Autor Cointelegraph By Brian Newar

Japan’s largest investment bank Nomura readies new crypto subsidiary

Japan’s largest investment bank Nomura readies new crypto subsidiary

Uverejnil používateľ | máj 17, 2022 |

The largest investment bank in Japan, Nomura, is set to establish a new subsidiary company to help institutional clients invest in cryptocurrency and nonfungible tokens (NFTs).The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that people with knowledge of Nomura’s plans said the firm will bring together several crypto services under one single company with a staff of about 100 people by 2023.Nomura is one of Japan’s ten largest banks, with $569 billion in assets under management as of Q1 2022.Nikkei Asia, a Japanese news outlet, reported that the subsidiary company will be established abroad, but the board will start off seated by Nomura transplants while the company acquires talent in the Web3 and blockchain space. It will initially be led by Jez Mohideen, head of wholesale digital operations of Nomura.The bank appears to be feeling mounting pressure to become more intimately acquainted with the burgeoning blockchain technology and digital asset industry. One Nomura executive told the Financial Times that “If we don’t do this, then it’s going to be more difficult down the line to be competitive.”The move to expand crypto services comes at an interesting juncture for Nomura. Just last week on Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the bank began offering Bitcoin (BTC) derivatives trading to Asian clients. Trades are executed on CME Group’s platform, which handled 6,944 Bitcoin futures contracts on May 16.Additionally, crypto prices are down across the board since last week’s major sell-offs due to a panic caused by the crash of the Terra platform. Related: Japanese e-commerce site adopts BTC and XRP payments for used carsNomura must now also combat the prospect of losing most of its quarterly profits due to a $345 million writedown on a transaction that the FT also reported on Tuesday, which happened during the 2008 economic downturn. The bank has not specified which transaction it was. A writedown is a reduction in the value of a transaction or asset.

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Coinbase unveils Web3 mobile Dapp and DeFi wallet and browser

Coinbase unveils Web3 mobile Dapp and DeFi wallet and browser

Uverejnil používateľ | máj 17, 2022 |

America’s largest crypto exchange Coinbase has rolled out Web3 app functionality including a hot wallet and browser for a limited set of its mobile app users.The app will allow select users to access decentralized apps (Dapps) on the Ethereum (ETH) network such as Uniswap and OpenSea. Today, we’re starting to make it dramatically easier for users to access & engage in web3 right from the @coinbase app! #NoMoreKeys #JustGettingStarted #KeepBuilding https://t.co/7K3lZ6kKAs— RishiDean.eth (@rishidean) May 16, 2022The May 17 announcement by Coinbase’s Director of Product Management Rishi Dean said eligible users would be able to begin trading on nonfungible tokens (NFT) marketplaces, making swaps on decentralized exchanges (DEX), and interacting with decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocols to borrow and lend funds. Along with the mobile browser that provides access to Dapps, there is a hot wallet that customers can use to exchange funds. Unlike decentralized hot wallet apps such as MetaMask, the Coinbase hot wallet will have a co-custodial setup. This means that the private key for the wallet will be stored by the company and can be personally stored by the user.The wallet and Dapp functionality are operated with Multi-Party Computation (MPC) technology, which secures the privacy of senders and receivers while ensuring the accuracy of a transaction.Dean stated that sharing custody of the keys is a security feature designed to protect users from device-related problems. He wrote, “This means if you lose access to your device, the key to your Dapp wallet is still safe and Coinbase can assist in recovery through our live support.”Coinbase announced to allow some users to access Ethereum-based dapps directly from the Coinbase app, like opensea like Uniswap and Sushiswap, Curve and Compound. The ‘key’ is splited between you and Coinbase and Coinbase can assist in recovery. https://t.co/T9TtScaziu— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) May 17, 2022

Coinbase’s expanded wallet functionality is promising for Web3 developers who may find it difficult to onboard new users to show off their work. The exchange boasts about 90 million registered users according to Statista.Related: Coinbase CEO says funds are safe amid bankruptcy protection fearsThis is the second major product rollout this month. The exchange launched its long-awaited Coinbase NFT marketplace on May 4 to a lackluster showing of just $75,000 in sales volume from just 150 transactions on its first day. Coinbase’s Q1 earnings report show that the exchange is struggling during the down market by posting its first net loss since going public last year. Revenue dropped 27% to $1.1 billion from $1.6 billion year-on-year since Q1 2021, while monthly users fell from 11.4 million in Q4 2021, to 9.2 million.

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Portugal to lose crypto tax haven status as state announces gains duties

Portugal to lose crypto tax haven status as state announces gains duties

Uverejnil používateľ | máj 17, 2022 |

To the chagrin of many Golden Visa seekers, Portuguese Finance Minister Fernando Medina has confirmed that his country will begin taxing cryptocurrency but has not committed to a date.The move to start taxing crypto was seconded by Secretary of State for Tax Affairs António Mendonça Mendes on May 13 according to Sapo, a local news outlet.There is not yet an effective date for the tax to start or a set rate, however. It will be levied on investment gains made from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), the largest crypto by market cap. This would reverse the tax law that was established in 2016 which stated that since crypto is not legal tender, gains cannot be taxed.On Portugal’s plans to tax crypto, a ⬇️,- Finance Minister said crypto would be taxed in a loose statement with few details 3 days ago- Portugals bureaucracy moves hyper slow, legislation like this takes a long time to move, never mind be implemented, IMO 2+ years— Jorge (@nftjorge) May 16, 2022Medina said in a working session at Parliament that his rationale for the tax came about by comparing Portugal to countries that “already have systems” in place. Additionally, Sapo reported that Medina noted that it doesn’t make sense for an asset that creates capital gains to not be taxed. He said:“There cannot be gaps that cause there to be capital gains in relation to the transaction of assets that do not have a tax.”It appears that Medina will not impose a stifling rate of taxation on crypto gains. He explained that it is important to create and implement a system that makes taxation “adequate,” but which does not “end up reducing revenue to zero, which is contrary, in fact, to the objective for which it exists.”At the Parliamentary working session, Mendes said that taxation of cryptocurrency is more complicated than most other assets because “there is no universal definition of cryptocurrencies and crypto assets.” He continued by stating:“We are evaluating what regulations [fit] this matter […] so that we can present not a legislative initiative to appear on the front page of a newspaper, but a legislative initiative that truly serves the country in all its dimensions.”Up until now, Portugal has been seen as a crypto tax haven that offers a permanent residency visa known as the Golden Visa because it grants holders special tax exemptions and a path to citizenship. The Golden Visa program was started as a means of attracting foreign investors. Industry observer Anthony Sassano saw the funny side: All the crypto investors in Portugal right now pic.twitter.com/Fgt1kRHVFg— sassal.eth (@sassal0x) May 16, 2022

Related: Crypto capital gains one of four key areas for Australian Tax OfficeIn February, an emigrant to Portugal praised the western Iberian nation for its adoption rate of crypto among merchants and even suggested Bitcoin could become legal tender there one day in an interview with Cointelegraph. However, he may have much to think about now that the tax law regarding crypto is set to be reversed.

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Square Enix plans to issue tokens and invest heavily in Web3 gaming

Square Enix plans to issue tokens and invest heavily in Web3 gaming

Uverejnil používateľ | máj 16, 2022 |

Gaming giant Square Enix has revealed in its Q1 earnings report that it will expand nonfungible tokens (NFT) into more game products as part of its medium-term business strategy in 2022.Square Enix (SE) is a Japanese game developer with $3 billion in assets under management according to its latest earnings report. The firm owns the Final Fantasy property and sold the Tomb Raider franchise for $300 million on May 3.The report states that the firm piloted NFTs on the Shi-San-Sei Million Arthur game starting in February this year. The success of the pilot program will lead to the second season of the game’s NFTs and will ultimately see the firm pursue broader activities in the NFT and blockchain industries.Among the top priorities of its blockchain domain initiatives, SE plans on establishing regulatory clarity and guidelines for blockchain games, tackling scalability in NFT economies, and considering founding a corporate capital venture unit. The firm also stated that it plans on establishing an overseas entity that will handle “issuing, managing, and investing our own tokens,” suggesting the firm will begin creating an expansive gamingtoken economy.SE has been working with Web3 gaming and Metaverse venture capital firm Animoca Brands to explore its options in the blockchain gaming space. Cooperation between the two firms is expected to grow as SE delves further into the ecosystem. Animoca’s Executive Chairman Yat Siu believes Square Enix’s influence in gaming will only help the firm form a foothold in blockchain gaming. He told Cointelegraph today:“Square Enix has already been talking about the potential of blockchain games for a long time so they get it better than most of the traditional gaming giants out there.”Related: GameFi is showing signs of a mature landscape: ReportThe report puts investments in and monetization of blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud computing as its third objective in its medium-term business strategy. This is in line with CEO Yosuke Matsuda’s expressed intention for his company to become more involved in those technologies in January.The popularity of Web3 and NFT gaming has remained robust throughout 2022 despite a general crypto market downturn. Market tracker DappRader shows that there were 1 million daily active gamers on May 14, nearly the same level as on January 1.However, gamers are not buying as much as they used to as total sales volume for NFT game items has dropped 88% from $70 on January 1 to $8.7 million on May 14.

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Major validator calls for ‘completely new chain’ to replace Terra

Major validator calls for ‘completely new chain’ to replace Terra

Uverejnil používateľ | máj 16, 2022 |

As the dust settles from the Terra ecosystem crash, and the community decides what the next steps should be, the CEO of a validator runner in South Korea thinks the old Terra chain should be shut down permanently.Jiyun Kim, CEO of blockchain solutions company DSRV, wrote an opinion post on his own behalf, detailing how the Terra team tip-toed around the idea of halting block production while LUNA prices crashed and its Terra USD (UST) stablecoin was depegged. He now urges validators in the Terra ecosystem to reject a hard fork in favor of a brand new community-driven blockchain.DSRV runs a validator node on Terra with 9.36% of the on-chain voting power. DSRV has suffered as much as any investor because its node had collected 14 billion LUNA worth about $1 billion in LUNA by May 8, which is now worth about $3 million.Kim wrote that the decision to halt the chain on May 12 was not taken lightly by the Terra Validator League, which was renamed the “Terra Rebirth League”. However, he said the Terra team failed to give the proper notification using the word ‘Confirm’ to actually confirm with all validators that they should halt the chain, which left him feeling “betrayed.” He wrote:“And the announcement that they made [made it sound like] the chain restart was originally the validator’s opinion. YES, they didn’t use the term “Confirm”.”Terra founder Do Kwon proposed reconstituting the chain and resetting token supply to 1 billion LUNA on May 13. Kim appears to completely disagree with Kwon as he wrote in his post that re-using the Terra chain “is completely making Terra chain’s internal value to 0.”“The previous Terra chain should permanently vanish. And a completely new chain driven by the community should [be made to] save the Lunatics.”There may be more to the story as Kim wrote in his post that validator league control has been relinquished to the community, giving a semblance of decentralization, which could potentially protect the Terra team from further legal burdens. He wondered if the project is preparing to deal with imminent legal hurdles by asking “maybe this can be used to mitigate their legal risk?”Related: Binance CEO CZ to support Terra community but expects more transparencyWu Blockchain tweeted on May 14 that a resident of Singapore has already filed suit against Do Kwon for UST and LUNA investors.A user on reddit claimed to have sent a police report have been made against Do Kwon, on behalf of UST and Luna investors. He said at least 1,000 Singapore citizens have invested in Luna and UST. https://t.co/eIQ9AGul4T https://t.co/YzPf8iWHI7— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) May 14, 2022Kim told Cointelegraph on May 16 that he wants to “save the community” but that there is no major coordinator in victim support efforts “because there are still legal issues there.”“I’m not a hero, but I really want to save people.”On May 8, a sell-off of UST tokens sparked a panic, ultimately leading to the price of LUNA to fall from $73 to a minuscule $0.000000999967 on May 13 according to CoinGecko. UST is still catastrophically depegged from the dollar, trading at $0.16 while LUNA is virtually worthless, trading down 30.8% over the last 24 hours at $0.00026619.

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