The Cryptocurrency Informer

Matt Metras, an Enrolled Agent at MDM Financial Services and overall crypto tax expert, joins the show to talk about the recently added IRS FAQ Question 5. More @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax More Information: IRS Crypto Tax FAQ

Today's episode will cover events happening the week ending December 11th, 2020. This week we'll be discussing a few of the big adoption stories of the week. More information about all of the stories discussed today can be found on Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: (00:23) It shouldn't come as much of a surprise to frequent listeners that large mainstream corporations and businesses are rapidly adopting cryptocurrency, generally by investing into BTC. There are a couple of whales this week, one who is no stranger to Bitcoin and one who has been around for ages, but is just now getting into the world of crypto. The new whale this week is MassMutual, an insurance company that was founded in 1851 and currently serves five million clients. Not only did they invest $100 million into Bitcoin, they also “acquired a $5 million minority equity stake in NYDIG, a subsidiary of Stone Ridge that provides cryptocurrency services to institutions”, according to Bloomberg. The familiar whale this week is MicroStrategy, who has purchased hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of BTC in the past 6 months or so. According to Cointelegraph, “The company currently sits on 40,824 BTC representing over $734 million, which represents a gain of nearly $260 million from the basis acquisition price.”  Earlier in the week, they announced that they were working to raise an additional $537 million dollars to invest in Bitcoin…but today they issued a press release stating that they have surpassed that goal by successfully raising $650 million – which is over 36,000 BTC. This means MicroStrategy will nearly double their BTC coffers, and secures their place as the number 1 publicly traded company investing in Bitcoin, according to the list at Bitcoin Treasuries.  While exciting for advocates of BTC adoption, it's been reported that traditional financial analysts are worried that the company is investing too much in BTC. (02:01) Adoption isn't only infiltrating the financial world this week. In pop culture, a movie about The Silk Road, a notorious marketplace for buying and selling illicit materials, is set to release this coming February. This mainstream recognition could be good or bad for cryptocurrency adoption. If the movie is successful, it will undoubtedly increase mainstream exposure to the world of cryptocurrency. However, illicit activities, which essentially defined The Silk Road, are often conflated with cryptocurrency in general, since purchased on The Silk Road were made with cryptocurrency. (02:33) In music, the popular music and podcast streaming app Spotify may be the next big company to embrace crypto, at least according to a recent job listing. According to FXstreet, “A job offer posted by Spotify recently on Lever, an end-to-end talent acquisition platform, seems to indicate that the giant audio streaming service is looking at potentially enabling cryptocurrency payments.” (03:06) Finally, in the art world, Beeple, a popular contemporary online graphic designer, has gone all in on NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. Beeple, the alias of Mike Winkelmann, is known for his long running daily abstract digital art releases. Beeple first ventured into NFTs by offering his first collection of unique art-based NFTs during the presidential election. Today, and throughout the weekend, Beeple is dropping his second collection, which will include a number of his daily art works, auctioned off in the form of NFTs. Of course, anyone can view his art for free, but as his FAQ states “This for people who are interested in COLLECTING artwork, which is a very different experience. I want people to feel like they can truly own, collect, and display this artwork in a way that feels more exciting and engaging than just viewing a picture on Instagram.” Some of the NFTs also include a physical token that will be shipped to the winning bidder. If you haven't heard of Beeple, I would definitely suggest checking his unique art-style out. Check out this week's BitcoinTaxes episode – we talked to the CEO of BitGive, Connie Gallippi, and cryptocurrency tax pro Matt Metras about how donating crypto can benefit you, help others, and encourage adoption. That's it for this week's episode of The Cryptocurrency Informer. Don't forget – if you want to read more about each of these stories, go to talk.bitcoin.tax and click on The Cryptocurrency Informer link. Every episode is accompanied by a number of relevant links for each story, so you can do your own in-depth research on the topics that interest you. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play Music so you can catch every new episode we release. Have a great weekend everyone – stay safe and stay informed!

Today's episode will cover events happening the week ending December 4th, 2020. This week we'll be talking about Bitcoin's all-time-high, Ethereum 2.0, and some of the tax-related questions people have been having about staking. More Information @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: (00:26) The big news this past week is that Bitcoin hit it's all-time high since December 2017 – or did it? Most people in this space are aware that December 2017 was when Bitcoin first reached it's all time high price. It's when Bitcoin gained a lot more popularity in the mainstream and when a lot more people got into the space. But, if you want to get specific about the exact price, it's actually a bit difficult, as prices vary depending on where the coin was exchanged. Coinmarketcap actually lists the all time high of $20,089.00 on December 17th, 2017. CoinDesk has a graphic showing the all time high of BTC in December 2017 from three major exchanges… and they all have different values. Their own price index, known as the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index, lists the December 2017 all time high as $19,783. So, depending on how you look at it, Bitcoin may or may not have reached and exceeded it's all time high this week. However, much of the community did indeed celebrate on Monday, when Bitcoin reached $19,850, according to CoinDesk. Usually when discussing Bitcoin's ATH, I personally have found it most convenient to say “nearly 20k”. If we are following the CoinDesk pricing model, that holds true. Interestingly, even though Coinmarketcap is still listing the all time high as over 20k back in 2017, they are currently holding a contest to guess when Bitcoin will reach $20,000. (02:01) Next up, let's talk about Ethereum 2.0 – this week, phase 0 occurred, bringing The Beacon Chain into existence. The first major change that the Beacon Chain will bring is the transition from using a Proof of Work consensus to a Proof of Stake consensus, which will effectively replace mining. Proof of stake, like proof of work, is a consensus mechanism. The specific proof of work consensus model that is being used in the Beacon Chain is called Casper. Instead of miners utilizing the energy of their mining rigs to create and validate blocks, ETH 2.0 will utilize validators, who are participants in the network who have at least 32 ETH, to propose and vote on the creation of blocks. A validator is chosen pseudo-randomly or randomly to create or propose a block. Blocks are validated once a specific number of validators have stated that they've seen the block. Validators who propose a block and validators who then confirm they have seen the proposed block, are rewarded ETH for their work, either in terms of network fees or a predetermined network issuance. If a validator is selected and isn't available at the time of selection, they essentially lose a bit of ETH. However, if a validator attempts to act maliciously by attempting to compromise the validity of a block, a mechanism, called slashing, is in place that siphons some or all of their staked ETH and then removes them from the network. This reward/penalty scheme is what fuels the PoS mechanism and (theoretically) lowers the chance of bad actors being involved. You can go to launchpad.ethereum.org to get more details about the process of becoming a validator, and to start staking. (03:42) With the launch of The Beacon Chain many crypto users are asking about the related tax implications. Currently, the two main questions people are asking are “how are my staking rewards taxed” and “will the future ETH to ETH 2 transition be a taxable event”. One of the BitcoinTaxes full-service partners, Andrew Gordon, released a great FAQ about the tax implications of ETH 2.0, which we've linked on our blog talk.bitcoin.tax. This FAQ answers both the aforementioned questions - regarding staking, the FAQ states that “Staking rewards are considered income at the time of receipt and taxed as such. The fair market value in USD at the time of receipt is the amount of income that you report. It is also the cost basis for any future sales… While there is no definitive answer yet, we expect the IRS will take the position…that the staking rewards will be considered “received” when they are given, even if you can't access or control them right away.” Regarding how ETH to ETH2 will be taxed, if at all, Gordon and his team state that “General consensus in the crypto community says that Ethereum 2.0 is completely replacing the original Ethereum. In this case, there is no taxable event to report for the conversion of ETH tokens to ETH 2.0.” However, the FAQ acknowledges that we don't know for sure yet how ETH to ETH2 will occur, nor do we know how the IRS will treat these events until they release some specific guidance. That's it for this week's episode of The Cryptocurrency Informer. Don't forget – if you want to read more about each of these stories, go to talk.bitcoin.tax and click on The Cryptocurrency Informer link. Every episode is accompanied by a number of relevant links for each story, so you can do your own in-depth research on the topics that interest you.

We'll be taking the week off from doing news due to the US Thanksgiving Holiday – I hope you all made the most of your day during this tough year! Over on The BitcoinTaxes Podcast, we interviewed two cryptocurrency-based attorneys, Zach Ziliak and Andrew Gordon, about the current-day infrastructure of BTC and how it differs from 2017, the politics of Bitcoin with a new presidential administration incoming, and we also discussed some really excellent tax planning strategies for crypto holders. In lieu of our normal episode today, we'll be sharing that episode with all our listeners. If you haven't yet subscribed to The BitcoinTaxes Podcast, now is the time! We interview some of the smartest people in cryptocurrency taxation and blockchain technology and ask them the questions that a lot of people want answered! Enjoy the episode and have a great weekend everyone!

Today's episode will cover events happening the week ending November 13th, 2020. This week, Bitcoin Cash is undergoing a hard fork over the weekend, President-Elect's Biden's transition team gains a crypto savvy financial lead, and the first decentralized philanthropy conference is right around the corner! More Info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: (00:29) First up – the seemingly inevitable Bitcoin Cash hard fork is happening this weekend. If you've been following this podcast, or keeping current with all things BCH, you'll know that there's been an ideological split between two implementations of Bitcoin Cash. That ideological split is right on the edge of becoming an actual coin split. For those unfamiliar, Bitcoin Cash is a cryptocurrency that exists as a result of an August 2017 fork from the original Bitcoin. Subsequently, in 2018, BCH was forked into two different versions of the coin; for all intents and purposes, those two resulting coins were known as Bitcoin ABC (Adjustable Blocksize Cap) and Bitcoin SV (Satoshi's Vision). It can be a bit confusing but, as Coinmarketcap says, “Bitcoin ABC became the dominant chain and took over the BCH ticker”. So, as of now, when we discuss the BCH ticker, we are referring to the dominant coin - Bitcoin ABC. Bitcoin SV is referred to as BSV. However, the Bitcoin ABC dominance could be in danger. Back in August, Amaury Séchet, a leading developer of BCH, released a blog post detailing the plan for a November 2020 Bitcoin Cash Network Upgrade. The plan did not sit well with everyone involved in BCH and only one day later, a statement was released by a number of notable miners that they do not accept Sechet's vision for altering the BCH implementation. According to Bitrates.com, “The two factions are divided over a single controversial feature. Bitcoin ABC intends to introduce an Infrastructure Funding Plan (IFP), which will collect 8% of miner rewards and reallocate those funds toward development. BCHN, on the other hand, opposes that plan due to the effect it will have on mining profits.” As a result, a fork of the current BCH blockchain will occur on Sunday, November 15th, resulting in two blockchains – Bitcoin ABC (or BCHABC) and Bitcoin Cash Node. There are a few different possible results of this fork – the commonly held belief, as reported by Bitcoin Magazine, “Currently, Bitcoin Cash Node has much more hash power support than Bitcoin ABC: more than 80 percent … versus less than 1 percent for Bitcoin ABC. Bitcoin Cash Node also appears to have significantly more community support, and large Bitcoin Cash-supporting companies like Coinbase, Kraken and BitGo have also indicated support for Bitcoin Cash Node. It therefore seems likely that (the name) Bitcoin Cash will live on through Bitcoin Cash Node…(It would then probably also receive the “BCH” ticker on most exchanges…)” What does this mean for current BCH holders then? Time will tell what will actually happen – but a 1:1 ratio airdrop is very likely to occur for current BCH holders. One thing is definite - Bitcoin Cash is certainly a coin fraught with conflict, and one that is likely to confuse a lot of crypto newcomers. (03:17) Former Vice President Joe Biden will become the 46th President of the United States. This fact has proven to be quite divisive in the United States. That being said, the President-Elect is already preparing for his transition, and has recently appointed a crypto-savvy and crypto-friendly lead to his financial policy transition team. Gary Gensler, a former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, was formerly named this week – his role will be “…to oversee a team of volunteers focused on banking and markets regulators, such as the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission, as part of an agency review process that occurs with every transition.” according to The Wall Street Journal. Gensler is Senior Advisor to the MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative. He conducts research and teaches on blockchain technology, digital currencies, financial technology, and public policy, according to his MIT biography. Gensler criticized ICOs back in 2018 and warned Congress against the potential  dangers of Facebook's Libra – but is generally viewed as generally pro-crypto, and most certainly viewed as crypto knowledgeable. Interestingly, Bloomberg reports that Gensler could also be up for the role of running the SEC under Biden – that's not confirmed, but it is certainly something to keep an eye in with this incoming administration. (04:29) Finally – this coming Wednesday, November 18th, will be the world's first Decentralized Philanthropy Conference – aptly named the De-Phi Crytpo For Good Conference. The conference will “highlight the people, projects, and organizations who are genuinely and actively leveraging bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and blockchain technology to help others and improve our world” according to BitGive, who are organizing the conference. If you aren't familiar with BitGive, check out the interviews (1,2) we've done with their CEO Connie Gallippi over on The BitcoinTaxes Podcast. They were the first Bitcoin non-profit and their company is all in on utilizing cryptocurrency for the betterment of society. The conference itself will take place virtually, and is completely free to register and be a part of. We've got a link to the registration page on talk.bitcoin.tax, or you can go to bitgivefoundation.org to find out more details. The event will cover Decentralized and Digital Philanthropy, Cryptocurrency Across Borders, Leveraging Crypto for Good, and the current and potential social impact of blockchain technology. You can find a list of keynote speakers and other event details by heading over to the conference website. If you either love crypto, want to encourage crypto adoption, or have a passion to help others (or all of the above) don't sleep on this conference. That's it for this week's episode of The Cryptocurrency Informer. Don't forget – if you want to read more about each of these stories, go to talk.bitcoin.tax and click on The Cryptocurrency Informer link. Every episode is accompanied by a number of relevant links for each story, so you can do your own in-depth research on the topics that interest you. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play Music so you can catch every new episode we release. Have a great weekend everyone – stay safe and stay informed!

Today's episode will cover events happening the week ending November 6th, 2020. This week has been quite intense, from a US political perspective! If you are an American, or follow American politics, you know that this week has been the US Presidential Election – and one of the most nail-biting ones at that. Big things are happening in the world of crypto as well. Namely the price of BTC is absolutely skyrocketing. Are these two events connected? Let's find out! More Information @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: (00:37) The big story this week isn't (exactly) crypto related, but is too big to ignore on this week's episode. The United States is currently in the midst of a presidential election, and it's certainly been one to remember. As of recording, the fate of the election hinges on four states: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Nevada – all four states that the former Vice President Joe Biden currently has a lead in. It seems as though the writing is on the wall – it's very likely that Joe Biden will become the next President of the United States. So, how does this relate to cryptocurrency? Of course, neither Biden nor Trump included any type of cryptocurrency related issue in their presidential platform. Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen discussed her admiration for Bitcoin, but it wasn't a part of her platform either. Cryptocurrency is more and more becoming mainstream, but it's not at that point yet…unfortunately. The only democratic candidate that mentioned cryptocurrency during the primary elections was Andrew Yang. However, with mainstream adoption continuing at its current rapid pace, we are likely to see an intersection between politics and cryptocurrency sooner than later. (01:32) There are a few notable ways we can link this election cycle and crypto/blockchain. A number of Senate seats are up for grabs in this election, and some of those senators have either a cryptocurrency related past, or are actively involved in shaping crypto and blockchain related legislation. GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler, for example – is the former CEO of the crypto exchange Bakkt. Her involvement with cryptocurrency is undeniable, but her time in Congress has yielded zero actual legislation or even mention of crypto. Coindesk has a great extensive list of all of the current Senate and House races involving candidates with some sort of cryptocurrency or blockchain relation, so be sure to check that out if you are interested. Some of these candidates are pro-crypto and blockchain while some could be considered anti-crypto and blockchain – realistically though, the majority of these politicians probably don't know a ton about the world of crypto. (02:31) The next way we can link this election discussion to cryptocurrency is the discussion of utilizing blockchain technology to vote. Realistically, any type of widespread implementation of this is a long way away – however, there are certainly proponents of it, and those proponents are using this point in history to make their voices heard. That's primarily because this election had a record number of mail-in ballots due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic – those mail in ballots have proven to take an increasingly long time to count. Of course, in such a big election, this delay has put many on both sides of the isle on edge. Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss said on Twitter “The technology and cryptography exists to allow us all to vote online in a fraud-proof manner. We could all know the outcome instantly and w/ mathematical certainty. Yet voting entails paper ballot & requires in person or snail mail casting. It's as if the Internet doesn't exist.” Cointelegraph reports that “Binance's chief executive Changpeng Zhao or CZ and Ethereum's co-founder Vitalik Buterin are in furious agreement that a new blockchain-based voting system is required to improve democratic processes in the United States.” Of course, any advocate for crypto and blockchain adoption would want to see these great technologies utilized to replace a fairly antiquated process – but how realistic is it? Are these vocal advocates letting their love of the technology get in the way of logic? Is the hype real? It is certainly a worthy discussion to have, but that deep dive is out of the realm of today's episode. However, it's important to be realistic – let's listen to cryptographic experts and cyber security experts before we ascribe blockchain to be the savior of modern-day voting. (04:07) Finally, it can't be ignored that during this election, BTC is absolutely skyrocketing in price. In the beginning of October, Bitcoin was around $10,500. At the beginning of November, Bitcoin was around $13,800. As of recording, Bitcoin is a bit over $15,500 – and had briefly come close to hitting $16,000 earlier in the day. So, is this excellent spike related to the US election? It's tough to pin down any direct evidence indicating these two things are related, but typically large national or global events play a role in the rise and fall of assets like Bitcoin. Right now, Dow Jones, Nasdaq, and the S&P 500 are all doing well. It's a bit strange that a time of political turmoil yields positive returns for all of the aforementioned asset classes, including Bitcoin, but the proof is clearly there. As most of us in the space know, Bitcoin was famously at its peak in December of 2017 – it hit almost $20,000 per Bitcoin. That rise brought a whole new group of users, investors, businesses, and overall hype into the space. It seems like most of us in this space are hoping that Bitcoin performs even better come December 2020 – and if it does, we may see a whole new wave of people joining the space. --- That's it for this week's episode of The Cryptocurrency Informer. Don't forget – if you want to read more about each of these stories, go to talk.bitcoin.tax and click on The Cryptocurrency Informer link. Every episode is accompanied by a number of relevant links for each story, so you can do your own in-depth research on the topics that interest you. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play Music so you can catch every new episode we release. Have a great weekend everyone – stay safe and stay informed!

This week, MicroStrategy is swimming in gains, Iran is embracing cryptocurrency in the face of sanctions, and PayPal's cryptocurrency service has already rolled out to some users. More Info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: (00:27) As you probably have heard if you are a frequent listener of this podcast, many companies are investing in Bitcoin in a big way. Back in August, the largest independent publicly-traded business intelligence company Microstrategy purchased 21,454 BTC at an aggregate purchase price of $250 million dollars. Shortly after the initial investment, they purchased an additional $175 million dollars' worth  of BTC. These purchases were stated to be part of a capital allocation strategy to invest in alternate investments or assets to maximize long-term value for shareholders. With the recent price increase of BTC, which is currently floating around $13,500, their strategy is already paying off. Coinfomania reports that “MicroStrategy's 38,250 BTC haul acquired at an average price of $11,111.11 is now worth $525.5 million. That represents a $100 million gain within the space of two months.” That's a lot of profits - so much profit, in fact, that it reportedly dwarfed three and a half years of earnings for the company. Of course, crypto can be volatile, which any investor of this size understands – but the amount of gains in such a short period of time is certainly going to be attracting other large companies to invest in a similar fashion. (1:42) Companies aren't the only entity investing in cryptocurrency, as we have seen with many countries and talks of centralized currencies throughout the world. Iran, a country currently hit with heavy US sanctions, has recently amended legislation that would allow cryptocurrencies to fund imports. Last year, Iran legalized cryptocurrency mining, but prohibited cryptocurrency trading. According to a Decrypt report, “The edict, put forth by the Ministry of Energy and Central Bank of Iran (CBI), requires the country's legally registered cryptocurrency miners to sell the tokens they mine to CBI. However, the country has yet to announce the rates at which it will compensate miners.” There are certainly political implications here, which may or may not overshadow the role this plays in global cryptocurrency adoption. Something like this will almost inevitably play a role in how the rest of the world embraces, treats, and legislates cryptocurrency. (02:32) Finally, an update to last week's story about PayPal getting involved in cryptocurrency services. If you missed it, last week PayPal revealed that they would let users buy, sell, and use crypto for purchases. PayPal stated that the services would be rolling out soon, and there have already been reports of users buying multiple cryptocurrencies through PayPal. A Reddit user posted a screenshot showing off the mobile interface, exclaiming that the process was “1000x easier than any other crypto purchase I've made and with zero fees”. The user has some Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum in his account. Reportedly, users who signed up for early access are able to utilize the PayPal crypto services starting today, although it's certainly not yet been made available to all users. Regarding the fee structure, it looks like the no-fee buying and selling is temporary, as PayPal's own fee page lists a flat rate of .50 USD for any sale or purchase under $24.99, and then a percentage based fee between 1.5% and 2.3% for amounts above $25. As discussed in the original story, the reception to PayPal getting into the crypto game has been consistently mixed. Many see it as a huge step for adoption, while others see it an impediment to cryptocurrency users actually owning their own crypto. Certainly, it's possible to view it both ways – as with most things in life, not everything should be viewed as simply black or white, good or bad. That's it for this week's episode of The Cryptocurrency Informer. Don't forget – if you want to read more about each of these stories, go to talk.bitcoin.tax and click on The Cryptocurrency Informer link. Every episode is accompanied by a number of relevant links for each story, so you can do your own in-depth research on the topics that interest you. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play Music so you can catch every new episode we release. Have a Happy Halloween, don't forget to vote if you are a US citizen, stay safe and stay informed!

This week, PayPal announces what we all expected, Binance Jersey swims with the fishes, Kraken re-opens in Japan, and Reddit Moons get legitimized. More Information @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: (00:25) The big, and not very surprising, news of the week has to do with PayPal. The payment processing giant has finally unveiled its plan to let users buy, sell, and use crypto for purchases – and it's going to be rolling out quite soon. According to Reuters, and plenty of other news sources, PayPal “will allow customers to hold bitcoin and other virtual coins in its online wallet and shop using cryptocurrencies at the 26 million merchants on its network.” The ability to buy and sell crypto, will apparently be rolling out within the next few weeks. As for using crypto as a payment, that will be happening early 2021. Following that, PayPal will expand these services to Venmo. This of course, is a huge deal for mainstream crypto adoption. PayPal reported 346 million active users in the 2nd quarter of 2020 and Venmo reportedly has over 50 million users. (01:15) Now, as with any development in crypto, there is indeed some negative feedback surrounding this announcement – and perhaps, the negativity is justified. As of now, it seems as though PayPal users will have little control over their crypto…so no transferring the crypto in or out of your PayPal wallet. Of course, in the world of crypto, this is a very dishonorable move. The classic crypto traditionalist saying is “not your keys, not your coins”, which refers to the private keys that give someone true ownership of their cryptocurrency. However, one could argue that perfection is the enemy of progress here – less tech savvy people are going to have access to cryptocurrency now more than ever, and private key encryption can be a tough concept to grasp for complete beginners. Perhaps though the backlash against the inability to truly own the crypto you buy on PayPal will be loud enough to eventually change PayPal's approach. Or, perhaps any crypto beginner who joins the world of crypto via the PayPal on-ramp will, over time, learn more about cryptocurrency, including the importance of owning your own crypto. Either way, it's impossible to argue against the effect that this level of mainstream adoption will have on the cryptocurrency ecosystem, which has been thriving for quite some time. (02:18) Next up, Binance Jersey. For our Americentric listeners, no…Binance Jersey is NOT a Binance that is only for residents of New Jersey. Binance Jersey was created to expand Binances presence in Europe, and “currently provides secure and reliable trading of Pounds Sterling (GBP) and Euros (EUR) with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), in addition to asset management services to users.” However, this week Binance announced that Binance Jersey will soon be a short-lived memory. According to an announcement from Binance Jersey earlier this week, the UK tax haven-based exchange will be closing deposits on October 30th, closing trading services on November 9th, and then completely shutting down on November 30th. Binance claims this shutdown is occurring because the services offered through Binance Jersey are now available on Binance, but according to CoinTelegraph, “the exchange aimed to make Binance Jersey a “major driving force” in European markets, the statistics show that it fell short of its goals”. (03:14) As one exchange closes, another re-opens. Kraken, a popular US-based exchange, has resumed trading in Japan after 2 years of being closed down. Japan is one of the largest markets for cryptocurrency trading, and Kraken had shut down their services back in 2018 due to the cost of maintaining business. On Thursday, Kraken announced they are resuming services for Japanese residents, including spot trading for BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, and LTC. (03:39) Finally, some potentially good news for Redditors. The cryptocurrency that is gained for posting quality content, or being a bot that spams not-so-quality content, on the subreddit /r/Cryptocurrency has been officially listed on the price aggregator websites Coinmarketcap and CoingGecko. For those unfamiliar, the coin symbol is Moons, and they are currently trading at around $.06 a moon as of recording, although they only have one market currently – Honeyswap. There are some guides on the subreddit that explain how to trade your moons right now, as they aren't yet a crypto that are on all the major exchanges. Will they eventually be? Perhaps, but there would likely need to be some major overhauls to how moons are credited on Reddit to avoid the aforementioned bot spam to harvest those sweet moons. — That's it for this week's episode of The Cryptocurrency Informer. Don't forget – if you want to read more about each of these stories, go to talk.bitcoin.tax and click on The Cryptocurrency Informer link. Every episode is accompanied by a number of relevant links for each story, so you can do your own in-depth research on the topics that interest you. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play Music so you can catch every new episode we release.

This week, OKEx is having a bad day, and a decentralized file distribution token hits the market. More info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: (00:25) As most of us in the crypto space can attest to, exchanges are a dime a dozen. There are some, like Coinbase (Pro) and Binance, that most people in the space of heard of and/or used. There are others that never quite penetrated the mainstream crypto audience like the aforementioned exchanges. OKEx, although perhaps not a household name in the United States, certainly ranks up there with some of the aforementioned exchange giants. On CoinMarketCap, OKEx is listed as the 11th exchange, based on traffic, liquidity, and trading volumes – not to mention,  they are the self-proclaimed world's largest futures trading platform. Plus, they are one of the largest exchanges in China. All that to say that OKEx has certainly earned it's position as one of the giants in the world of cryptocurrency exchanges. As the cliché goes though, the bigger they are, the harder they fall – and it certainly seems like OKEx is falling pretty hard today. (01:14) Two big events occurred for OKEx today – all withdrawals were suspended, and the founder of the exchange, Mingxing Xu, was reportedly arrested. OKEx is understandably attempting to save some face and act like everything is alright. According to a press release from OKEx: “As of 3:00 am UTC today, Oct. 16, OKEx has suspended digital asset withdrawals temporarily. We would like to assure users that the security of funds on OKEx has not been affected. Additionally, all other operations on OKEx are functioning normally.” This news obviously doesn't bode well for any OKEx users that have coins currently held on the exchange. (01:50) Regarding the alleged arrest, Cointelegraph reports “OKEx founder Mingxing Xu, also known as Star Xu, has reportedly been questioned by the police, Chinese news agency Caixin reported today. According to the report, the executive was investigated “at least a week ago” and has also been absent from work for some time.” There are reports that the arrest and the suspension of withdrawals are not directly related, but the timing certainly seems to indicate otherwise. Hopefully this will get sorted soon, but it's one more in a long list of exchanges currently being accused of illicit behaviors. (02:23) There's been a lot of hype this week about FIL, aka Filecoin. Filecoin is an ICO from a few years back that raised over $200 million dollars – however, this week, the coin has gone live. Filecoin calls itself the “decentralized cloud” with a superior network and a dynamic distributed storage network for data, Coindesk says “The new token is very likely to make history as the fastest newly live blockchain to reach a market capitalization of over $1 billion”, and Shapeshift CEO Erik Voorhees says “this is easily one of the most professionally built, carefully-executed, and *valuable* projects that has emerged from the ICO era.” (03:00) A good amount of hype, and it's certainly interesting to see the launch of an ICO that wasn't actually some sort of scam. So, aside from buzzwords, what exactly is Filecoin and what does it do? According to the Filecoin documentation: “Filecoin is a peer-to-peer network that stores files, with built-in economic incentives to ensure files are stored reliably over time. Users pay to store their files on storage miners. Storage miners are computers responsible for storing files and proving they have stored the files correctly over time. Anyone who wants to store their files or get paid for storing other users' files can join Filecoin. Available storage, and the price of that storage, is not controlled by any single company. Instead, Filecoin facilitates open markets for storing and retrieving files that anyone can participate in.” The Filecoin blockchain has a native crypto, FIL, and the storage miners are paid FIL to store user data. With the launch, a number of exchanges have listed FIL – however, as of recording, we aren't seeing a huge spike in price like we saw with the recent UNI token. In fact, the coin seems to be slowly dipping – although, that's no indication of the overall success of the blockchain, or even the coin itself, given how early it is. — That's it for this week's episode of The Cryptocurrency Informer. For all the tax pro listeners, congratulations on finishing the extended tax season! Don't forget – if you want to read more about each of these stories, go to talk.bitcoin.tax and click on The Cryptocurrency Informer link. Every episode is accompanied by a number of relevant links for each story, so you can do your own in-depth research on the topics that interest you. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play Music so you can catch every new episode we release.

This week, Square Invests $50 million into Bitcoin, Coinbase is losing employees because they don't want to get political, and the extended tax deadline is less than a week away! More @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: (00:28)  On Wednesday this week, Square Inc purchased 50 million dollars worth of Bitcoin, or around 4709 BTC. For those unfamiliar, Square is the company started by Jack Dorsey, who is also the CEO of Twitter. Square is responsible for a number of financial products and services, including Cash App. Dorsey is a vocal advocate of cryptocurrency, which Wednesday's gigantic purchase of Bitcoin is certainly illustrative of. On Twitter, Dorsey said “More important than Square investing $50mm in Bitcoin is sharing how we did it (so others can do the same)… And FAR more important than that is us investing directly in open source development, opening access to patents with COPA, and making bitcoin more accessible and useful to millions of people with Cash App.” Square INC released a whitepaper to provide details about HOW and WHY they purchased the $50 million in Bitcoin: “Treasury purchased the bitcoin over-the-counter with a bitcoin liquidity provider that we currently use as part of Cash App's bitcoin trading product” The whitepaper states that the Bitcoin is held in their proprietary cold storage aptly named “SubZero”, which is also used to protect the Bitcoin of CashApp users, and protected by “a Crime insurance policy to protect against internal or external theft of bitcoin both in hot wallet and cold storage.” As for why the company decided to invest in Bitcoin: “We view bitcoin as an instrument of global economic empowerment; it is a way for individuals around the world to participate in a global monetary system and secure their own financial future.” Opinions of this investment are generally pretty positive – most people in the crypto space concede this is a good move for the future of crypto. More and more companies are investing in crypto in a big way – see the Microstrategy investments in August, for example. Of course, there are those outside the space that can spin even news like this into something negative. Some critics asked why news of such an investment, or the investment itself, hasn't pushed the price of BTC up much higher. However, as of recording, Bitcoin has indeed broken $11,000 and seems to be holding. (02:30) It's fairly difficult to not mix politics and cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency itself has political and philosophical attributes built it – namely, decentralization. This week saw Coinbase taking a hit for attempting to stay apolitical during one of the most politically charged years in modern times. For some backstory, near the end of September of this year, the CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, released a blog post essentially stating that Coinbase doesn't want it's employees getting political because it can cause trouble to their team dynamic. The blog post is linked in our summary at talk.bitcoin.tax, but here are a couple sentences from the article, summarizing Armstrong's stance: Referring to societal issues and social activism, Armonstrong stated that “We don't engage here when issues are unrelated to our core mission, because we believe impact only comes with focus…they have the potential to destroy a lot of value at most companies, both by being a distraction, and by creating internal division.” In the post, Armstrong concedes that this may not be a popular stance, and he understands that many could disagree with him. It's certainly a bold stance, and one that does seem in opposition to the stance many companies have taken in 2020. Clearly, a good chunk of his employees were not on board with this approach – in a follow up blog post released yesterday, Armstrong said that about 5% of Coinbase employees have left the company as a result of the apolitical stance, and a number of other employees are in talk to depart as well. Interestingly, Armstrong highlights that underrepresented populations employed at Coinbase do not represent the bulk of employees leaving the company, and that Coinbase will “continue to keep a close eye on this to ensure we are building a diverse, inclusive environment where everyone feels they belong”. Despite losing a decent amount of employees, including the VP of business and data Dan Yoo, Brian Armstrong seems to be doubling down on his position: “While having team members leave is never easy, I think we will emerge as a more aligned company from this. From time to time we need to rearticulate and clarify our cultural norms as we continue scaling. I'm excited to be moving forward as #OneCoinbase to pursue our vision of economic freedom for every person and business.” Coinbase is certainly a giant in terms of exchanges, but they do receive a decent amount of criticism from those in the crypto community who prefer to hold their own cryptocurrency. It's doubtful that this added controversy will lead to their ultimate decline, but it's certainly a bold move in today's climate. Is it the right move? Of course, that depends on who you ask, and the context of that question – is it a good move in terms of morals, ethics, or even optics? Is it a good move for the bottom line of the company? Keeping in line with Brian Armstrong's apolitical vision, I'll withhold judgement either way! (05:11) Finally – a quick reminder…the extended tax deadline is rapidly approaching! That means that if you filed an extension, you have until October 15th to file your taxes. Bitcoin.Tax is available for you to calculate your cryptocurrency capital gains – and if you are feeling particularly overwhelmed, you can sign up for the Bitcoin.Tax full-service option, where one of our professionals will do it all for you. If you've already filed your 2019 taxes, you can still utilize Bitcoin.Tax to start working on your 2020 taxes early. Enter in all of your trading data and view the capital gains and losses you've made throughout the year. Link all of your data and tax years together to get the ultimate picture of your cryptocurrency gains. Sign up for free now for the leading cryptocurrency tax software! — That's it for this week's episode of The Cryptocurrency Informer. Don't forget – if you want to read more about each of these stories, go to talk.bitcoin.tax and click on The Cryptocurrency Informer link. Every episode is accompanied by a number of relevant links for each story, so you can do your own in-depth research on the topics that interest you. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play Music so you can catch every new episode we release. Have a great weekend everyone – stay informed and stay safe!

This week, USPS is getting into blockchain technology, PayPal is reportedly getting ready to embrace cryptocurrency, more details emerge about Twitter's decentralized platform, and the Bitcoin Cash fork looks increasingly likely. More @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: (00:33) First up, USPS. The United States Postal Service has been in the news for a number of months, given all of the controversy surrounding mail-in voting during the pandemic. COVID-19 has certainly been a royal pain for us all, but it has also made many realize the need for improved systems in our country. One of those systems is voting, and the United States Postal Service is hoping that blockchain technology can help to evolve the voting process. According to Forbes, “USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) published a patent application filed by the USPS. The patent claims that a combination of the security of the blockchain and the mail service provides a reliable voting system. A registered voter receives a QR code by mail. A separation of voter identification and votes to ensure voter anonymity is the principal feature of the solution. The votes are stored on a blockchain attested by election officials.” There has been news of the USPS embracing blockchain technology in the past few months, but this is the first official look into how the technology would integrate with voting. Of course, the integration needs to be tested and perfected, and certainly won't be available for the upcoming election – but this election, paired with COVID, most definitely lit a fire under USPS to get this moving. (01:43) PayPal, a company synonymous with online payments, has been a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to cryptocurrencies. However, this week saw reports that indicate PayPal is close to getting with the times, so to speak, when it comes to cryptocurrency. The Daily Hodl quotes Sandi Bragar, a managing director at the investment management firm Aspiriant: “We also like that PayPal is working with merchants to bring crypto into the fold, and we think that's going to be really important as more of the cryptocurrencies become more mainstream in the years ahead.” In addition, The Motley Fool states that “During its second-quarter earnings call in late July, PayPal CFO John Rainey shared plans to invest an additional $300 million in new products and improvements in the second half of the year…PayPal is also working on several other online payment services, including more ways for consumers to use PayPal online at more merchants [and] the ability to pay in different ways (e.g., credit card rewards, digital currency)…” At this point, it seems like it is only a matter of time before we see some sort of interesting new cryptocurrency integration in the PayPal ecosystem – the success of similar payment services' cryptocurrency integration, like CashApp, have more than likely made it pretty clear to PayPal that it's foolish to ignore the behemoth that is cryptocurrency. (02:58) Social media platform giants like Facebook and Twitter understand the importance of blockchain technology. Facebook has it's Libra Project – which, admittedly, hasn't has a ton of positive press since it's announcement – and, Twitter has the mysterious Blue Sky. Decrypt reports that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey released some new information about Blue Sky this week – at of all places, a Human Right's Foundation Forum. Here are some select quotes about the project from Dorsey: “This is a completely separate nonprofit from [Twitter]…this group will be tasked with building a protocol that we can use, but everyone else can use. And then we'll really focus on becoming a client of it, so that we can build a compelling service and business on top of a much larger corpus of conversation that anyone can access and anyone can contribute to.” “Blockchain and Bitcoin point to a future, point to a world where content exists forever—where it's permanent, where it doesn't go away, where it exists forever on every single node that's connected to it. What that means is the job of content hosting goes away.” “We need to enable people to contribute to a public blockchain, and we need to enable people to be able to pull and see from that public blockchain as well. If we're able to do that, it's something that is really powerful, and something that I think speaks back to the power and the original intent of what the internet could be.” Clearly, there is a lot of passion from Jack Dorsey about blockchain technology. From his quotes, it appears as though Dorsey sees the initial implementation of blockchain tech to be somewhat smaller, until the tech is developed enough for Twitter to integrate with it. After that, it appears that Dorsey is hoping that blockchain technology will help morph Twitter into something less toxic and more useful – “He said that it will, in a way, help Twitter return to the early spirit of the service, when it felt more like a “movement” and things were simpler.” (04:44) Finally, a quick piece of BCH related news. As we reported many weeks ago, a rift exists between BCH developers, and it has certainly not dissipated. In fact, Cointelegraph reports that “On September 24, crypto asset exchange CoinEx launched futures markets for Bitcoin ABC (BCHA) and BCHN, demonstrating the community's expectation that a chain split will occur come November.” And in terms of which coin is winning in terms of dominance? According to the article, “BCHN appears to be ahead on multiple fronts. More than 700 of the Bitcoin Cash network's 1,262 nodes support BCHN. That compares to just 516 running Bitcoin ABC — the historically dominant implementation of BCH that is spearheaded by core developer Amaury Sechet.” By these accounts, it looks like folks should start to prepare for some potential extra income coming in from the fork – although how much income depends entirely on how well the coin performs after the split occurs. That's it for this week's episode of The Cryptocurrency Informer. Don't forget – if you want to read more about each of these stories, go to talk.bitcoin.tax and click on The Cryptocurrency Informer link. Every episode is accompanied by a number of relevant links for each story, so you can do your own in-depth research on the topics that interest you. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play Music so you can catch every new episode we release. Don't forget to sign up for Bitcoin.Tax for all of your cryptocurrency capital gain calculations! You've still got time before the extended deadline, and our software makes cryptocurrency taxes a whole lot more manageable. Have a great weekend everyone – stay informed and stay safe!

Today's episode will cover events happening the week ending September 11th, 2020. This week we'll be talking about DeFi: An explanation of DeFi and a couple of compelling DeFi -related stories of the week, including a protocol bug that made a minimum wage worker a lot richer, and a major exchange ‘s attempt to compete with yield farming. More @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: (00:27) This week we'll be talking about DeFi: An explanation of DeFi and a couple of compelling DeFi -related stories of the week, including a protocol bug that made a minimum wage worker a lot richer, and a major exchange ‘s attempt to compete with yield farming. DeFi, or decentralized finance, is all the hype lately. The concept of decentralized finance is really at the core of cryptocurrency itself, but as traditional cryptocurrencies and blockchains became more adopted by the mainstream, they also became more regulated and centralized. This is arguably the nature of adoption – and by arguably, you can be sure there are crypto enthusiasts who will die on the hill of anti-centralization in cryptocurrency. So what is DeFi? Here's a TLDR courtesy of a Coinbase blog post – and yes, the irony of utilizing a centralized exchange to explain decentralized finance is not lost here: “Cryptocurrency's promise is to make money and payments universally accessible– to anyone, no matter where they are in the world. (DeFi)…takes that promise a step further. Imagine a global, open alternative to every financial service you use today — savings, loans, trading, insurance and more — accessible to anyone in the world with a smartphone and internet connection.” By using Decentralized Apps, aka “DAPPS” aka “D-apps”, smart contracts can be formed to essentially remove the centralized middlemen and custodians that are a part of traditional finance and traditional cryptocurrency exchange platforms. “At their core, the operations of these businesses are not managed by an institution and its employees — instead the rules are written in [smart contracts]. Once the smart contract is deployed to the blockchain, DeFi dapps can run themselves with little to no human intervention…The code is transparent on the blockchain for anyone to audit…Dapps are designed to be global from day one…anyone can create DeFi apps, and anyone can use them. Unlike finance today, there are no gatekeepers or accounts with lengthy forms.” DeFi, then, clearly is a response to a traditional financial system that is notoriously exclusionary. It speaks to the core nature of cryptocurrency, which in its relatively short existence, has become more centralized, and arguably, more exclusionary. KYC, or “Know Your Customer”, an anti-money laundering implementation, for example, is the norm with centralized exchanges, whereas traditional DeFi and Dapps aren't typically beholden to this implementation. However, as with traditional crypto, as DeFi rapidly becomes more and more mainstream, we will likely see an increase of regulations. As an illustration of this point, Huobi, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has recently launched a crypto savings product to compete with the increasingly popular, and somewhat controversial, DeFi act of Yield Farming – according to Coindesk: “Despite lucrative returns from yield farming, white-hot DeFi has been criticized for potential security risks as more investors are putting money into unaudited smart contracts controlled by sometimes unknown founders. Nonetheless, the Seychelles-based crypto exchange did not hide its eagerness to participate in the DeFi world. Just on Aug. 23, Huobi launched a new token listing platform Huobi Inno Hub for DeFi tokens trading.” This brings to light the other end of the DeFi double edged sword, so to speak. The lack of centralization, lack of custodian, and ease of entry allows anyone to participate, create applications, create cryptocurrencies, etc. This also means that protocols can be bugged, scams can occur, and people can lose a lot of money fast if they don't do their due diligence. For example, this week “An anonymous user managed to net a profit of $250k from a $200 outlay, due to a flaw in a DeFi protocol clone's rebase code.”, according to CoinTelegraph. Certainly a bug that no one on the receiving end of would be too disappointed with! These aren't criticisms of the technology, nor are they specific to only DeFi – scams and mistakes happen in traditional finance as well. Generally, though, in traditional finance, it's a lot easier to recover from – due to the existence of a centralized custodial force. For example, if someone steals my banking information, or if I buy some scam product, I can expect that my bank will amend the situation for me. Or, in the case of a mistaken windfall of wealth…a “bank error in your favor”…you can be sure that will be quickly rectified in traditional finance. In DeFi, no one is there to amend the situation for you – if you get scammed you get scammed, if a bug in the smart contract code gives you a windfall of wealth, no one is going to take it from you. That's why the DeFi community encourages that people understand what they are doing before they get too heavily involved in something potentially volatile or risky financially. Of course, DeFi is still in the early days. Crypto and blockchain tech in general are in their early days still, so DeFi is really in its infancy. We can expect to see a lot of early adopters of DeFI making a lot of money, and we'll likely see a lot of people lose money as well. Dapps and smart contracts are certainly a powerful, adaptive, and necessary technology in this space – and they will undoubtedly change the financial landscape. As with cryptocurrency in general though, there are a far range of opinions on whether DeFi will be a net positive or a net negative for the worlds of crypto, blockchain, and finances. Personally – I'll skew toward the positive side of things – but if you want to form an educated opinion of your own, check out some of the links included in today's episode! That's it for this week's episode of The Cryptocurrency Informer. Don't forget – if you want to read more about each of these stories, go to talk.bitcoin.tax and click on The Cryptocurrency Informer link. Every episode is accompanied by a number of relevant links for each story, so you can do your own in-depth research on the topics that interest you. Also, check out the interview we released this week with Trekk! Trekk shares his experience as a consultant and a consumer in the world of cryptocurrency – how psychology plays a role in increasing cryptocurrency adoption, and how over-marketing to early adopters can alienate them. Plus – what it means to be a “pro” in the world of crypto! And early next week, we'll be releasing a special round-table episode of The BitcoinTaxes Podcast where we'll be talking to Alex Kugelman and Matt Metras, two cryptocurrency tax pros, about some of the recent on goings in the crypto tax space – including an update on the second round of IRS educational letters being sent out to many crypto traders. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play Music so you can catch every new episode we release. Have a great weekend everyone – stay informed and stay safe!

Trekk, a writer, public speaker, podcast host, storyteller, and head of Trekk Smart consulting, joins the show. Trekk shares his experience as a consultant and a consumer in the world of cryptocurrency – how psychology plays a role in increasing cryptocurrency adoption, and how over-marketing to early adopters can alienate them. Plus – what it means to be a “pro” in the world of crypto! More @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Highlights (06:47): Bitcoin Education Then vs Now (08:56): A Higher Education in Crypto (15:16): The Evolution of Cryptocurrency Marketing (22:51): Psychology, Freud, and Bitcoin (40:13): Marketing Principles (48:00): Branding and Building Trust

Today's episode will cover events happening the week ending September 4th, 2020. This week…Bitcoin saw a beautiful rise and an awful fall, and the IRS wants a piece of your microtask crypto income. More @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: (00:27) If you are a Bitcoin trader or investor, you probably don't need us to remind you that Bitcoin has had quite a rough week. Technically, the later half of the week, including today. According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin rallied earlier in the week, reaching over $12,000 on September 1st – we also saw Bitcoin briefly bounce past $12,000 a few times in August, and it certainly seemed to indicate that the moon was in sight. However, Thursday and Friday brought some dreadful dips in the price of Bitcoin – dropping under $10,000 on Friday, but currently holding steady around $10,400. On today's episode, we're going to do something a little bit different. We'll be assessing a number of different explanations as to why Bitcoin is experiencing these intense fluctuations – of course, volatility and cryptocurrency trading are no strangers, but what exactly is at play this week according to the experts? First, let's start with a broad prediction from the September 2020 edition of Bloomberg's Crypto Outlook newsletter that was released on Wednesday, likely bit prior to the big dip of the week occurring: “Bitcoin appears as a resting bull market on the back of gold, in our view. Limited supply vs. increasing demand is the bottom-line for Bitcoin, with macroeconomic underpinnings that support its march toward the market cap of gold, at a price of $500,000 by some estimates. Or it could fail. Declining volatility – notably vs. equities and gold — indicate Bitcoin is gaining an upper hand.” Quite an all or nothing mentality, highly skewed in favor of Bitcoin's success, from one of the leading names in traditional finance. Addressing the beginning of the Bitcoin price drop midweek, Bloomberg released an article stating that “A strong dollar tends to dent appetite for the cryptocurrency and there are signs its popularity is fading among retail investors”, but went on to say that “long-time advocates point to increasing demand from institutional investors” and “…if the greenback softens over 5% it could be the catalyst to help Bitcoin breach that threshold again, if its fundamentals improve.” On Thursday, the crypto news outlet Cointelegraph lumped the BTC drop in with the price drop of the S&P 500 index, as well as gold. For reference, the price of gold fell over 1% on Thursday, and the S&P 500 fell 1.9% on Friday. Echoing this theory of correlation, the In Bitcoin We Trust newsletter states “Over short periods, correlations can indeed be found with the S&P 500. Over the long term, it is much less obvious. We can also say that these two markets fell sharply at the same time yesterday, because they responded to common causes, without implying a strong correlation.” The newsletter also echoes the aforementioned, and commonly held belief that the strength of the US dollar is correlated with the price of Bitcoin – the US Dollar Index (or DXY) has “been in freefall for several months, falling from 102,755 on March 19 to an annual low of 92,144 on August 31, 2020. This represents a drop of -10%.” The idea is that this drop has assisted in rallying the price of Bitcoin – but now, “The DXY has rebounded from its annual low… [and the] slight increase suggests to some that the U.S. dollar may strengthen in the coming weeks. This renewed strength may have played a role in the sharp drop.”. The Cointelegraph article also points to the fact that “miners sold off unusually large amounts of BTC in a short period” as one of the other primary reasons that the price of BTC has dropped. So, overall, the experts seem to be saying that the price of BTC and the strength of the US Dollar are correlated, and that BTC is also correlated to traditional markets like the S&P 500 and the price of gold, both of which also saw a dip this week. Presumably then, factors that affect these traditional financial systems are also affecting the price of Bitcoin, either positively or negatively. Analysis of an asset that has so many factors at play is clearly no easy task – hence our deferral to those in the space who follow the price of Bitcoin more closely. On that topic, next week we will be talking to Louis Raskin, the founder of Cryptolete, a trading and investment community. We'll be discussing cryptocurrency investing and trading, and I'll be sure to talk to him about the factors at play in this week's Bitcoin price frenzy! — (04:31) Next up, a mini cryptocurrency taxation news update. On Sunday, The Block reported that the IRS is indeed considering income from microtasks taxable. “An Internal Revenue Service memo written in late June and published on August 28 states that cryptocurrency earned from microtasks conducted on crowdsourcing platforms is considered taxable income.” The author of the memo, Ronald Goldstein, says in the letter that “a taxpayer who receives convertible virtual currency in exchange for performing a microtask through a crowdsourcing platform has received consideration in exchange for performing a service, and the convertible virtual currency received is taxable as ordinary income… If the taxpayer receives convertible virtual currency for performing the task, regardless of the value and the manner in which it is received, then the taxpayer has been compensated with property.” This news, while received by many with chagrin, it not entirely surprising. The crypto tax space is very familiar with the stance that the IRS takes on cryptocurrency income – like it or not, it's taxable. I'll be chatting next week with two cryptocurrency tax pros, Alex Kugelman and Matt Metras, over on The BitcoinTaxes Podcast. Be sure to subscribe to both The Cryptocurrency Informer and The BitcoinTaxes podcast on Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play Music, so you can listen to all of the great cryptocurrency, crypto tax, and blockchain related interviews. And of course, if you need to calculate your crypto taxes, including the income gained from those pesky taxable microtransactions, all you need is Bitcoin.Tax! — That's it for this week's episode of The Cryptocurrency Informer. Don't forget – if you want to read more about each of these stories, go to talk.bitcoin.tax and click on The Cryptocurrency Informer link. Every episode is accompanied by a number of relevant links for each story, so you can do your own in-depth research on the topics that interest you. Also, check out the interview we released this week with Isaiah Jackson, author of Bitcoin & Black America! We discuss how Bitcoin is going to be a big part in solving the financial inequities that exist in the traditional financial system. Have a great weekend everyone – stay informed and stay safe!

Isaiah Jackson aka Bitcoin Zay joins the show to discuss how Bitcoin and Black America intersect. Isaiah is an award winning speaker, best-selling author, and co-host of the long-running daily show “The Gentlemen of Crypto”. His work has been featured in Forbes, Vogue, Yahoo Finance and Coindesk. More @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Highlights 02:39: Bitcoin & Black America; Democratizing Bitcoin 07:52: How crypto can solve inequties in traditional banking 13:38: Bitcoin as an antidote to economic inequality 23:07: Digital red lining 30:56: Projects aimed at getting communities involved in crypto https://talk.bitcoin.tax/the-cryptocurrency-informer/bitcoin-and-black-america/

Today's episode will cover events happening the week ending August 28th, 2020. This week, the federal reserve did something very predictable, the SEC has made it somewhat easier to become an accredited investor…maybe. More Info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: (00:28) One of the big financial pieces of news this week has to do with the United States Federal Reserve. On Thursday, the chairman of the federal reserve, Jerome Powell, gave a speech at the annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium. In his speech, he announced a major policy shift related to inflation. According to The Economist, “He emphasized that the central bank's existing target for inflation, of 2%, should henceforth be an average: in the face of persistently low inflation, the Fed may pursue efforts to push inflation above the target. And perhaps most important, Mr. Powell noted that the Fed would no longer attempt to prevent employment from rising above its best estimate of the maximum sustainable level.” A more traditional financial analysis of this shift was provided by CNBC's Jim Cramer, who mused that it is “a signal from the central bank that it won't play any part in moderating growth and will continue to provide liquidity until the U.S. economy is outperforming expectations.” And that is “is incredible”. The crypto community has a slightly different opinion on the matter though. Within the community of crypto advocates, one of the primary criticisms of traditional fiat currency, especially USD, is that the federal government can and will print money whenever they feel the need. Of course, this is not possible with any cryptocurrency is a finite supply. Decrypt, a cryptocurrency news outlet, has this to say about the unprecedented move: “Here's what's troubling about the statement: It's a reminder that a small group of people has absolute power over the direction of fiat currency, in this case, the world's reserve currency. The Federal Reserve has the dual mandate to protect the labor market and to keep consumer prices at bay. The problem is that two goals are often opposed and in a world that's increasingly leaning towards populism, central banks will choose to privilege the job market over keeping inflation targets. This means the currency loses.” This isn't necessarily bad news for Bitcoin and crypto though – Decrypt points out that Bitcoin saw a slight price hike after the announcement, although the gains were quickly diminished. More importantly though, they say that Powell's statements “may prompt people to hold the largest cryptocurrency after realizing… Bitcoin has a predictable issuance schedule and a cap on the coins that will ever be issued… Any changes are made by broad consensus…[and] the price of bitcoin will be volatile because of free-market forces, but it won't be devalued because a centralized entity decided more coins will start to flood the market.” So, is the federal government playing directly into the criticisms that crypto enthusiasts regularly lob at them? Seemingly, yes. And it is very likely that crypto enthusiasts will use this event as another one of many rallying cries to get behind cryptocurrency adoption. — (02:55) In other federal government news, the SEC released some seemingly good news for aspiring accredited investors. On Wednesday, a press released was put out titled “SEC Modernizes the Accredited Investor Definition”. This press release expanded the definition of “accredited investor”, and according to the law firm Troutman Pepper, “The new definition moves beyond the long-standing reference to wealth and income to determine whether individuals may be deemed accredited investors. In addition, the definition adds several new categories of entities that now qualify as institutional accredited investors”. The press release implies that the new definition will “effectively identify institutional and individual investors that have the knowledge and expertise to participate in those markets.” Generally, legal experts stated that this was a good thing for traders, as it would make it less difficult for them to become an accredited investor, and gain the benefits that come along with that status. According to Investor Junkie, the previous requirements for being considered an accredited investor were “[having] an annual income of at least $200,000 (or $300,000 for joint income with a spouse) for the last two years with the expectation of earning the same or higher income in the current year; or [having] a net worth exceeding $1 million, either individually or jointly with their spouse.” So, fairly lofty requirements which would leave a lot of average joe cryptocurrency traders in the dust. On paper, it seems like easing the requirements to be considered an accredited investor would be an overall good thing for anyone that is interested in the world of trading. Drew Hinkes, an attorney at Carlton Fields, friend of the podcast, and overall knowledgeable professional in the crypto and legal spaces, had a slightly different reaction to the news on Twitter: “Hot Take: Not meaningful at least not yet. Most investment bankers are probably accredited investors already, so this might add to a few people who sell private placements for a living to the list of people who can buy private placements.  BUT the flexibility to add certifications, designations, or credentials in the future opens the doors to new, more meaningful additions. If you want more people to have access to private placements, VOTE for members of Congress who support that policy. Note that the formal rule agrees with my take- these new inclusions are not expected to materially increase the number of accredited investors or amount of capital available.” Does this mean that every trader will soon be considered an accredited investor? Unlikely. However, with some times, these changes could very well play a role in the crypto space. According to Coindesk, “The SEC oversees regulated token offerings in the U.S., and has cracked down on unregulated offerings as illegal securities sales. Wednesday's move helps grow the pool of Americans who can compliantly invest in token sales.” Cointelegraph illustrates a couple of other advocating stances in the crypto space: “Zcoin founder Poramin Insom said the change would positively affect future security token offerings by potentially offering greater inclusion. Uphold chief revenue officer Robin O'Connell said: It's great to see that the regulators are adapting. It allows for increased opportunity and access to investments that were previously just offered to the privileged few.” So, the reactions are a mixed bag, skewing somewhat more positive than negative. However, an overall lower bar for a qualification with a ridiculously high bar, shouldn't be a bad thing – especially when the new bar being set focuses more on qualifications and less on income. — That's it for this week's episode of The Cryptocurrency Informer. Don't forget – if you want to read more about each of these stories, go to talk.bitcoin.tax and click on The Cryptocurrency Informer link. Every episode is accompanied by a number of relevant links for each story, so you can do your own in-depth research on the topics that interest you. Also, check out the interview we released this week with CRYPTY! I speak with her about how cryptocurrency interacts with Generation Z, and she shares her story of starting a cryptocurrency apparel shop featuring unique designs that she creates herself. Plus, Crypty shares why she is so passionate about DigiByte (DGB) and the DGB community. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play Music so you can catch every new episode we release. Have a great weekend everyone – stay informed and stay safe!

CryptyGirl is the founder of CRYPTY – apparel and accessories for crypto enthusiasts. She's also the co-host of The Block Babes, an up-and-coming weekly livestream for sharing the latest crypto developments and economic news. Crypty joins the show to discuss how cryptocurrency interacts with Generation Z, a generation known for their passion. She also shares her story of starting a cryptocurrency apparel shop featuring unique designs that she creates herself. Plus, Crypty shares why she is so passionate about Digibyte (DGB) and the DGB community. More @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Page Link: http://bit.ly/cryptygirl

This week, it looks like the IRS is again sending out educational letters to some crypto traders, a cryptocurrency city is being built, and a crypto-political update. More info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: (00:28) First up, the IRS educational letters are seemingly being sent out to more cryptocurrency users and traders. For reference, in July 2019 the IRS send out “educational letters” to more than 10,000 cryptocurrency users reminding them that they need to be including their crypto capital gains and losses on their tax forms. The letters were referenced as 6173, 6174 or 6174-A. According to a number of independent reports, a new round of these letters are currently on their way out. Last year, we spoke with Alex Kugelman, a tax controversy lawyer, about these letters. Alex explained what these letters are and the difference between each of them: “The basic thrust is that the IRS has information that the recipient had some cryptocurrency account and may not have fully reported gains or losses from the activity. So essentially the 6174, 6174-A, and 6173 are essentially predicated on that. The 6174 is what's been termed, or people have described as, a ‘soft notice' – just putting people on notice of what the tax reporting obligations are. The 6174-A is a little bit more direct. The 6173 from my perspective is the letter to be taken more seriously by recipient because it requires a response. It has a response date, from what I can tell, of one month from the date of the letter.” You can listen to the entire interview with Alex Kugelman by going to talk.bitcoin.tax. — (01:52) Next up, a city that's runs on cryptocurrency is in the works. It's being spearheaded by the entertainer/entrepreneur Akon and is appropriately dubbed Akon City. The city is currently being built in Senegal, a country in which Akon spent much of his childhood in. Cryptocurrency plays a vital role in Akon's plan for the city – according to Bitcoin.com: “At the heart of Akon City is the Stellar-based Akoin cryptocurrency. Akon aims for the coin to be used as a common method of payment allowing for easy exchange between Africa's 54 countries so that citizens and entrepreneurs can engage in the digital economy with only a mobile phone.” The Akoin whitepaper states that the currency, and its accompanying multi-currency wallet is powered by a “…proprietary Atomic Swap technology [that] enables immediate trade between major cryptocurrencies, our partners' alternative currencies, and fiat currencies; both on the platform and in the local market.” One of the main use cases of cryptocurrency is arguably the ability to transcend and overcome the imbalances and inequities associated with traditional financial systems. According to the Bitcoin.com report, this is one of Akon's primary reasons for constructing the one-of-a kind city – he claims that crypto could “…overcome key hurdles, such as high inflation, government mismanagement of funds, and corruption.” Additionally, the report illustrates Akon's belief that the Akoin ecosystem will alleviate the difficulty converting African currencies and the “rampant inflation” that exists. The first phase of Akon City is planned to begin in early 2021, and will reportedly be completed by 2023. The entire Akon City is planned to be fully functional within 10 years. Of course, this seems like a lofty goal that is likely to encounter a number of hurdles – but, the funding is certainly there, and cryptocurrency could be harnessed to alleviate some of the issues associated with traditional fiat currencies. Only time will tell if this will be everything it sets out to be, or if it will be plagued by the same issues we see many crypto projects plagued by. — (03:43) Finally, some brief political cryptocurrency news updates… A cryptocurrency advocate and former US representative named Cynthia Lummis, has won the GOP Senate primary in Wyoming. According to a report from NASDAQ, Lummis is favored to win in the general election against her Democrat opponent, and “should Lummis win, she may become one of the most crypto-friendly lawmakers in the legislative body”. US congressman Tom Emmer will reportedly be accepting crypto donations for his re-election campaign. This isn't too much of a surprise as the congressman is a chair of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus. According to Coindesk: “Emmer is not the first politician to accept crypto contributions. In 2015, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) accepted bitcoin to fund his presidential campaign. Last year, Democrats Rep. Eric Salwell of California and Andrew Yang both accepted crypto donations for their presidential campaigns as well.” The congressman will be utilizing the popular cryptocurrency payment processor BitPay to process the donations. — That's it for this week's episode of The Cryptocurrency Informer. Don't forget – if you want to read more about each of these stories, go to talk.bitcoin.tax and click on The Cryptocurrency Informer link. Every episode is accompanied by a number of relevant links for each story, so you can do your own in-depth research on the topics that interest you. Check out our first interview-style episode of the Cryptocurrency Informer too! This week we spoke with Edward Kelso, CEO of Coinspice. Kelso gives us his perspective of the cryptocurrency world as a long-time crypto journalist turned CEO of his own crypto-news outlet. It's a great conversation – one of many we will be sharing in the coming weeks. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play Music so you can catch every new episode we release. Have a great weekend everyone – stay informed and stay safe!

Our guest today is Edward Kelso, CEO of Coing Fugazi. He has thousands of articles published through various news organizations and has been covering every facet of the cryptocurrency space for years. We discuss crypto from multiple views: political, philosophical, and journalistic. Kelso shares his perspective as an experienced crypto journalist and details his journey to inform the masses about what cryptocurrency really is. More Info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax

This week is all about big mainstream money going into crypto: famous internet pizza man Dave Portnoy goes all in on Bitcoin, a publicly-traded NASDAQ company bought a couple hundred million dollars worth of BTC, and JPMorgan may be investing $50 million in a very well-known blockchain tech company. More @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: August 14th, 2020: Bitcoin gains a Baron; A Nasdaq company invests big into Bitcoin; JPMorgan continues to apologize for anti-crypto sentiments by investing more money! (00:36) First up, Dave Portnoy has become the self-proclaimed Baron of Bitcoin. For those unfamiliar, Dave Portnoy is the founder of the sports and pop culture blog Barstool Sports. He's also well-known for his pizza review video channel, One Bite Reviews, and his fairly recent foray into day trading. On Thursday, Portnoy released 10 minute a video of him, Tyler Winklevoss, and Cameron Winklevoss. The video starts with Portnoy talking about how he got into crypto – his followers continuously told him to move from day trading traditional stocks to investing in crypto. From there, via the magic of Twitter, the Winklevoss twins became involved in the effort to convert Portnoy into a crypto connoisseur. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are the founders of the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, and are very vocal about their support for mainstream crypto adoption. Enticing the well-known internet personality known to many as El Presidente was likely a no-brainer and should yield returns for them on both their company and their adoption endeavors. The brothers have attempted to educate and convert other high profile celebrities in the past, including J.K. Rowling and Kanye West. The video consists of the Winklevoss Twins attempting to explain some of the basic tenets of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and blockchain technology. They clarify distinction between mining and buying Bitcoin, and how their crytpcurrency exchange Gemini is similar, in the crypto world, to a stock-trading website like E*Trade. They call Bitcoin “internet gold” and explain how the scarcity affects the value – contesting that real gold's scarcity can be changed by Elon Musk space mining asteroids, whereas Bitcoin's scarcity can not be changed, cementing it as the “only fixed asset in the galaxy”. Portnoy semi-jokes about creating his own token, the “Dave Coin”, and muses on the idea of Elon Musk and the Winklevoss twins promoting his coin so that they all become Bitcoin Billionaires. The joke becomes a bit more serious when the brothers offer up some engineers to help code his coin, which leads Portnoy to talk about the coin's potential success helping the three of them “zoom past the success” of Mark Zuckerberg. After the brief lesson, Portnoy purchases $200,000 worth of Bitcoin and $50,000 worth of the Ethereum-based coin Chainlink (LINK), which has “had a pretty big month or two”. After all is said and done, what does this pretty unique interaction and video mean for cryptocurrency? Well, Dave Portnoy has already consistently been tweeting to his 1.7 million followers to buy BTC since the video's release – that's certainly a good thing for overall adoption and increasingly visibility to a mainstream audience. Some are hoping for a “Portnoy Effect” that will push Bitcoin past the $12,000 mark. We'll have to wait and see if that happens! — (03:14) From $200,000 invested into BTC to $250 million invested in Bitcoin…our next story is about largest independent publicly-traded business intelligence company MicroStrategy. On Tuesday, the company announced via press release that they had purchased 21,454 BTC at an aggregate purchase price of $250 million dollars. According to the release, this purchase was part of a two-pronged capital allocation strategy to invest in “alternate investments or assets” to “maximize long-term value for our shareholders”. The CEO of MicroStrategy stated “This investment reflects our belief that Bitcoin, as the world's most widely-adopted cryptocurrency, is a dependable store of value and an attractive investment asset with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash.” And that “Our decision to invest in Bitcoin at this time was driven in part by a confluence of macro factors affecting the economic and business landscape that we believe is creating long-term risks for our corporate treasury program…[including], among other things, the economic and public health crisis precipitated by COVID-19, unprecedented government financial stimulus measures including quantitative easing adopted around the world, and global political and economic uncertainty…[which] may well have a significant depreciating effect on the long-term real value of fiat currencies and many other conventional asset types.” Of course, these are arguments that we hear quite often in the cryptocurrency community, but this move by a publicly traded company worth 1.2 billion is unprecedented and could yield some seriously positive implications for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general. — (04:55) Our final story involves another traditional financial giant, JP Morgan Chase. We've discussed their (recent) heavy interest in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology in past episodes – they have their own blockchain called Quorum and their own digital coin JPMcoin. In the past, JPMorgan certainly wouldn't be considered an ally of cryptocurrency – the CEO Jamie Dimon infamously called Bitcoin a “fraud” back in 2017. However, he later walked those words back, and since then, the company has certainly been pumping resources into crypto and blockchain tech. This week, it has been rumored, and reported, by multiple crypto news outlets that JPMorgan is close to investing $20 million into the blockchain technology company ConsenSys. ConsenSys is an Ethereum-based blockchain development company with “full-stack Ethereum products [that] help developers build next-generation networks and enable enterprises to launch more powerful financial infrastructure.” The development company already has an established relationship with JPMorgan, as a merger between Quorum and ConsenSys has been in the works since the beginning of 2020. The rumors this week of a potential $20 million dollar investment seems to indicate a full-on partnership is on the horizon. This massive deal involving a traditional financial company that historically rejected cryptocurrency is one of many events that speaks to the resilience, legitimacy, and adaptability of crypto and blockchain tech. It's almost inevitable that we'll be reporting on more traditional financial institutions investing major resources into the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain.

Today's episode will cover events happening the week ending August 7th, 2020. We will be talking about a potential new BCH split, a 51% attack on ETC, a whale of a Bitcoin transfer, and the Twitter hacker has been revealed – we'll discuss how his identity was discovered! More @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax @(00:39) A Possible New BCH Fork @(03:42) Attack(s) on ETC @(05:02) Bitcoin billionaire Transfer @(06:02) Twitter Hacker Revealed Full Show Notes: (00:39) First up, Bitcoin Cash (BCH). For those unfamiliar, Bitcoin Cash is a cryptocurrency that exists as a result of an August 2017 fork from the original Bitcoin. Subsequently, in 2018, BCH was forked into two different versions of the coin; for all intents and purposes, these two resulting coins are named Bitcoin ABC (Adjustable Blocksize Cap) and Bitcoin SV (Satoshi's Vision). It can be a bit confusing but, as Coinmarketcap says, “Bitcoin ABC became the dominant chain and took over the BCH ticker”. So, when we discuss BCH, we are referring to Bitcoin ABC. Bitcoin SV is referred to as BSV. Both the 2017 and 2018 forks were largely a result of disagreements among the miners, developers, and supporters of the cryptocurrency and the underlying blockchain technology. BCH, historically then, is somewhat fraught with disagreement between camps. The history here matters because it seems to be potentially repeating itself once again, and a new BCH fork is possible (depending on who you ask). On Thursday, Amaury Séchet, a leading developer of BCH, released a blog post detailing the plan for a November 2020 Bitcoin Cash Network Upgrade. The plan lists “two primary improvements… a change to the Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm…[and]…the addition of a new Coinbase Rule…[which states that] all newly mined blocks must contain an output assigning 8% of the newly mined coins to a specified address.” According to Séchet, the rule “fully aligns the incentives of Bitcoin ABC with the sustainability and security of the network…[and] ensures that those developers risk the immediate loss of their own wealth should they make decisions that harm the overall value and validity of the network.” Séchet closes his plan by stating “While some may prefer that Bitcoin ABC did not implement this improvement, this announcement is not an invitation for debate”. This did not sit well with everyone involved in BCH and day later, on Friday, a joint statement was released by a “group of notable BCH miners”. The statement says “With ABC's new proposal… it appears they are not interested in further discussion. In the interest of mutual respect, we will honor their wishes and will no longer engage in debates. Our group has already completed the process of switching to BCHN. We have been testing and running BCHN and find that it offers technical superiority in functionality and for block creation compared to Bitcoin ABC. With the existence of BCHN as a mining node, we do not expect any sensible miner to choose to receive 8% less mining revenue.” The TLDR here is that another split could be occurring, which would again potentially result in two types of BCH – this this case, it seems as though the split coins would be dubbed Bitcoin ABC (the Séchet camp) and Bitcoin Cash Node (BCHN, the miners opposed to the aforementioned “improvements”). We'll stay on top of any developments in the story – with the planned BCH November upgrade quickly approaching, the developments are occurring rapidly. By time this episode has released, the two camps may come to a compromise, or…maybe a new camp will emerge! — (03:42) On the topic of forked coins, last week, a classic 51% attack occurred on Ethereum Classic (ETC). This week, it was revealed that 807k ETC worth $5.6 million was stolen in the attack. According to a report by blockchain analyst and CTO of Bitquery Aleksey Studnev, the attacker spent 17.5 BTC, or $192,000, in order to acquire the hash power for the attack. To make things even worse, another attack occurred on Thursday, where 238,306 ETC, worth $1.68 million, was reportedly stolen as well. For those who are unfamiliar with a 51% attack, it is when more than 50% of a network's mining power is controlled by one entity (or group of miners). This control allows for double-spending of a coin – so an attacker can sell a coin for fiat without actually disposing of the coin. These attacks could certainly spell trouble for ETC, however, the price of ETC does not seem to be very affected by these attacks. On July 31st, 1 ETC was worth around $7.50 and as of recording, ETC is sitting at around $7. For such a major attack, one would assume investors in ETC would grow weary, affecting its value. Will we see the price of ETC dip even further over the weekend as a result of these attacks? We will certainly find out! — (05:02) Next up, according to the Twitter Account @Whale Alert, a whopping 92,857 BTC, worth nearly 1.1 billion USD was transferred Thursday morning from one wallet to another. According to Daily Hodl, this transaction only cost .0003 BTC, or $3.55. The wallet that held the massive amount of BTC was the second-larger BTC wallet in existence, and the receiving wallet is now the third-largest BTC address. The first largest address, according to Bit Info Charts, has 255,502 BTC – which is almost 3 billion USD worth of BTC. As of now, the transfer doesn't have any explicit implications for BTC or the community. The Daily Hodl states that the sending wallet belongs to the crypto custody giant Xapo, and that the transfer could simply be “Xapo shifting around its crypto on behalf of customers or for security purposes”. Regardless of the implications, the miniscule fee and the gargantuan amount transferred are certainly testament to the utility of crypto. — (06:02) Our last story involves the notorious Twitter hack that occurred in July. The main suspect involved in the attack was revealed to be 17 year old from Florida. The 17 year old reportedly used phone-based social engineering to gain access Twitter's backend, allowing them to access a “god-mode” type control panel which gave them the ability to have total control of Twitter accounts. He was allegedly assisted by two other suspects, one from Orlando and one from the UK. The Justice Department released the criminal complaint document filed by IRS CI agent Tigran Gambaryan, which lists the steps that were taken in order to ascertain the identity of these individuals. In summary, the attacker had advertised, and attempted to sell, his access to the Twitter accounts on Discord and on a forum called OGUsers. Gambaryan was able to access these Discord chats via a warrant and was able to access the OGUsers forum database (including IP addresses, private messages, and user emails) due to an April 2020 hack that made it publicly accessible. Gambaryan analyzed wallet addresses associated with the hack and wallet addresses involved with the Discord and OGUsers messages, and was able to link them together. In addition, the email on OGUsers that was used by one of the suspects was the same email he used to set up his Coinbase account, which provided the suspect's identity. For all of the potential damage caused by the Twitter hack, the swift detainment of the individuals involved, and the fairly simplistic process used to catch them, shows that potentially devasting cyber security attacks are possible from even the smallest vulnerabilities. A 17 year-old and his two accomplices masterminded the attack and made a number of mistakes which led to their arrest – it's not hard to imagine the damage that could be done by a professional group looking to cause serious trouble.

July 31st, 2020: Today's episode will be slightly different than usual...in honor of Ethereum's 5th birthday, today's episode will be a mini-primer for the Ethereum blockchain. More info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax

This week: Visa is claiming that digital currency is in their DNA and Steve Wozniak is fed up with YouTube scams. Plus, Twitter got hacked hard last week – what do we know over a week later? More info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Show Notes: (00:13) On Wednesday, Visa released a blog post entitled “Advancing our approach to digital currency”. In short, this blog post is meant to alert consumers of Visa's “digital currency strategy”, and their dedication to embracing cryptocurrency. Overall, a good thing for adoption. Diving a bit deeper into the blog post, Visa mentions their existing partnerships with “regulated digital currency platforms like Coinbase and Fold” and “more than 25 digital currency wallets”. They highlight their history of blockchain technology research, and state that their current research goal is to develop “new mechanisms to improve scalability and enable offline digital currency transactions”. For reference, Visa's research team consists of an impressive number of Ph.D scientists and researchers, with focuses ranging from cryptography, machine learning, quantum computing, blockchain technology, and a number of other tech-related concentrations; this well-versed research team certainly illustrates that Visa is serious about crypto and blockchain. The blog post also touts Visa's involvement in shaping cryptocurrency related policy, citing their collaborative work with the World Economic Forum where they were involved in creating policy recommendations for a Central Bank Digital Currency. Finally, Visa states the key values that will guide their digital currency strategy: protecting consumer data and privacy while adhering to all applicable laws, remaining currency and network agnostic by supporting the digital currencies and blockchain networks that their partners and customers want, and utilizing their existing expertise and capabilities to shape and enhance their continued foray into crypto and blockchain technology. The blog post shows that Visa is serious about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, a sentiment that is more and more commonly shared by well-known names in the finance space. It certainly wouldn't be surprising to hear about some additional Visa partnerships with high-profile cryptocurrency companies in the near-future. — (02:21) Next up – YouTube scams are really annoying Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (and everyone else). So much so that he is reportedly suing YouTube! If you've spent any time on YouTube, you've probably seen some sort of video that is trying to scam you out of your money – whether you've realized it or not. The lawsuit that Steve Wozniak filed on Tuesday relates to “images and videos of Plaintiff STEVE WOZNIAK, and other famous tech entrepreneurs”… “that have defrauded YOUTUBE users out of millions of dollars”… “[using] images and video of STEVE WOZNIAK to convince YOUTUBE users that he is hosting a live “BTC” or “BITCOIN GIVEAWAY” event and that, for a limited time, any user who sends in their bitcoin will receive twice as much back.” At this point, these types of scams are commonplace – they've been around for a long time, and take place on various social media platforms. We'll be talking about the big Twitter attack that occurred last week, which utilized a similar type of scam. The lawsuit actually mentions that attack, stating that “Twitter acted swiftly and decisively to shut down these accounts and to protect its users from the scam”. According to the lawsuit, YouTube not only refused to remove the scam videos, they also promoted them AND profited off them via paid advertising. Again drawing comparison to the recent Twitter attack, the lawsuit says that the YouTube scams have generated millions of dollars in stolen crypto, whereas the unprecedented Twitter hack only yielded around $120,000 worth of crypto income for the attackers. As we discussed on our April 24th episode, Ripple Labs and their CEO Brad Garlinghouse filed a similar lawsuit against YouTube. With all the heat YouTube is receiving, it seems to me that it would be incredibly likely for them to take some sort of eventual action to address these types of scams on their platform. — (04:04) On the topic of crypto scams, let's briefly discuss the aforementioned unprecedented Twitter hack that occurred on July 15th, 2020. If you haven't heard what happened, the TLDR of it is that a hacker (or group of hackers) apparently utilized social engineering to gain access to a Twitter employee's administrator account, giving them unfettered access to seemingly every Twitter account. The accounts that were outwardly targeted belonged to high-profile verified twitter users, ranging from tech gurus like Elon Musk and Bill Gates, performers like Kanye West, and even former President Barrack Obama. On the crypto side of things, major cryptocurrency-related profiles were also targeted, like Coinbase and Binance. These accounts all posted the same, or similar messages, instructing their followers to send some crypto (primarily BTC) to a wallet address – claiming that, in return, the sender would receive a significantly larger amount of crypto back. Again, this is a classic scam that has been around quite a while – but it's power and believably is directly connected to the platform it's being propagated on. In other words, to someone without knowledge of this scam, they might see a tweet from the official account of Elon Musk and believe that he will send them a bunch of Bitcoin as long as they send a bit first. The hack lasted a decent number of hours, with Twitter actively deleting the messages and temporarily suspending all verified accounts. Over a week after the attack occurred, what do we know? Well, Twitter themselves said “We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.” Social engineering, briefly, is the act of “hacking” an individual for information to access a protected system, as opposed to hacking the system itself. Reuters reports that earlier this year, more than 1,000 Twitter employees and contractors had access to a sort-of “god-mode” administrative panel, meaning any one of those individuals could have been the unlucky victim of the social engineering attack. Twitter has recently divulged that 130 accounts were targeted, 45 accounts sent out tweets, 36 accounts had their DMs accessed (including a politician in the Netherlands), and 8 non-verified accounts had their account data fully exported. KrebsOnSecurity released a detailed report that points to a lone hacker that is well-known in SIM Swapping circles as the culprit. Of course, as the hack affected billionaires and politicians, the FBI has launched their own investigation. So, 9 days after the attack we know that it was due to social engineering and we know that the attackers gained around $120,000 in crypto, a fairly low amount of money for the unprecedented amount of access the hacker or hackers apparently had. We also know that the attackers actively accessed direct messages and other Twitter data from some of the accounts. We have some well-placed theories about who the hacker is, but no definitive proof as of now. We also don't know a motive – some camps believe the goal was to make some money but that the hacker hadn't adequately planned that out, resulting in a paltry sum compared to what could have been made, utilizing the hack for various other nefarious schemes. Others believe this was an attack that was meant to gain information from protected accounts, while others think the attack was meant to sent a message. Only time, and some hearty investigations, will yield concrete answers. Once those answers are found, we'll be sure to report on them!

This week: Coinbase is making big moves that could be a big deal for mainstream adoption, the IRS is trying hard to track the more anonymous crypto transactions, and there are just a few days left before you need to file your crypto taxes! More info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax!

This week is all about security and encryption! AT&T is getting sued over their alleged involvement in a sim-swap scam, a potentially pricey bug was discovered in Blockstream's Liquid Network, and… Senator Lindsey Graham apparently wants to make encryption obsolete. Get more info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax!

More Info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax! This week was filled with crypto adoption related news. Online payment juggernauts PayPal and Venmo are potentially dipping their toes into the world of crypto trading, New York is easing crypto restrictions, Venezuela may…or may not have… briefly accepted crypto for passport applicants, private banks are adopting a stablecoin for foreign currency transfers, and perhaps most importantly…it's going to be a lot easier to buy crypto along with your Slurpee!

This week: Former US National Security Advisor John Bolton's book apparently reveals President Trump's feelings about Bitcoin, and a look at what's happening with cryptocurrency taxation and blockchain adoption this week in South Korea. More info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax!

The week was filled with trials and tribulations in the non-crypto space – and while these events are extremely important and should be covered and spoken about, our mini-podcast is not the best medium to do so. If anyone in the crypto or blockchain communities would like to discuss these events on our sister show, The BitcoinTaxes Podcast, feel free to reach out to us by emailing podcast@bitcoin.tax. This week we'll be discussing a security vulnerability in the Bitcoin protocol and summarizing Kraken's response to Goldman Sachs anti-crypto stance. More info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax!

This week we'll be briefly discussing what role the big names in traditional investment banking play in the crypto space. More info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax!

This week we'll be talking about, and celebrating, Bitcoin Pizza Day! Plus Craig Wright is in the news again this week. Don't know who he is? We'll give you a quick summary of who he is, who he claims to be, and why he's in the news. More Info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax!

This week we'll be doing a bit of a deep dive into Reddit's integration with the Ethereum blockchain, and revealing how the IRS is attempting to contract experts in the crypto tax space to help them better understand the complexities of crypto taxation. More about each story at Talk.Bitcoin.Tax

This week we'll be talking about the big event happening soon the the world of Bitcoin: The Halving. What it is and what it means for crypto users. Plus, three blockchains that are apparently full of valueless transactions – and, is the tax deadline going to be pushed back once more? More about each story at Talk.Bitcoin.Tax

This week we'll be talking about Brave's integration with Binance, a potentially frightening revelation for Xiaomi smartphone and web browser users, and how cryptocurrency may be thriving during the coronavirus pandemic. More about each story at Talk.Bitcoin.Tax

This week, an update on the Purse.IO shutdown, missing funds on the Chinese-based wallet EOS Ecosystem, the XRP and YouTube legal fight, and the Coinbase Price Oracle. More about each story at Talk.Bitcoin.Tax

This week, we discuss the Purse.IO shutdown, the prevalence of shady cryptocurrency chrome extensions, the new and improved (?) Facebook Libra, and the plight of those Americans who are still waiting on their stimulus payment. More Information

This week, we discuss the BCH and BCHSV halving events, Reddit's potential foray into a blockchain-based ecosystem, the Forbes' 2020 World Billionaire List, a political scandal involving the former CEO of Bakkt, and more information about the US stimulus payment. More Information

This week, we discuss the Binance acquisition of CoinMarketCap, the Opera browser addition of .crypto domains, an interesting new cryptocurrency system patent that runs off of human power from Microsoft, an update to the Mt. Gox rehabilitation plan, and information about the US Stimulus payments. More Information

In the first episode of The Cryptocurrency Informer, we discuss the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on tax deadlines and federally backed cryptocurrencies. Binance has released the new “Binance Card”, and Mt.Gox creditors may be getting closer to a payout. More Information

A number of newsworthy events occurred in the space this week – a Bitcoin ETP on the German Stock Exchange was announced, a web browser popular in the crypto space faced some pretty damning accusations, Coinbase announced that they will be potentially supporting a number of new digital assets, India could potentially be banning cryptocurrencies, and the launch of Microsoft's decentralized identity system. More Info @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax