all this data and understand its functionality will have to be able to deal with vast amounts of data.
Vagueness: User queries are not really specific and can be extremely vague at the best of times. Fuzzy logic is used to deal with vagueness.
Uncertainty: The internet deals with scores of uncertain values. For example, a patient might present a set of symptoms that correspond to many different distinct diagnoses each with a different probability. Probabilistic reasoning techniques are generally employed to address uncertainty.
Inconsistency: Inconsistent data can lead to logical contradiction and unpredictive analysis.
Deceit: While AI can help in filtering data, what if all the data provided is intentionally wrong and misleading. Cryptography techniques are currently utilized to stop this problem.
The Advantages of the Web 3.0:
Increased information linking: Semantic web will help in the connectivity of online data.
Efficient searching
Better marketing.
More efficient web browsing.
Effective communication.
Change human interaction.
The Disadvantages of Web 3.0:
Less advanced devices will not be able to handle Web 3.0.
Web 1.0 websites will seem that much more obsolete
It can be very complicated for newcomers to understand.
We are on the verge of a real internet revolution. While it is true that there are several challenges to Web 3.0 implementation, the sheer innovation that it can bring to our lives is truly mind-boggling. While there is a lot of hype, we still need some practical use-cases of Web 3.0 to truly understand the positive changes it can bring to our lives.
The past few years have been a crisis for security in crypto. As the asset class has increased popularity, more and more security breaks have been highlighted and more institutions targeted.
The burgeoning industry is ripe with opportunity, but also with risk. Two incidents that highlight this lapse in security spring to mind.
Back in January 2018, Coincheck Japan was targeted, with attackers succeeding in stealing $530 million worth of NEM tokens from the crypto exchange. It is one of the biggest crypto exchange heists in the relatively short history of the industry and stands alongside the infamous attack on Mt. Gox, when around 800,000 BTC was stolen — a sum worth over $6 billion today.
Further back in February 2016, the Bangladesh Bank was targeted. Thieves tried to steal a total of $850 million via properly authenticated transactions in ordering the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to transfer the money through the SWIFT network. While “only” $101 million was transferred to final beneficiaries in the Philippines and Sri Lanka, this ended up resulting in a whopping total of $81 million successfully stolen during the incident.
What do these incidents have in common? The complacency of the victims — central banks and top crypto exchanges — and their management of security credentials (be it passwords or private keys) in giving access to the transfer of fiat money or cryptocurrencies.
The SWIFT network used for the Bangladesh Bank and other similar heists was not hacked, the users of the network were. The blockchains utilized to transfer the NEM out of Coincheck and the BTC out of Mt Gox were not hacked, the exchanges — i.e., the users of these blockchains — were. Their systems and credentials were so poorly protected that hackers were able to take control and impersonate their victims with ease.
The SWIFT community reacted to these events by reinforcing cybersecurity controls, by identifying the weakest players and by ensuring hackers’ modus operandi were shared among the community to prevent further incidents. Has the crypto industry done the same and learned from its mistakes? Probably not at the level this issue deserves. Will 2020 see more collaboration to prevent these incidents or to enable the recovery of stolen funds in case of successful hacks? The jury is still out.
In 2020, more education and awareness will be required. Exchanges, funds, projects, foundations, and all the other crypto players servicing underlying customers must put in place the proper transparent and secure processes around the safekeeping of the assets of their customers. Most will rightfully opt for the outsourcing of that critical task to third-party custodians whose job is to do precisely that.
This year will hopefully also be the year when digital asset service providers such as crypto exchanges and custodians will not only collaborate about the implementation of the Financial Action Task Force rules but also about the exchange of information on hackers’ modus operandi and blacklisting of addresses.
By the end of the year, the cashing out of hacked funds should be so difficult — thanks to a more formal collaboration between players — that thieves will be discouraged from targeting cryptocurrency organizations.
Beyond the adoption of the right established technology, it is only when common-sense operational and business practices — those of segregation of duty, focus on core activities and established risk management — are put in place that the digital asset industry will become mainstream. Today, it is not, and now you know why.
Dark pools are an ominous-sounding term for private exchanges or forums for securities trading. However, unlike stock exchanges, dark pools are not accessible by the investing public. Also known as “dark pools of liquidity,” these exchanges are so named for their complete lack of transparency. Dark pools came about primarily to facilitate block trading by institutional investors who did not wish to impact the markets with their large orders and obtain adverse prices for their trades.
Dark pools were cast in an unfavorable light in Michael Lewis’ bestseller Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt, but the reality is that they do serve a purpose. However, their lack of transparency makes them vulnerable to potential conflicts of interest by their owners and predatory trading practices by some high-frequency traders.
Why Use a Dark Pool?
Contrast this with the present-day situation, where an institutional investor uses a dark pool to sell a one million share block. The lack of transparency actually works in the institutional investor’s favour since it may result in a better-realized price than if the sale was executed on an exchange. Note that, as dark pool participants do not disclose their trading intention to the exchange before execution, there is no order book visible to the public. Trade execution details are only released to the consolidated tape after a delay.
The institutional seller has a better chance of finding a buyer for the full share block in a dark pool since it is a forum dedicated to large investors. The possibility of price improvement also exists if the mid-point of the quoted bid and ask price is used for the transaction. Of course, this assumes that there is no information leakage of the investor’s proposed sale and that the dark pool is not vulnerable to high-frequency trading (HFT) predators who could engage in front-running once they sense the investor’s trading intentions.
Types of Dark Pools
Broker-Dealer-Owned
These dark pools are set up by large broker-dealers for their clients and may also include their own proprietary traders. These dark pools derive their own prices from order flow, so there is an element of price discovery. Examples of such dark pools include Credit Suisse’s CrossFinder, Goldman Sachs’ Sigma X, Citi’s Citi Match and Citi Cross, and Morgan Stanley’s MS Pool.
Agency Broker or Exchange-Owned
These are dark pools that act as agents, not as principals. As prices are derived from exchanges — such as the midpoint of the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO), there is no price discovery. Examples of agency broker dark pools include Instinet, Liquidnet and ITG Posit, while exchange-owned dark pools include those offered by BATS Trading and NYSE Euronext.
Electronic Market Makers
These are dark pools offered by independent operators like Getco and Knight, who operate as principals for their own account. Like the broker-dealer-owned dark pools, their transaction prices are not calculated from the NBBO, so there is price discovery.
Dark pools provide pricing and cost advantages to buy-side institutions such as mutual funds and pension funds, which hold that these benefits ultimately accrue to the retail investors who own these funds. However, dark pools’ lack of transparency makes them susceptible to conflicts of interest by their owners and predatory trading practices by HFT firms. HFT controversy has drawn increasing regulatory attention to dark pools, and implementation of the proposed “trade-at” rule could pose a threat to their long-term viability.
The average block time on the Ethereum blockchain reduced by almost a quarter after the mining difficulty was eliminated.
Data stated on Ethereum block explorer Etherscan demonstrates that from Jan. 1 to Jan. 4, the daily average block time on the blockchain reduced from 17.16 seconds to 12.96. This translates to a 24.48% shorter block time.
06-January- 2020
Bill To Study The Benefits Of Implementing Blockchain In The Election System
Source : Unsplash.com
The United States Virginia State’s legislature is looking into studying Blockchain to improve the election and voting systems. The bill to look into the study of blockchain was prefiled on the 27th of December, 2019 and was up for offering on the 8th of January, 2020, the House of Delegates and the Senate concurred that the Department of Elections is requested to study the use of blockchain technology to protect voter records and election results.
The department will also have to determine whether the costs and benefits of using blockchain technologyoutweigh those of traditional registration and election security measures. The department is also expected to make recommendations on how to implement the technology.
07- January- 2020
Binance Charitable Foundation’s Donations to Australian Bushfires
Source : Unsplash.com
In a January 7th blog post, Binance Charitable Foundation announced the launch of a new charity project aimed at addressing the aftermath of the Australian Bushfires.
Since the Australia Bushfire Donations is a blockchain-based initiative, it ostensibly ensures that all BNB donations and distribution will be open to the public for verification. BCF has stated that it intends to reach out to multiple local organizations that are working towards the cause, in order to pass on donations received.
08-January-2020
Directors Of An Alleged Pyramid Scheme Stand Trial
Source: Observer.ug
Two directors of an alleged pyramid scheme–Dunamis Coins, appeared before a court in Uganda on Monday the 6th of January, 2020 to face 65 counts of obtaining money under false pretences.
The Observerreportedon 8th January, 2020, stated that the prosecutors had logged over 4,000 complaints against Dunamiscoins Resources Ltd., a suspected fraud that ran its course between Feb. 2018 and Dec. 2019, before collapsing. Inquiries are reportedly still ongoing.
The suspects reportedly plead not guilty and both directors have now been remanded in Luzira prison until the 22nd of January, 2020.
09-January-2020
Bitcoin’s Bull Bias Intact Despite 6% Pullback
Source : Unsplash.com
Bitcoin has pulled back from multi-week highs, but is still soaring in bullish territory above key support near the $7,600 mark.
The number one cryptocurrency is currently trading at $7,910 — down 6.5 percent from the seven-week high of $8,463, based on CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index (BPI).
The pullback commenced during the U.S. trading hours on Wednesday with gold and other safe havens trailing ground on easing of geopolitical tensions.
10- January-2020
Canada’s DMG Blockchain Installs 1,000 New Bitcoin Mining Rigs
Source : Unsplash.com
As Per a Press Release on the 6th of January, 2020, the tech company has bought 1,000 new miners from a Chinese mining giant, that have been installed in Christina Lake mining-as-a-service facility in British Columbia, for one of its US clients.
11- January-2020
North Korean Hackers Modify Crypto-Stealing Malware
Source : Unsplash.com
Lazarus Hacker group, of North Korea has doubled down its efforts to affect both Mac and Windows users’ computers. The group had been using a modified open-source cryptocurrency trading interface called QtBitcoinTrader to deliver and execute malicious code in what has been called “Operation AppleJeus,” as Kasperskyreportedin late August 2018. Now, the firm reports that Lazarus has started making changes to the malware.
This straightforward strategy simply requires vigilance. The idea is you keep a close eye out for a correction in a trend and then catch the ‘swing’ out of the correction and back into the trend. A correction is simply when candles or price bars overlap. You’ll find trending prices move quickly, but corrections, on the other hand, will not.
Let’s say on your cryptocurrency chart at 250-minute candles, you see 25 candles where the price stays within a 100 point range. If the price contracted to a daily move of just 20 points, you’d be seriously interested and alert. You should see lots of overlap. This tells you there is a substantial chance the price is going to continue into the trend.
You should then sell when the first candle moved below the contracting range of the previous several candles, and you could place a stop at the most recent minor swing high. It’s simple, straightforward and effective.
Even with the right broker, software, capital and strategy, there are a number of general tips that can help increase your profit margin and minimise losses. Below are some useful cryptocurrency tips to bear in mind.
Utilise News
Short-term cryptocurrencies are extremely sensitive to relevant news. When news such as government regulations or the hacking of a cryptocurrency exchange comes through, prices tend to plummet.
On the flip side, if a big company announces they’ll be incorporating the use of a currency into their business, prices can climb quickly. If you’re aware of any news and can react rapidly, you’ll have an edge over the rest of the market.
Technical Analysis
Source : Tradingwithrayner.com
Analyse historical price charts to identify telling patterns. History has a habit of repeating itself, so if you can hone in on a pattern you may be able to predict future price movements, giving you the edge you need to turn an intraday profit. For more details on identifying and using patterns, see here.
Study Metrics
This is one of the most important cryptocurrency tips. By looking at the number of wallets vs the number of active wallets and the current trading volume, you can attempt to give a specific currency a current value. You can then make informed decisions based on today’s market price. The more accurate your predictions, the greater your chances for profit.
Trade On Margin
If you anticipate a particular price shift, trading on margin will enable you to borrow money to increase your potential profit if your prediction materialises. Exchanges have different margin requirements and offer varying rates, so doing your homework first is advisable. Bitfinex and Huobiare two of the more popular margin platforms.
Use this Trading strategy while trading with XcelToken Plus on CoinGeo, a secure trading platform.
Lagging indicators use past price data to provide entry and exit signals, while leading indicators provide traders with an indication of future price movements, while also using past price data. When faced with the dilemma of leading vs lagging indicators, which should traders choose? The answer to this question ultimately comes down to individual preference after understanding the advantages and limitations of each.
Lagging indictors
Lagging indicators are tools used by traders to analyse the market using an average of previous price action data. Lagging indicators, as the name implies, lag the market. This entails that traders can witness a move before the indicator confirms it — meaning that the trader could lose out on a number of pips at the start of the move. Many consider this as a necessary cost in order to confirm to see if the move gathers momentum. Others view this as a lost opportunity as traders forgo getting into a trade at the very start of a move.
Leading indicators
A leading indicator is a technical indicator that uses past price data to forecast future price movements in the market. Leading indicators allow traders to anticipate future price movements and therefore, traders are able to enter trades potentially at the start of the move. The downside to leading indicators is that traders are anticipating a move before it actually happens and the market could move in the opposite direction. As a result, it isn’t uncommon to witness false breakouts, or signs of a trend reversal that just land up being minor retracements.
Source: Google.com
SHOULD YOU USE LEADING OR LAGGING INDICATORS?
There are no perfect indicators. By their very nature, indicators will help traders discover likely outcomes as opposed to a sure thing. It is up to the trader to conduct thorough analysis, with the aim of stacking the odds in their favour.
To further illustrate this point, below is an example of leading vs lagging indicators in EUR/USD, where the leading indicator appears to provide a better signal. Keep in mind that this is purely for demonstration and that the lagging indicator is equally as important.
The market sold off aggressively before retracing to the significant 61.8% level. Using a simple moving average (21, 55, 200), it is clear to see that the faster blue line (21) has not crossed below the slower black (55) line and therefore, this lagging indicator has not yet provided a short signal.
However, upon further analysis traders would be able to see that the market failed to break and hold above the 200-day moving average. The 200 SMA is widely viewed as a great indicator of long-term trend and in this example, is acting as resistance. This supports the short bias for traders eyeing a bounce lower off the 61.8% level.
Traders looking for fast signals will tend to favor leading indicators but can also reduce the time period setting on lagging indicators to make them more responsive. This however, should always be implemented with a tight stop loss to in the event the market moves in the opposite direction.
Traders seeking a greater degree of confidence will tend to favor lagging indicators. These traders often trade over longer time frames looking to capitalize on continuing momentum after entering at a relatively delayed entry level, while implementing sound risk management.
One of the most helpful tools I’ve discovered for trading is The Wyckoff Method, created by Richard Demille Wyckoff, a pioneer in the studies of technical analysis, and one of the five “titans” of TA, along-side Gann (Gann Fans/Squares), Dow (Dow Theory), Merrill, and Elliot (Elliott Wave Theory). Below is a summation of what I’ve gathered and factored into my trading.
The Wyckoff avoidance method means to trade only the best assets in the leading market sectors.
Crypto is an emerging asset class, but there are already ways of determining which cryptocurrency has fundamental value. Focusing on the opportunities in those markets makes your decisions process much clearer:
You want to buy/hold a fundamentally valuable asset when its price is not reflecting its value yet.
You want to take profits and abandon an asset that is appreciating in the short term because of things like tiny market inefficiency or news hype.
FINDING THE MARKET WEAKNESS
You can use any of your favourite technical analysis tools that are good for spotting the weakness of a market — divergences would be a very early sign (and possibly a misleading one) but combined with a three-push formation and lower highs when seen relative to the Bollinger bands would be more reliable.
The general technical gist is that this transition is a substantial one, you should be looking for it on longer timeframes (daily, 3D or weekly charts). The market structure will be similar in all assets in the group you are looking at, but the weakening leader would display the crumbling more strongly.
Another important point in Wyckoff avoidance is to select assets that move in harmony with the market. The bigger picture and relations between different assets of the same class is often overlooked, but it is incredibly useful for market timing.
Assuming we are in a broad crypto bull market, if you can find cryptocurrencies that are performing consistently strong and if you can also find their counterparts, you have your best candidates for your long and short positions:
Strong crypto assets rally quite easily. After the rally comes a retrace, but some of the gains remain.
Weak crypto assets don’t rally consistently. If they do, the retrace kills all the gains.
On legacy markets, it is easy to compare an asset against a composite index: In a bull market, if an asset trades still well below a known resistance line and gains more than the index, it’s typically the strong performer.
The play there is to buy this particular asset, avoiding all the rest of the assets in its group.
The technically suggested time to sell comes when the price approaches a resistance area. Then you can look which stock was performing poorly in the rally: It’s is going to be the one that should drop the most in the coming retrace and therefore it is technically the best candidate for a short.
We now also have composite indexes in cryptocurrency markets, but the information you can get from them is still fairly questionable. Remember, the crypto markets are still very new.
Wyckoff’s insights are keenly relevant right now, and used well will help you make a good entry point as the bear market plays out its final stages. Add it to your toolbox
Future Of Cryptocurrency 