The events pertaining to the COVID-19 crisis that have unfolded during the last couple of months have led to increasing levels of economic uncertainty throughout the world. Additionally, the US is currently dealing with intense street protests in a number of cities, thus further affecting financial well-being. 

These events have all worked together towards bringing a new bull run to the cryptocurrency market. Data now shows that bitcoin has once again risen above the $10,000 threshold. Thus, a price climb of over $500 has occurred in less than 30 minutes – this definitely has us reminiscing Bitcoin’s past bull runs.

This value increase has affected most of the top-tier cryptocurrencies, similarly to past events. Thus, coins like Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, Litecoin, EOS, and others are also in the green.

The State of New York has actively pursued cryptocurrency regulation, especially since exchanges operating in the region need to register and be licensed by the city’s financial regulator. Despite this aspect, the New York State Assembly has recently proposed the idea of creating a digital currency task force, meant to examine the crypto and blockchain markets operating locally.

According to a summary of the meeting, if approval is received, the task force will consist of 9 persons, who will write out a report of their findings by December 2019.

During the last couple of years, all around the world, there have been numerous discussions on what the proper taxation mechanism for digital currencies is. The lack of a united approach towards this issue has led to countries implementing vastly different taxation policies.

The issue goes deeper, as in the United States, citizens aren’t yet sure what approach they should consider when doing their taxes. While the IRS has provided guidance on bitcoin transactions for a couple of years, bitcoin is considered as property. This means that the purchase, trade, sale and mining of crypto can be regarded to as taxable actions.

The last couple of months have been nothing short of incendiary for digital currency users throughout the world. Following Bitcoin’s massive increase to $20,000 in 2017, the coin has been facing large volatility ever since. A few days ago, the bitcoin price managed to rebound more than $1,000 in less than 24 hours, after its price increased from $6,900 to over $8,000.

Economic analysts have found plausible reasons for both the decrease and increase in price. To kick things off, the price fall sustained until now, can be attributed to fear-selling, tax liability and regulatory changes. Tax liability is a bigger issue than people expected at first, considering the fact that the large price increase created massive short-term gains, which are taxable by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), in the United States. With $590 billion in value created in 2017 alone and U.S. holders capturing roughly 30% of value growth, many had to sell in order to keep their taxes in check, and avoid any issues with the IRS.

During the last couple of months, South Korea’s attitude on bitcoin and other digital currencies has begun to change, and recent reports now indicate that the country is considering new regulation. Before anything else, it is important to point out the fact that following China’s ban on ICOs and cryptocurrency exchanges, numerous companies affected moved abroad to countries such as South Korea and Japan, where regulation was more lenient.

However, according to recent reports, there have been several proposals in South Korea, meant to prevent those who are underage from opening accounts on digital currency exchanges, while also taxing capital gains made from trading.

Bitcoin taxation and regulation have, and will continue to be a sensitive subject for both governments, but also members of the digital currency community from all around the world. According to recent reports, it seems like two members belonging to the US House of Representatives have just filed a bill meant to create a tax exemption for certain digital currency-based purchases.

The move, which if successful, is bound to be great news for the digital currency community in the United States, wants to create a de minimis tax exemption for all digital currency payments under the threshold of $600, starting from January 1st 2018.

During the last couple of months, we’ve seen governments from all around the world becoming more relaxed when it comes down to discussing bitcoin. In fact, on the 1st of April, the Japanese Government finally agreed to recognize Bitcoin as an actual currency, which can be stored, but also used to purchase and sell products and services.

After Donald Trump was officially inaugurated as the President of the United States in January 2017, the digital currency’s price peaked, and hence managed to reach a new high. Two months later, the price of bitcoin reached $1,268, thus surpassing the value of gold for the first time. Not only this, but bitcoin almost tripled in value during a year, and between December and March of this year, its value has grown by around 30%, which is massive growth, even for bitcoin. During its volatility periods, it has been determined that the value of the digital currency can easily react to world and political events, especially in influential countries such as the United States, Russia, China, Japan and more.

If you’ve been following recent digital currency news, then chances are that you already know that the Winklevoss-backed ETF Bitcoin securities project was blocked by the US corporate regulator, known by the name of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This is quite understandable, considering the fact that economic analysts did mention that the chances for approval were fairly low, but thoroughly understanding the reasons is essential to make sure that the project doesn’t fail next time. To put things better into context, the following question should be asked: would you be tempted to invest into an asset that may be illegal now, or sometime in the future?

During the last couple of months, we’ve often talked about the potential of the blockchain network, and how it could change the financial system, alongside with numerous administrational processes.

Yet, we never mentioned the influence that the blockchain network could have on the food we eat, where and when we buy it, but also on how we consume it. In fact, there are numerous reports stating that Wal-Mart is experimenting with blockchain technology, and wishes to change the way it serves over 260 million people on a weekly basis.

So far, we thought that governments are mainly interested in regulating bitcoin use, yet it seems that this is not the case, as there are numerous legislative drafts meant to regulate the blockchain network.

With this in mind, certain reports indicate that not long ago, the state of Illinois decided to take its first step in a multi-agency plan meant to integrate the integration of blockchain network into government operations of all kind. However, to be able to do this, legislative framework outlining the uses has to be implemented.