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While the price of the digital asset according to some industry commentators is looking ready for a bullish move, on the regulatory front, there is no knowing if the digital is a security or commodity. On January 15, Chief District Judge Phyllis Hamilton of the Northern District of California heard Ripple’s motion to dismiss. And now the fate of the Ripple and nearly $10 billion XRP market is in her hands.
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The Libra Association has set up a 5-member “Technical Steering Committee” to oversee the development of the stablecoin project.
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The introduction of a digital currency really requires a country-by-country approach, taking into consideration local needs, circumstances and policies. Nonetheless, the demand for digital currency is more likely to rise in those places where the financial system is less developed and more fragmented.
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Reps. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), Darren Soto (D-Fla.) and Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) introduced “The Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act of 2020,” an amendment to IRS tax code that would exempt realized gains under $200, otherwise known as a de minimis threshold.
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Now, with bitcoin and cryptocurrency asset manager Grayscale revealing inflows of $600 million in 2019, more than 2013 through 2018 combined, institutional money seems to have finally arrived—just as bitcoin records its strongest start to a new year since 2012.
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Cryptocurrency trading platform and custodian Gemini Trust Company announced Thursday that it has launched its own in-house insurance unit to protect client’s funds against loss. Dubbed Nakmoto, the unit is a captive insurance company licensed by the Bermuda Monetary Authority. The subsidiary covers losses up to $200 million for customers of the firm’s Gemini Custody solution, which is an offline cryptocurrency cold storage service.
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The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) said in guidance published Thursday the common exchange practice of custodying users’ assets – “merely providing users with a contractural right or claim to an underlying crypto asset” – could subject them to securities legislation.
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This OECD report examines the benefits of asset tokenisation and the challenges to its wider adoption; analyses the potential disruptive effect on trading, liquidity, pricing, clearing and settlement; highlights the increased importance of a trusted and credible central authority in a tokenised environment (such as a custodian); sheds light to the possible necessity for a tokenised form of central bank digital currency or stablecoin for the payment leg of security settlement on DLT-based trading venues; and discusses the policy implications of tokenisation for financial markets.
