Johana Obando, a congresswoman from the Central American country of Costa Rica, has introduced a bill to Congress requesting the government to regulate the crypto market and cut taxes on cryptocurrencies, making Costa Rica a cryptocurrency-friendly country.
The bill proposes that the Costa Rican government recognize cryptocurrencies and allow people to hold, trade freely, and spend cryptocurrencies.
Johana Obando mentioned on his official Twitter that Cryptoassets Market Law (MECA) will “protect individual virtual private property, self-custody, and decentralization of crypto assets” from the country’s central bank – but in “perfect harmony” with it “.
Johana Obando, along with members of Congress Luis Diego Vargas and Jorge Dengo, proposed that Costa Rican citizens should not be taxed on goods purchased using cryptocurrencies, and the government should not tax cryptocurrencies generated from mining, but that profits from trading cryptocurrencies would be subject to income tax.
Obando said the move would attract foreign investors and fintech companies and create jobs for Costa Rican citizens.
As cryptocurrencies continue to gain popularity worldwide, many countries have placed great emphasis on cryptocurrencies.
Costa Rica also ranks among the countries with the highest acceptance of cryptocurrencies.
In 2018, according to the country’s law, in Costa Rica, part of an employee’s salary can be paid in cryptocurrencies, and wages can be paid not only in fiat currency but also in commodities. Some legal experts believe that cryptocurrencies are suitable for this category.
In addition, Costa Rican law provides for the use of generally accepted assets as a means of payment.
The country’s work code allows workers to receive part of their wages in cryptocurrency. They can also negotiate with employers about how much cryptocurrency they want to receive.
Unlike El Salvador, which uses bitcoin as legal tender, the bill proposes introducing cryptocurrencies as private virtual currencies that can be used and circulated freely but not as national legal tender.
Hong Kong is planning to shift to a friendlier approach towards cryptocurrencies starting next year, according to a Bloomberg report, while neighbouring Singapore is planning to impose fresh restrictions on consumers.
People familiar with the matter, who asked to remain anonymous, told Bloomberg that the information is not public yet. Still, Hong Kong has a planned mandatory licensing program for crypto platforms that are set to be enforced in March next year, which will allow retail trading.
They added that further details and program timetable are yet to be decided as public consultation must be done first.
Hong Kong is not planning to endorse specific coins such as Bitcoin or Ether. However, regulators are planning to allow listings of bigger tokens and even legalize crypto trading for retail customers, according to Bloomberg.
This move indicates a positive regulatory measure for cryptocurrencies, which contrasts with the city’s sceptical stance in recent years.
The city plans to reveal more about the details of the recently stated goal of creating a top crypto hub next week during the annual Fintech Week conference, which starts on Monday.
Hong Kong is shifting to a friendlier approach towards crypto as the city aims to regain its credentials as one of the top financial centres after a recent year of political instability and the COVID-19 pandemic led to the outward migration of talent.
The people familiar with the matter added that crypto regulators would likely demand criteria for listing tokens on retail exchanges, such as a company’s market value, liquidity and membership in third-party crypto indexes.
While other economies are starting to open up to cryptocurrencies, Singapore has said it is unwilling to change its regulations. Instead, it is strengthening restrictions on retail crypto trade.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Wednesday unveiled a proposal to restrict retail participation in digital assets. Following this, small investors will be banned from funding coin purchases through borrowing.
Singapore’s central bank chief Ravi Menon told Bloomberg that the city-state would not stand in the way of other financial centres looking to draw retail crypto trading away with more relaxed rules.
“We don’t set ourselves out to compete with other jurisdictions, especially on regulation,” said Menon, the managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. “We have to do what is right for us, what is necessary to contain the risks. And the risks primarily harm retail investors.”
Singapore’s central bank echoed sentiments similar to that of the MAS by asking companies to stop using tokens deposited by retail investors for lending or staking to generate yield. However, the restrictions proposed by the two regulatory bodies will not be applicable to high-net-worth investors.
These moves are being taken in Singapore to ensure positive growth of the crypto industry with security measures that will provide safety to investors.
According to the Bloomberg report, Menon said Singapore still wants to be a crypto hub, but one that promotes areas of digital assets with “use cases” and tokenization – the process of using blockchain technology to securitize various assets.
“We accept that cryptocurrencies have a place in the larger digital ecosystem because they are the tokens native to the blockchain that powers much of this activity,” he said. “They need to have an expression in the formal financial sector.”
Meanwhile, other economies in Asia, such as neighbouring Japan, have already begun to take a positive stand toward crypto. Japan has already started to open its economy to crypto by making it easier for companies to list tokens, which is in contrast to its previous conservative stance that was partially to blame for driving away crypto start-ups.
In early October, Japanese Prime Miniter Fumio Kishida announced that the government will take an active role in promoting Web3 services.
Kishida said Web3-related growth – including metaverse and NFT-related developments – is now part of the country’s growth strategy. He added that the government is keen on creating a society where new services can easily be created.
On October 3, the Prime Minister delivered a speech before Japan’s National Diet (Japan’s bicameral parliament) where he said the government’s investment in the country’s digital transformation already embraces the issuance of NFTs to local authorities using digital technology to solve challenges in their respective jurisdictions.
While in August, the Japanese government proposed a corporate-friendly crypto tax that would take effect in 2023. The prime minister’s plan of revamping the economy relies on spurring growth in Web3 firms as a key agenda.
Dogecoin has been trading up 35% since Monday following the news about Elon Musk has completed the deal to acquire Twitter’s social media giant. Doge soared its price by 10% up after the Tesla chief executive changed his Twitter bio to read “Chief of Twit” on Wednesday.
After a month of long battle between Musk and Twitter over the sale, Musk closed the deal on Friday. According to the CNBC report, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is now in charge of the social media and online news platform Twitter in a $44 billion deal.
Musk also decided to lay off the major executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal. Based on the announcement, Twitter’s CEO Parag Agarwal and Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal have left the company’s headquarters in San Francisco. CNBC reporter David Faber shared a tweet that the executives “will not be returning.”
Musk expressed his excitement about closing Twitter’s deal on Thursday – he disclosed the reason for acquiring the social networking platform in a tweet: “Did it [bought Twitter] to try to help humanity, whom I love. And I do so with humility, recognizing that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility.”
Faber expects more changes are likely within Twitter as he believes that Musk will lay off some of the company’s employees, as that number could be up to “three-quarters of the staff.”
Meanwhile, Binance confirmed that the crypto exchange has invested in Musk’s Twitter deal, Bloomberg reported.
“We aim to play a role in bringing social media and Web3 together in order to broaden the use and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology,” Binance said in a statement, citing Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, its billionaire co-founder.
The report citing a Binance spokesperson, said Friday “our initial commitment remains the same”, and flagged the possibility of growing the partnership.
In May, Binance said it had committed $500 million for the takeover as part of its strategy to bring social media and news sites into the world of web3. After one month, the crypto exchange has announced to raise $500 million crypto funds to enhance blockchain & Web3 adoption.
Crypto market is also stimulate by Musk’s deal. Dogecoin has been in a steady decline for several months, trading low on the market. But that changed on Monday this week when the value of the meme coin suddenly turned up, recovering 25% on the week and surging 16% on Wednesday. The price of doge has risen by 35% since the beginning of this week. At the time of writing, the price is down by 2.64% and now trading at $0.0745, according to CoinMarketCap.
Source: TradingView
Doge’s surge is far from a normal revival – it is linked to Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, as the deadline for his purchase of the company approaches on Friday.
Musk has been the most visible and vocal supporter of the meme cryptocurrency, often influencing its price with his tweets and even endorsed it as a payment option on his Tesla merchandise store.
One of football’s largest organizations globally is planning to talk with its teams about a proposed multi-year contract with Sorare for digital collectables.
If the deal is signed, the English Premier League and its 20 clubs will enter an approximately $34.7 million per year deal with the non-fungible tokens (NFT) digital collectables platform that will include a multi-year contract for static images of players in the form of NFTs.
According to Sky News, the deal could be formally agreed upon within weeks.
Furthermore, the deal will replace the Premier League’s initial deal with ConsenSys – blockchain infrastructure provider of Infura and MetaMask – which had been in the works earlier this year but not signed, according to a report from Sky News.
The ConsenSys deal was under renegotiation until recently, however, it failed to go through after one Premier League club executive said they had been told that the Sorare contract was more lucrative.
Premier League’s deal with Paris-based start-up Sorare will allow its hundreds of millions of avid fans to own a famous photo of their favourite player in the form of NFT artwork, as well as sports highlights.
French footballer Kylian Mbappe and the giant Japanese tech investor SoftBank has been the key backer of Sorare, who recently partnered with the NBA and other sporting leagues. It recently raised $680 million and was valued at over $4 billion.
The Premier League also has another separate ongoing deal with Dapper Labs – another NFT specialist who started the popular NBA Top Shots platform.
The Premier League is the UK’s top-tier football organization. The combined revenue of all the 20 Premier League clubs was projected to be around 6.2 billion euros for the 2020/21 season.
One of football’s largest organizations globally is planning to talk with its teams about a proposed multi-year contract with Sorare for digital collectables.
If the deal is signed, the English Premier League and its 20 clubs will enter an approximately $34.7 million per year deal with the non-fungible tokens (NFT) digital collectables platform that will include a multi-year contract for static images of players in the form of NFTs.
According to Sky News, the deal could be formally agreed upon within weeks.
Furthermore, the deal will replace the Premier League’s initial deal with ConsenSys – blockchain infrastructure provider of Infura and MetaMask – which had been in the works earlier this year but not signed, according to a report from Sky News.
The ConsenSys deal was under renegotiation until recently, however, it failed to go through after one Premier League club executive said they had been told that the Sorare contract was more lucrative.
Premier League’s deal with Paris-based start-up Sorare will allow its hundreds of millions of avid fans to own a famous photo of their favourite player in the form of NFT artwork, as well as sports highlights.
French footballer Kylian Mbappe and the giant Japanese tech investor SoftBank has been the key backer of Sorare, who recently partnered with the NBA and other sporting leagues. It recently raised $680 million and was valued at over $4 billion.
The Premier League also has another separate ongoing deal with Dapper Labs – another NFT specialist who started the popular NBA Top Shots platform.
The Premier League is the UK’s top-tier football organization. The combined revenue of all the 20 Premier League clubs was projected to be around 6.2 billion euros for the 2020/21 season.
Dogecoin has been trading up 35% since Monday following the news about Elon Musk has completed the deal to acquire Twitter’s social media giant. Doge soared its price by 10% up after the Tesla chief executive changed his Twitter bio to read “Chief of Twit” on Wednesday.
According to the CNBC report, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is now in charge of the social media and online news platform Twitter in a $44 billion deal.
After a month of long battle between Musk and Twitter over the sale, Musk closed the deal on Friday.
Musk also decided to lay off the major executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal. Based on the announcement, Twitter’s CEO Parag Agarwal and Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal have left the company’s headquarters in San Francisco. CNBC reporter David Faber shared a tweet that the executives “will not be returning.”
Musk expressed his excitement about closing Twitter’s deal on Thursday – he disclosed the reason for acquiring the social networking platform in a tweet: “Did it [bought Twitter] to try to help humanity, whom I love. And I do so with humility, recognizing that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility.”
Faber expects more changes are likely within Twitter as he believes that Musk will lay off some of the company’s employees, as that number could be up to “three-quarters of the staff.”
Meanwhile, Binance confirmed that the crypto exchange has invested in Musk’s Twitter deal, Bloomberg reported.
“We aim to play a role in bringing social media and Web3 together in order to broaden the use and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology,” Binance said in a statement, citing Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, its billionaire co-founder.
The report citing a Binance spokesperson, said Friday “our initial commitment remains the same”, and flagged the possibility of growing the partnership.
In May, Binance said it had committed $500 million for the takeover as part of its strategy to bring social media and news sites into the world of web3. After one month, the crypto exchange has announced to raise $500 million crypto funds to enhance blockchain & Web3 adoption.
Crypto market is also stimulate by Musk’s deal. Dogecoin has been in a steady decline for several months, trading low on the market. But that changed on Monday this week when the value of the meme coin suddenly turned up, recovering 25% on the week and surging 16% on Wednesday. The price of doge has risen by 35% since the beginning of this week. At the time of writing, the price is down by 2.64% and now trading at $0.0745, according to CoinMarketCap.
Source: TradingView
Doge’s surge is far from a normal revival – it is linked to Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, as the deadline for his purchase of the company approaches on Friday.
Musk has been the most visible and vocal supporter of the meme cryptocurrency, often influencing its price with his tweets and even endorsed it as a payment option on his Tesla merchandise store.
Dogecoin has been trading up 35% since Monday following the news about Elon Musk has completed the deal to acquire Twitter social media giant. Doge soared its price 10% up after the Tesla chief executive changed his Twitter bio to read “Chief of Twit” on Wednesday.
According to the CNBC report, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is now in charge of the social media and online news platform Twitter in a $44 billion deal.
After a month of long battle between Musk and Twitter over the sale, Musk closed the deal on Friday.
Musk also decided to lay off the major executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal. Based on the announcement, Twitter’s CEO Parag Agarwal and Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal have left the company’s headquarters in San Francisco. CNBC reporter David Faber shared a tweet that the executives “will not be returning.”
Musk expressed his excitement about closing Twitter’s deal on Thursday – he disclosed the reason for acquiring the social networking platform in a tweet: “Did it [bought Twitter] to try to help humanity, whom I love. And I do so with humility, recognizing that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility.”
Faber expects more changes are likely within Twitter as he believes that Musk will lay off some of the company’s employees, as that number could be up to “three-quarters of the staff.”
In terms of crypto, Dogecoin has been in a steady decline for several months, trading low on the market. But that changed on Monday this week when the value of the meme coin suddenly turned up, recovering 25% on the week and surging 16% on Wednesday. The price of doge has risen by 35% since the beginning of this week. At the time of writing, the price is down by 2.64% and now trading at $0.0745, according to CoinMarketCap.
Source: TradingView
Doge’s surge is far from a normal revival – it is linked to Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, as the deadline for his purchase of the company approaches on Friday.
Musk has been the most visible and vocal supporter of the meme cryptocurrency, often influencing its price with his tweets and even endorsed it as a payment option on his Tesla merchandise store.
One of football’s largest organizations globally is planning to hold talks with its teams to talk about a proposed multi-year contract with Sorare for digital collectables.
If the deal is signed, the English Premier League and its 20 clubs will enter an approximately $34.7 million per year deal with the non-fungible tokens (NFT) digital collectables platform that will include a multi-year contract for static images of players in the form of NFTs.
According to Sky News, the deal could be formally agreed upon within weeks.
Furthermore, the deal will replace the Premier League’s initial deal with ConsenSys – blockchain infrastructure provider of Infura and MetaMask – which had been in the works earlier this year but not signed, according to a report from Sky News.
The ConsenSys deal was under renegotiation until recently, however, it failed to go through after one Premier League club executive said they had been told that the Sorare contract was more lucrative.
Premier League’s deal with Paris-based start-up Sorare will allow its hundreds of millions of avid fans to own a famous photo of their favourite player in the form of NFT artwork, as well as sports highlights.
French footballer Kylian Mbappe and the giant Japanese tech investor SoftBank has been the key backer of Sorare, who recently partnered with the NBA and other sporting leagues. It recently raised $680 million and was valued at over $4 billion.
The Premier League also has another separate ongoing deal with Dapper Labs – another NFT specialist who started the popular NBA Top Shots platform.
The Premier League is the UK’s top-tier football organization. The combined revenue of all the 20 Premier League clubs was projected to be around 6.2 billion euros for the 2020/21 season.
A new crypto project called Mara has now been introduced to the African crypto ecosystem. This project is backed by Coinbase Ventures, FTX-affiliated Alameda Research, Huobi Ventures, and other prominent venture capital firms and angel investors in the industry.
Mara is a digital financial ecosystem project that appears only to be starting its ride with the launch of a cryptocurrency wallet for signed-up users in Nigeria.
Having raised $23 million in fundraising, Mara already has a waitlist with over 3 million users, the majority being Nigerians. It is said that as the wallet app advances, the whole product will be rolled out to other countries, including Ghana and Kenya.
According to co-founder and CEO Chi Nnadi, Mara was explicitly built for the African crypto market through money transfer services and with the idea for a broader suite of financial products that sets it apart from other global brokerages and exchanges.
The Mara wallet will offer services such as cryptocurrency brokerage services that will permit users to buy, send, sell and withdraw fiat and crypto. It will also provide users with a U.K. entity that allows them to access dollars, pounds, and euros that can be used to buy and sell crypto.
Moreover, the wallet app will contain educational resources on cryptocurrencies and personal finance management, which users can access whenever.
A nonprofit foundation called the Mara foundation partnered with USD Coin issuer Circle will also be launched alongside the wallet app to foster the growth of blockchain development in Africa.
Mara aims to train 1 million developers on the continent using this nonprofit foundation. And in addition, it releases an educational community, which will provide free resources on financial literacy, cryptocurrency, Web3, and blockchain education in numerous languages.
The project also aims to launch a proprietary layer-1 blockchain solution called Mara Chain before the end of 2022. This blockchain is planned to have a native token to allow developers to build decentralized applications.
Mara is not the only one launching products to foster crypto adoption in the continent. The Central African Republic (CAR) has also recently launched its own national crypto hub, Sango.
Project Sango is designed to bring out the potential of blockchain technology on various fronts. It aims to attract businesses into the country as it looks to re-establish an economic boom and global connectivity.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have consolidated gains from a recent rally that catapulted most digital assets a notch higher than a month.
Over the last 24 hours, Bitcoin price has little changed, still moving at around $20,290, according to TradingView. Apart from the largest cryptocurrency, Ether rose 1% to $1,519.19, while altcoins such as Solana and Cardano were both just above flat. Meanwhile, meme coins are more buoyant, with Dogecoin jumping 13% and Shiba Inu 4% higher.
Although the short-term picture looks relatively solid, cryptos generally remain vulnerable to another swing lower.
Bitcoin reclaimed its key price point on Tuesday afternoon, which is $20,000, triggered by weaker US dollars and accelerated by a wave of short-sellers—traders who bet against the cryptocurrency—being forced to cover their losses and purchase the token.
Source: TradingView
The crypto has appeared to stay in the $19,000 range but occasionally moved above that threshold in recent weeks. Whether the token’s value will continue to increase is a matter of people’s guesses.
While most crypto users are optimistic that Bitcoin has established its bottom after this year’s brutal market downturn, digital assets are still vulnerable because of the Fed’s monetary policy decision and negative sentiment in broader markets.
A looming catalyst for markets is the Fed’s tightening of financial conditions, including what is expected to be the fourth largest interest-rate hike, next week. Analysts anticipate that the Fed’s announcement next week could send Bitcoin trade below the $18,000 level.
Bitcoin’s vulnerability comes from a series of bad economic news, such as inflation data, among others, which have been turning market sentiment to the downside over several months in the recent past. Despite Bitcoin having clawed back its price since May this year, in recent the crypto has faired better than other assets, including stocks, gold, the European Euro, the Japanese Yen, the Chinese Yuan, and the British pound.
Over the previous month, Bitcoin’s recent resilience, compared to other assets, could be due to the crypto becoming a great conduit for U.S. dollars in nations that are struggling with their own currencies. Or Bitcoin’s resiliency could be anchored on long-term crypto investors who have remained unfazed amid recent plunges in the U.S. economy.
Bitcoin is holding steady, but it is not out of the woods yet. The end of the year is packed with macro events that could shift the tides downwards, including the midterm election, inflation reports, Federal Reserve meetings, the effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a potential peak in U.S. dollar strength.
