News updates March 19, 2022

1. Colombian Users Sue Binance For Blocking Their Funds

A Group of users have reported to have their accounts blockced by Binance for about five months. Now, they are taking the case to the courts.

2. Dubai Holds Massive Crypto Exposition

Crypto was on display in Dubai this Thursday where more than 10,000 visitors attended one of the world’s biggest exposition.

BitMarkets, ByBit and Bassam Muhammad Al Falasi, an advisor to HH Sheikh Butti Bin Suhail Al Maktoum, a member of Dubai’s Ruling Family, was there.

Some 100 crypto companies participated in total, with 90 speakers giving presentations on bitcoin, eth, and all things crypto.

3. Central Bank of Russia tightens P2P transactions monitoring, including those in crypto

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) recommended that the nation’s commercial banks ramp up monitoring users’ transactions that could be aimed at circumventing CBR’s “special economic measures to counter the outflow of foreign currency abroad,” local media reported on Thursday. The recommendation includes closer oversight over crypto trading, which is named among the vehicles for withdrawing capital from Russia. 

The letter, sent to the banking organizations by CBR’s vice chairman Yuri Isaev on Wednesday, directs them to pay closer attention to the instances of their clients’ “unusual behavior.” This includes “abnormal” transactional activity and uncommon patterns of expenditures. Any withdrawals of money via digital currencies should also attract increased attention, the letter specifies.

If necessary, the suspicious transactions must be blocked and the information about them should be passed to the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring).

4. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) maintained its massive stimulus and warned of heightening risks to a fragile economic recovery from the Ukraine war, per Reuters. 

Although rising fuel and commodity prices could drive up consumer inflation to the BOJ's 2% target in the coming months, this won’t cause them to withdraw stimulus, the bank’s governor Haruhiko Kuroda said.

5. Spanish Crypto Adoption Increases, But Tax ‘Chaos’ Looms

Crypto adoption appears to be on the rise in Spain – but as tax season approaches, some have warned that failure to comply with the Treasury’s tax-related rulings could prove costly for newer and more seasoned Spanish crypto investors alike.

6. Market Wrap: Ether Outperforms, Bitcoin Rises Above $42K:

ETH was up as much as 5% over the past 24 hours, compared with a 2% rise in BTC.

Most cryptocurrencies traded higher on Friday after a volatile week.
Ethereum (ETH) was the standout, climbing as much as 5% in the past 24 hours, just shy of $3,000 for the first time in two weeks. Meanwhile, bitcoin (BTC) rose above $42,000 and was up 3% over the same period.

Equities were also higher on Friday, while gold, a traditional safe haven asset, traded lower. The rebound in stocks and the outperformance of several alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) suggests a greater appetite for risk among investors.

But there is still the potential for greater price swings in the near term. "Despite the risk-on week for crypto assets, we will likely encounter additional volatility in the near term. We remain optimistic that any dips for ETH and BTC are buying opportunities," Sean Farrell, vice president of digital asset strategy at FundStrat, wrote in a Friday email.

"Latest prices"

●Bitcoin (BTC): $42,243, +2.83% 

●Ether (ETH): $2,981, +4.80% 

1)Ether bounces on merge progress.

Ether's rise is partly due to progress on the merge of the Ethereum blockchain's mainnet with the Beacon Chain.
Earlier this week, Ethereum merged on the Kiln testnet ahead of the blockchain's eventual move to a proof-of-stake network, with network validators now producing post-merge blocks containing transactions, CoinDesk's Shaurya Malwa wrote (read more here).

"We have seen a corresponding increase in the number of active validators on the Beacon Chain from 300,702 at the end of February to 315,576 as of March 17. That’s a 4.9% increase in just 17 days compared to 3.9% during the full month of February or 4.8% during the full month of January," David Duong, head of institutional research at Coinbase, wrote in a Friday newsletter.

2) Altcoin roundup;

* ApeCoin Rebound: The ApeCoin's surge on Friday gives the token a $3.8 billion market cap, making it the 33rd-largest coin, according to CoinMarketCap. CoinGecko lists it at 66th with a market cap of $1.7 billion. Read more here.

* DeFi 'Super App':
 Polkadot-based lending protocol Parallel Finance is trying to become a one-stop shop for all corners of decentralized finance (DeFi). That effort accelerated Friday with the initial launch of six products spanning the DeFi spectrum from wallets to staking. “Overall, we’re building a ’super app,’ an end-to-end DeFi platform for Polkadot to start,” founder Yubo Ruan told CoinDesk in an interview. Read more from CoinDesk's Danny Nelson, here.

• Altcoin volume update: "BTC continues to be the dominant asset traded by our consumer client base," Coinbase wrote in a newsletter. BTC volumes represent an overwhelming 32.1% of volumes traded, although large market cap tokens such as AVAX, SOL, LUNA and ADA have seen a pickup in trading activity following price increases. Coinbase also noticed some hedge funds buying into the recent price bounce, while others used the opportunity to reduce risk.

7. Bitcoin spikes to $41.7K highs as Ethereum nears $3K reclaim"

A late surge on March 18 sees a welcome challenge of higher levels for both BTC and ETH.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw brisk upwards action during the Wall Street trading session on March 18, conforming to predictions that higher levels would see a retest.

Bets placed on $46,000

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it advanced $1,650 from daily lows to nearly matching the $41,700 high from March 16.

The move buoyed traders, who began to reinforce their short-term view of levels near the top of Bitcoin's 2022 trading range being challenged.

For popular trader Pentoshi, however, such a result would not mean that BTC/USD had broken its downtrend definitively.

"Macro headwinds still too strong but midterm, I think we rally bc seller exhaustion before any shot at new lows or prev lows. So lean towards up then down imo late Q2," he told Twitter followers on the day.

Cold feet over macro conditions, as Cointelegraph reported, became a major issue this week, with multiple predictions of a major drawdown across major assets including BTC coming this year.

Analyst Matthew Hyland meanwhile noted that in any case, previous resistance around $40,000 was now increasingly looking flipped to support.

Earlier, Crypto Ed had delivered a near-term forecast of $43,000 for BTC/USD before a potential fresh consolidation period, only then followed by an exit up or down.

In a subsequent update, he showed the pair breaking out of a "bull flag" formation in place over recent days. 

Ether (ETH), however, was a more interesting focus on the day.

8. South Korea to put crypto taxation move on hold:

* South Korea’s president elect proposing to postpone cryptocurrency tax law by one year.

* The move is in keeping with his campaign promises.

* Crypto market participants are expecting better regulatory clarity from the incoming government.

Crypto taxation has been a topic of discussion in different countries. This time, South Korea’s government seems to be in the middle of a crucial decision, as the country’s president reveals plans to hit the ground running with concessions in the crypto industry regulation. There is a proposed bill to start taxing crypto capital gains in the country by January 2023. However, according to reports, president-elect Yoon Seok-Yeol is considering postponing its commencement until 2024. 

Cryptocurrency tax break extension being considered by South Korea.

South Korean news outlet, Hankook Ilbo, reported that the Presidential Transition Committee of Seok-Yoel is pushing for the extension to enable the incoming administration to implement some complementary crypto taxation laws. Last year, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Hong Nam-Ki, also made a similar move by delaying its crypto taxation policy. This came shortly after it was revealed that the country would implement a crypto taxation policy on crypto income.

South Korea’s previous crypto regulations:

While the government has passed many regulations for the crypto industry, market participants have frowned upon many of them. Towards the end of last year, crypto exchanges in Korea felt the brunt of the unfriendly regulations as it forced many of them to shut down. 

The tax law that the incoming government plans to postpone has also received criticism. Crypto investors have decried the law because it will include crypto taxation for gains made from crypto trading above $2,000. A corresponding law for stocks will tax gains from around $40,0000, which has inspired the exaggerated reaction to these new laws.