News updates June 21 2022
1. Bitcoin Tests USD 21K, Ethereum Still Above USD 1.1K, WAVES and ZIL Accelerate
Bitcoin price moved higher above the USD 20,500 resistance zone and climbed above the USD 21,200 level before correcting lower. It is currently (11:51 UTC) trading near USD 21,060 and is up 1% in a day and down 6% in a week.
Similarly, most major altcoins are trending higher. ETH cleared the USD 1,150 level before trimming some of its gains. XRP is also moving higher while ADA tested the USD 0.50 resistance.
2. USDD Continues to Trade for Under $1 — Tron DAO Reserve Insists Stablecoin Has Not Depegged
Since June 12, 2022, the Tron-based stablecoin USDD has remained below a U.S. dollar in value. On Monday, USDD had a 24-hour trading range of around $0.943 to $0.966 per unit and the day prior on June 19, USDD saw an all-time low at $0.928 per unit. Despite being below the U.S. dollar parity, the Tron DAO Reserve says the stablecoin has not depegged in a Twitter thread that discusses a combination of an “on-chain mechanism [and] collateralized assets.”
3. South Korea's Crypto Tax Delayed Until Jan 2025
Crypto tax on digital assets in South Korea will be delayed by another two years, according to an announcement from the Ministry of Economy and Finance tax policy chief Ko Kwang-hyo.
4. Celsius warns community about fake accounts, pauses Twitter spaces and AMAs
A week after it started its withdrawal freeze, crypto lending platform Celsius Network warned the community of a rise in fake social media accounts claiming to be affiliated with the company.
Additionally, the firm has highlighted that it’s working and communicating with regulators about the withdrawals, swap and transfer pauses, and is trying to find a solution. However, the firm did not mention any updates on when its users can resume withdrawals of their funds.
5. Has BTC Established Its Bottom Yet or Will It Drop Further?
* Bitcoin (BTC) has hit the 0.786 level of a long-term Fibonacci retracement.
* Both BTC and the S&P 500 Index are up over the last 24 hours and down over the last month.
* BTC may not have established its bottom yet as the Federal Reserve continues to tighten monetary policy.
Bitcoin (BTC), the largest crypto by market cap, has hit the 0.786 level of a long-term Fibonacci retracement. Does this mean that the bottom for BTC and the rest of the crypto market has been formed?
To better answer the question about whether or not the crypto market bottoms have been formed, it’s best to take a look at the current situation with the S&P 500.
Historically, the price movement of BTC has simulated that of the index to a certain degree. This was seen in the 2018 crypto bear market and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both BTC and the S&P 500 Index are down over the last month. S&P 500 is down by 7.52% and BTC is down -33.50% over the last 30 days.
The correlation can also be seen today as the S&P 500 is up by 0.22%, while BTC is up by 2.56% in the last 24 hours.
With this correlation, there are fears that BTC has not established its bottom yet. The main reason for this is that BTC may be at the mercy of traditional stocks. With this in mind, a pattern has been established historically wherein stocks only recover once the U.S. Federal Reserve eases monetary policy.
This is a silver lining for crypto investors because they can now potentially gauge when BTC will hit its bottom.
However, the problem with this silver lining is that the U.S. Fed has shown no intention of easing monetary policy, quite the opposite in fact, as they have increased the interest rate by the largest percentage in the last 40 years. The Fed has also indicated that more interest rate increases will happen throughout the year.
With this being the case, BTC’s price may not have hit its bottom yet.
6. UK Payments Regulator to Launch Review on Visa and Mastercard Fees:
Fees charged by these two card companies have increased five-fold since Brexit.
The regulator wants to understand the rationale behind the rise in fees.
The United Kingdom’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) is seeking a pair of market reviews on the rising card fees charged by two of the industry leaders, Visa and Mastercard. Both these companies account for 99 percent of Britain’s debit and credit payments market.
Announced on Tuesday, one of the reviews looks into scheme and processing fees, while the other at cross-border interchange fees.
Cards are the most popular way for consumers to make a payment. To accept card payments, merchants must pay certain fees which can ultimately impact the cost we all pay for goods and services,” said Natalie Timan, the Head of Strategy at PSR.
“We want to understand whether card payments are working well and to make sure that merchants, and ultimately consumers, get a good deal.”
7. Breaking: SEC Adds LUNA In Ongoing Mirror Protocol Investigation Targeting Do Kwon And Terra Labs
The legal front is getting hotter for Do Kwon and his company, TFL. While he and TFL are already under investigation in South Korea, the US SEC is still on his neck since issuing a subpoena to him back in September 2021.
Do Kwon appealed against it, saying that the SEC breached its procedures by issuing him with the subpoena personally. When the court ruled to uphold SEC’s stance, Kwon ignored it and said the institution had no jurisdiction to charge him or TFL.
It’s worth noting that the said subpoena was issued months before the collapse of Terra, so it didn’t touch on Luna. At the time, the SEC was only concerned about the sale of UST-related securities in the US.
Korean ‘Money Today’, the SEC is revising its list of demands to include all information relating to the collapsed Luna token (which has now been renamed Luna Classic).
The September 2021 subpoena was presented to Do Kwon while he was visiting the US. The SEC moved to issue it due to his links with the Mirror Protocol. The Mirror Protocol is a DeFi platform created by Do Kwon’s Terraform Labs to track Netflix and Tesla stock prices and sell their securities in UST.
According to SEC, this platform is not registered in the US, and that prompts investigations into it. Following the Luna crash, SEC is now exploring the matter as well to determine whether Do Kwon and his company violated consumer protection laws in marketing UST. Despite being a stablecoin meant to keep retain value, UST crashed along with Luna. Millions of people lost their money in the process.
8. South Korean Court Exonerates Bitcoiner Who Received BTC 200 by Mistake
A bitcoin (BTC) wallet owner who received almost BTC 200 (USD 4.16m) by accident has been absolved of blame by a branch of the South Korean High Court, which overturned two previous rulings in doing so.
Kyunghyang Shinmun reported that the person (aged 32 and named only as "A" for legal reasons), had previously been found criminally liable and sentenced to 18 months in prison on embezzlement charges and violations of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes.
The court heard that in June 2018, A received a deposit of BTC 199.999 from another individual (named by the court as “B”). B appears to have sent the funds by accident – and likely made a mistake when typing the recipient’s address.
A, however, appears to have made no attempt to return the funds or try to discover who had sent the bitcoin. Instead, A proceeded to transfer the coins to two wallets also held in A’s name.
At the original trial, A was found guilty of “breach of trust” violations, with the judge stating that A had been in the position to “safeguard the incorrectly remitted bitcoin” according to “principles of good faith” – but had instead “violated” these principles. The judge in the first trial had ruled that A had “taken advantage” of the error in an “illegal” manner.
A second court upheld this verdict, but the Supreme Court ruled that a third trial should be held, and at that point temporarily overturned the original sentence pending a third trial.
The Supreme Court stated that “a person who has received an erroneous transfer of cryptoassets may be obliged to return [funds they obtained] in an unreasonable manner.” But, it stated, this case was “nothing more than a civil debt” between “two individuals.”
The High Court, meanwhile, added that the South Korean law did not include “stipulations for criminal punishment” in the case of an individual who receives cryptoassets without knowing how these coins appeared in their wallet.
