Monat: April 2023

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UK Treasury opens consultation on taxation of DeFi lending and staking

  • UK’s HM Treasury has outlined tax policy changes targeted at DeFi lending and staking.
  • The proposals are part of a consultation on taxation of activities conducted using crypto assets in DeFi.
  • The new changes are also looking to apply to crypto lending and staking transactions on centralised finance (CeFi) platforms.

HM Treasury, the UK’s economic and finance ministry, has announced an open consultation regarding the taxation of decentralised finance (DeFi) activities.

Per a publication the government released on Thursday, 27 April 2023, the consultation seeks to have public views on the modification of tax policies to cater to crypto asset related lending and staking – two key activities in the DeFi industry.

The objective of the consultation is to help formulate a crypto tax regime for the UK, where taxation DeFi lending and staking “better aligns with the underlying economic substance, whilst reducing the administrative burden on users,” the HM Treasury wrote.

HMRC is therefore looking to get feedback from key stakeholders within the DeFi space, including tech and financial firms involved in DeFi, investors, and professionals. Also invited to participate are trade associations, academic institutions, legal firms, and tax advisory firms among others.

Crypto tax framework also targets CeFi

The government also says that the consultation seeks to explore legislative changes to overall tax treatment of lending and staking in the industry. The changes, the HM Treasury noted, involve proposals that using cryptocurrencies in DeFi transactions “would no longer be treated as giving rise to a disposal for tax purposes.”

Rather, tax disposals will only arise where taxpayers economically dispose of their crypto assets via non-DeFi transactions. The finance ministry added in the announcement:

“Although the focus of this document is on DeFi lending and staking, the proposed tax framework outlined below is also intended to apply to the lending and staking of crypto assets which is done through an intermediary. Some industry participants refer to these arrangements as Centralised Finance (CeFi).”

HM Treasury’s consultation paper comes amid increased recognition within the government agencies that proper and clear regulatory approach to crypto is needed as the industry grows rapidly. 

The proposals are likely to form a major part of the UK’s crypto tax guidelines in 2024, the same year the EU’s crypto law MiCA is expected to come into effect.

The post UK Treasury opens consultation on taxation of DeFi lending and staking appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Kaspa price: upside cools as major exchange delays KAS listing

  • Kaspa price rose to highs above $0.031 before giving up gains to sit around $0.030.
  • The upside momentum for the altcoin was derailed as major exchange Uphold announced it was delaying the listing of KAS.
  • Uphold says the delay is due to a technical issue that will soon be sorted out.

Kaspa (KAS) was among the biggest gainers earlier today as cryptocurrencies looked to bounce following Bitcoin’s sharp decline overnight Wednesday.

In the past 24 hours, as BTC looked to reclaim $29,000, the price of Kaspa rose more than 10% to break above $0.031. The upside saw KAS bulls begin to eye the token’s all-time high near $0.043 reached on 2 April 2023.

That attempt to put bears in their place is on hold though as one of the major catalysts for the altcoin going up was the impending listing on a major US crypto exchange

Uphold delays listing of Kaspa (KAS)

On Thursday, Uphold, which was set to be the first centralised crypto exchange in the US to list KAS, announced it would be delaying the listing. The multi-asset digital asset platform said the “difficult decision” had been taken due to technical issues.

But despite the delay, Dr. Martin Hiesboeck, the Head of Research at Uphold, has assured KAS holders that the issue was “minor” and will soon be solved. He tweeted:

“As we’re expecting *high demand*, we’ve taken the difficult decision to delay this listing due to some technical issues – to ensure you get a smooth and fair trading experience and best execution. Won’t be long, it’s a minor thing we’ll sort out soon.”

He offered to explain everything on the Twitter Space.

After seeing a double digit uptick in price, with weekly gains rising to over 30%, Kaspa price is just in the green in the past day (at the time of writing) and about 28% higher over the week.

Currently, KAS can be traded on multiple exchanges, including MEXC Global, Gate.io and BingX. The token’s recent momentum has come amid a flurry of listings, including on LBank and Bitget.

The post Kaspa price: upside cools as major exchange delays KAS listing appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Belgian crypto lender Bit4You suspends its activities

  • Bit4You is Belgium’s first and only crypto asset lending platform.
  • The platform says one of its main crypto asset custodian, CoinLOan, had been declared insolvent.
  • The insolvency court order against CoinLoan was reportedly issued on Monday, 24 April, 2023 in Estonia.

In cryptocurrency news today, Bit4You, the first Belgium-based cryptocurrency lending platform,has announced its suspending its activities.

The crypto assets exchange made the announcement in a notice to clients and the community late Wednesday. According to the platform, the decision to halt operations came after it had learned that CoinLoan, its main provider, no longer had the required registration to operate as a virtual currency provider in Estonia.

As reported by Reuters on Thursday, an Estonian court declared CoinLoan insolvent on Monday, 24 April, 2023

Bit4You says its immediate suspension of activities is one of several steps it is taking as it tries to understand the whole situation. 

However, the crypto lender says it has no reason to believe that the cryptocurrencies the custody provider held on behalf of its customers cannot be recovered.

The post Belgian crypto lender Bit4You suspends its activities appeared first on CoinJournal.

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DEX aggregator OpenOcean integrates with zkSync Era

  • DEX aggregator OpenOcean has launched integration with the zk-rollups platform zkSync Era.
  • The move allows the DeFi platform to expand its trading solution to the zkSync Era community.
  • Future plans are to add support for limit orders and cross-chain swaps, OpenOcean said in a press release.

OpenOcean, a leading decentralised exchange (DEX) aggregator, has announced integration with Ethereum Layer-2 scaling solution zkSync Era.

zkSync’s ZK-rollup proofs allows for major scaling of the Ethereum network, bumping transaction throughput and cutting gas costs. ZK-rollups also help ensure user privacy and security.

Announcing the integration via a press release on Thursday, OpenOcean said zk-rollups allows it to expand its multichain, Web3-focused trading solution.

The integration also allows OpenOcean’s DEX aggregator to launch on zkSync Era, providing users with access to deep liquidity sources. This will include liquidity from across platforms such as SyncSwap, Velocore, iZiSwap, Mute, SpaceFi and GemSwap.

 “We warmly welcome OpenOcean to the zkSync community. As an established multichain dex aggregator, users will be able to execute trades efficiently across different liquidity pools and reduce slippage,” Sam, a member of the zkSync team, said in a statement.

OpenOcean plans to enhance the integration by supporting limit orders and cross chain swaps aggregation on the zkSync Era.

The post DEX aggregator OpenOcean integrates with zkSync Era appeared first on CoinJournal.