Cuban Central Bank to license Virtual Asset Providers

The Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) has announced that it will provide licenses to both Cuban and international virtual asset service providers, including organizations, individuals, or legal persons. This Spanish-language resolution was also published on Cuba’s official gazette.

However, the authorized licenses will be valid for one year upon which it might be extended for the second year.

The resolution noted that the providers will be able to work with only BCC-approved virtual assets.

‘’virtual assets do not contain digital representations of fiat currency, securities, and other financial assets extensively employed in traditional banking and financial systems, which other Central Bank of Cuba laws control.”

On Thursday, BCC recapped that the previous resolution enabled the bank to issue the licenses to the providers for the transaction of assets linked to exchange, collection, financial, or payment activities both at the national level and beyond.

Even though the government agencies would only use the virtual assets for transactions if only BCC permits them, the current resolution did not address the issue of how the Cuban government will tax the transaction of virtual assets.

However, the government stated that BCC will deny or grant the sought license within ninety working days after conferring with the Crypto Assets Group licensing.

Besides, the providers will only operate under BCC approval, The ministry of finance and prices approved by the Cuban Financial Reporting Standards will also require them to keep their accounting records on how they will be operating.

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Brazil lawmakers pass bill seeking to regulate cryptocurrencies

Brazil’s senate passed the crypto bill on Tuesday, while the Central African Republic also took a similar step last week.

Brazil has become the latest country to pass a bill seeking the regulation of cryptocurrencies, joining a growing number of countries across the globe seeking to bring cryptocurrencies into financial regulatory frameworks.

The Senate reportedly passed the bill on Tuesday.

A crypto regulatory framework

The bill outlines the creation of a regulatory framework tailored for the crypto industry, with the government’s executive arm tasked with legislation.

The government also has the responsibility of constituting a new regulator for the crypto sector. If not, the bill provides for either the Securities and Exchange Commission or the central bank to be mandated to regulate it.

In attempts to attract crypto-focused businesses to the country, legislators included provisions that remove import levies on Bitcoin miners.

The bill now heads to the Chamber of Deputies, who, if they pass it, will send it to the president for accenting into law. This should happen before the end of 2022.

Central African Republic also eyeing crypto regulation

News of Brazil’s lawmakers passing a crypto bill on Wednesday comes a few days after it emerged their counterparts in the Central African Republic had also taken a similar step.

While the initial headlines had talked of CAR adopting Bitcoin as legal tender, the truth was that lawmakers had passed a bill seeking the creation of a regulatory framework on cryptocurrencies.

On Wednesday, a BNN Bloomberg report quoted the country’s Finance Minister Herve Ndoba as confirming the move. In comments made via a phone interview, Ndoba said the legislation seeks to make cryptocurrencies legal in the financial system.

But while the law would make use of crypto legal in the country, the Central African Republic wasn’t looking to make Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency legal tender as El Salvador did.

El Salvador, whose President Nayib Bukele is a big Bitcoin proponent, remains the first and only country so far to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.

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Should I Buy Gala? 3 Things To Consider

Gala Games Logo

The gaming industry has seen strong growth in the past few years. The industry is widely dominated by large companies like Microsoft and Take-Two Interactive. These firms generate billions of dollars every year through game purchases, subscriptions, and micro-transaction. Gala Games is a blockchain project that seeks to disrupt the gaming sector. In this article, we will look at the top thing to consider when buying the GALA token.

Gala Games is a decentralized gaming platform

Most games that are currently being played are centralized in nature. This means that the developers make all the decisions and all the money. They are also profit-oriented, meaning that their motivation is to make as much money as possible. As a result, most gamers hate their game providers. For example, EA Sports, the owner of the FIFA franchise is one of the most hated companies in the world.

Therefore Gala Games hopes to change this by creating a platform where developers build their games and let people play them mostly for free. The network is owned by its members who hold the GALA token. There are two main ways of buying the GALA token. First, one can buy it from a centralized exchange like Coinbase and Binance. Alternatively, you can own and run a node. By being a node operator, you will receive daily distributions from the network.

Gala Games users have already developed popular games. Some of the top games in the platform are Spider Tanks, The Walking Dead, Legends Reborn, Town Star, and Mirandus among others. Developers are continually building more games in the ecosystem.

The GALA coin is both used for governance in the Gala ecosystem and for making purchases in the ecosystem. It has a market cap of over $1.2 billion, making it the fourth-biggest gaming coin in the world after Axie Infinity,  Decentraland and Sandbox

Play-to-earn gaming is growing

Another thing you need to know is that the play-to-earn gaming industry is a large one and is growing rapidly. Analysts believe that the industry is actually in its infancy and that more developers and users will embrace the industry. This explains why cryptocurrencies like Axie Infinity, Decentraland, and Sandbox have achieved billions in valuations. 

A recent study estimated that the industry will be worth over $250 billion in 2024. That is a strong figure for an industry that was barely in its infancy a few months.

Gala is a leading player in NFTs

Finally, the Gala has become a leading player in the non-fungible token (NFT) industry. The idea behind this is a bit simple. Using its platform, people can mint their own NFTs and then sell them in their marketplace. Most of the NFTs in the ecosystem are of the existing games like TownStar and the Walking Dead. Transactions in this ecosystem are handled using the Gala token.

In 2022, the Gala Games platform will reduce some of the challenges in the ecosystem by launching its own product which is known as Gala Chain. The chain will become an integral part of the ecosystem by reducing the overall cost that people pay in the network. It will also make it easy for people to build their own games in the ecosystem.

Is Gala a good investment?

The Gala coin has been a bad investment in the past few months. Its price has dropped by over 80% from its all-time high. This has happened even though its overall ecosystem has grown rapidly this year. This performance is in line with other gaming tokens like Decentraland and Sandbox. In my view, I expect that the GALA price will continue rising in the coming years as the ecosystem growth continues.

The post Should I Buy Gala? 3 Things To Consider appeared first on Coin Journal.

Dogecoin price crashes as doubts about Musk Twitter buyout emerge

The Dogecoin price has recoiled sharply as investors raise doughts about Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. After soaring to a multi-week high of $0.1715 on Tuesday, the coin has crashed by 20% and is trading at $0.1381, bringing its total market cap to about $18 billion.

Doubts about Elon Musk Twitter purchase

On Monday, Twitter announced that it had accepted to be acquired by Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. The agreed price of the deal was $54 per share, which would value the compay at more than $44 billion. 

However, there are concerns about whether the deal will go through. For one, the Twitter stock price is trading at $49, which is lower than the acquisition price. The company is currently valued at about $37 billion, which is over $7 billion below its acquisition price.

There is a belief that Elon Musk will exit the deal and pay the $1 billion break-up fee. This is simply because acquiring Twitter will have unintended consequences for Tesla and other companies owned by Musk. 

For one, Tesla’s biggest market is China, where it also owns a large plant. The company also buys most of its input from China. Now, China is a country known for its crackdown of free speech. Therefore, there is a likelihood that it will work to punish Musk in case of any unfavourable tweets.

Therefore, the Dogecoin price has crashed because of the rising fear that Musk will not buy Twitter at all. Most investors believe that if the acquisition closes, it will be a good thing for Dogecoin because Musk has vowed to add it as a payment option.

Dogecoin price prediction

The daily chart shows that the DOGE price has formed a double-top pattern at $0.1725. A double-top is usually a bearish sign. It has now moved to the 25-day and 50-day moving average while the Stochastic Oscillator has moved above the oversold level. Therefore, the coin will likely keep falling as bears target the next key support level at $0.1100. A move above the resistance at $0.15 will invalidate the bearish view. Here’s how to buy Dogecoin.

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New York State Assembly approves bill to place 2 year ban on PoW mines

In a bid to limit the environmental impact caused by Bitcoin mining in the state, the New York State Assembly passed a bill yesterday, placing a two-year ban on all new proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrency mining facilities in its jurisdiction. 

The bill was passed as part of New York’s Earth Day Package. 

State senator Anna Kelles took to Twitter to announce that the bill she sponsored will also impose a hold on the renewal of the permits to existing PoW crypto facilities that are looking to increase their power consumption. 

The ban will extend however only extend to mining operations using carbon-based fuel as a source of power in the state.

With 95 in favour and 52 against, the bill has passed the crucial stage of receiving the State Assembly’s approval. It will now be carried forward by Senator Kevin Parker to gather the support of the State Senate. After this stage, the bill will be delivered to Governor Kathy Hochul, who can choose to sign it into law or veto it.

If implemented as a law, the proposal tasks the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) with presenting a “generic environmental impact statement” to locate, count and assess the effects of PoW miners on greenhouse gas emissions and public health.

The bill was met with staunch opposition from crypto advocacy group Blockchain Association which called upon “pro-tech, pro-innovation, pro-crypto” New Yorkers to write to senators against the bill.  

After the passing of the bill, the association argued that a 3-hour discussion regarding its effects took place in the house where they presented “greater opposition to the mining ban than proponents believed.” In a tweet, the advocacy group indicated that it will continue to fight against the “anti-technology bill”.

 

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