Weekly Wrap-Up: Binance vs The World, CZ Responds (July 12, 2021)

Market Price as of July 12, 2021:

Bitcoin closed July 11, 2021, at $34,259 per BTC. We’re up 1.04% in the last 7 days and up 8.24% in the last 30 days. This is also 47% below the all-time high of $64,804, which was hit on March 13, 2021.

Bitcoin’s market capitalization stands today at $643,577,759,566 which is 43% of the entire cryptocurrency market. The entire crypto market, by the way, now has a market cap of $1,464,338,017,477 (+1.5%).

On the table above, there’s the cryptocurrency SLP. If you wonder what that is, check out this article: Playing Axie Infinity vs Minimum Basic Salary in the Philippines.

Note: Information presented in this article is for your reference only and must not be construed as financial advice. 

News

Binance vs the world governments

Binance appears more and more in the news lately, with government departments from different countries saying they are looking at the exchange’s operation within their jurisdictions. It appears that some banks are blocking deposits to Binance. In the Philippines, we have heard similar reports, although aside from UnionBank, local banks in general are wary of anything that touches crypto. 

Some of the jurisdictions:

• Thai SEC files criminal complaint against Binance over unregistered operations (The Block)
• Cayman Islands investigating Binance activities in its territory (The Block)
• UK regulator bans Binance Markets Ltd from regulated activities in the country (so not really Binance but  their local counterpart) (CNBC)
• Binance can no longer serve Ontario users (Coindesk)
• Japan: Binance is still operating in the country without registration (Coindesk)
• SG to Follow Up with Binance (Bloomberg)

In wake of these news, Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao, addressed the issues in an article on Binance’s blog, detailing its approach and plans for regulations and development of the industry growing forward. He cited internal policies (no insider trading – no active trading of any asset within 30 days), the SAFU fund, and Binance Academy. CZ also cited its work with law enforcement agencies. “In 2021 so far, we have completed assisting 5,600 investigation requests already, which is 100% more than those in 2020,” CZ said, noting it assisted in the takedown of a cybercrime ring that was responsible for laundering over $500M worth of damages.

CZ then cited the tangible steps it is doing to ensure compliance with governments:

• Growing its international compliance team. The company recently hired Rick McDonell, who is formally the executive secretary of the FInancial Action Task Force (FATF), the global standard-setting body for AML.
• More compliance partnerships. It recently partnered with CipherTrace.
• Localizing operations. Binance.US, CZ emphasized, is a fully independent entity from Binance.com.

Read CZ’s post here.

Local Crypto News

BIR Considers New Policies to Tax the “Digital Economy”

Marissa Cabreros, Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Legal Group said that to effectively tax the digital economy, an appropriate and legal framework must be in place. The Deputy Commissioner also explained that authorities must create policies that are suited to the Philippines, implying that these measures should not be just copies from the policies of other countries.

“The digital economy and the digitalization of the economy gave birth to new type of business entities and new business models that challenge the application of the current provisions of the Tax code, which has been anchored and designed under a ‘brick-and-mortar’ or traditional way of doing business and reporting”, the Deputy Commissioner said. (Read More)

SLP Go Up, AXS Go Up

This should not be filed to local news, but there are a lot of Axie players in the Philippines. SLP is at $0.25 at the time of writing while $AXS went as high as $19 this weekend. 

For more information on Axie, check out the following:

Feature

Comprehensive Axie Infinity Scholarship Guide [English]

Our Axie Infinity Scholarship article is now available in English. We did this since there are a lot of requests for an English version. This will be constantly updated should there be any rule or procedure changes, which Axie Infinity does a lot (and this makes sense because the game is still in beta.)

5 NFT Games with Play-to-Earn Mechanics

Check out 5 NFT games with play-to-earn mechanics. You can play these games where in-game assets can be turned to tokens with value. (Read More)

From the Archive

July 12, 2018: Coins.ph is Testing Ripple (XRP) Integration

In 2018, there were only Bitcoin and Ether on Coins.ph. It was on this day in 2018 when we heard from Colin Goltra, then head of crypto at the local exchange, that they have rolled out XRP integration to a limited number of randomly selected participants. 

Today in 2020, if you update your Coins.ph wallet, chances are you’ll see three new coins added. What are they? Go check the app. We expect an announcement from the Coins.ph team soon.

This article is published on BitPinas: Weekly Wrap-Up: Binance vs the World, CZ Responds (July 12, 2021)

Source: https://bitpinas.com/price-analysis/weekly-wrap-up-monday-markets-binance-vs-world/