Cryptocurrency
Between one in 92.67 trillion odds, scaling difficulty levels, and the massive network of users verifying transactions, one block of transactions is verified roughly every 10 minutes. https://longfavor.com But it’s important to remember that 10 minutes is a goal, not a rule.
Our Freeman Law Cryptocurrency Law Resource page provides a summary of the legal status of cryptocurrency for each country across the globe with statutory or regulatory provisions governing cryptocurrency.
Meanwhile, new coins are generated to reward miners for their work in securing the network. Since distributed ledgers lack a centralized authority, the mining process is crucial for validating transactions. Miners are, therefore, incentivized to secure the network by participating in the transaction validation process that increases their chances of winning newly minted coins.
Bitcoin’s transaction history is public, which helps eliminate the potential of double spending and makes the network almost impossible to hack. Crypto miners can identify malicious attempts and reject them.
Cryptocurrency market
In March 2018, the city of Plattsburgh, New York put an 18-month moratorium on all cryptocurrency mining in an effort to preserve natural resources and the “character and direction” of the city. In 2021, Kazakhstan became the second-biggest crypto-currency mining country, producing 18.1% of the global exahash rate. The country built a compound containing 50,000 computers near Ekibastuz.
An initial coin offering (ICO) is a controversial means of raising funds for a new cryptocurrency venture. An ICO may be used by startups with the intention of avoiding regulation. However, securities regulators in many jurisdictions, including in the U.S. and Canada, have indicated that if a coin or token is an “investment contract” (e.g., under the Howey test, i.e., an investment of money with a reasonable expectation of profit based significantly on the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others), it is a security and is subject to securities regulation. In an ICO campaign, a percentage of the cryptocurrency (usually in the form of “tokens”) is sold to early backers of the project in exchange for legal tender or other cryptocurrencies, often bitcoin or Ether.
Individual coin ownership records are stored in a digital ledger, which is a computerized database using strong cryptography to secure transaction records, control the creation of additional coins, and verify the transfer of coin ownership. Despite the term that has come to describe many of the fungible blockchain tokens that have been created, cryptocurrencies are not considered to be currencies in the traditional sense, and varying legal treatments have been applied to them in various jurisdicitons, including classification as commodities, securities, and currencies. Cryptocurrencies are generally viewed as a distinct asset class in practice. Some crypto schemes use validators to maintain the cryptocurrency.
The market capitalization of a cryptocurrency is calculated by multiplying the price by the number of coins in circulation. The total cryptocurrency market cap has historically been dominated by bitcoin accounting for at least 50% of the market cap value where altcoins have increased and decreased in market cap value in relation to bitcoin. Bitcoin’s value is largely determined by speculation among other technological limiting factors known as blockchain rewards coded into the architecture technology of bitcoin itself. The cryptocurrency market cap follows a trend known as the “halving”, which is when the block rewards received from bitcoin are halved due to technological mandated limited factors instilled into bitcoin which in turn limits the supply of bitcoin. As the date reaches near of a halving (twice thus far historically) the cryptocurrency market cap increases, followed by a downtrend.
In 2022, cryptocurrencies attracted attention when Western nations imposed severe economic sanctions on Russia in the aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine in February. However, American sources warned in March that some crypto-transactions could potentially be used to evade economic sanctions against Russia and Belarus.
Cryptocurrency trump
Crypto PACs particularly focused their efforts in Ohio, spending some $40 million to unseat Democrat Brown, the Senate Banking Committee Chair and a crypto critic. His opponent Moreno has been a regular attendee at crypto conferences and vowed to “lead the fight to defend crypto in the US Senate.” On Tuesday night, Moreno won, flipping control of the Senate.
More than 100 countries allow trading of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, with restrictions, while others have outright bans. The US, Canada, European Union, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand are some countries where trading in cryptocurrencies is legal. China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Bolivia have made it illegal to trade in cryptocurrencies.
Besides cryptocurrency’s ethical harms, a pernicious myth surrounds the digital coin. It is the myth of inclusion, that cryptocurrency has the power to benefit society’s disadvantaged, especially the unbanked.
Democratizing finance is often framed as a movement to break the dominance of traditional financial institutions – private banks and government central banks. However, this narrative has not played out.
Crypto PACs particularly focused their efforts in Ohio, spending some $40 million to unseat Democrat Brown, the Senate Banking Committee Chair and a crypto critic. His opponent Moreno has been a regular attendee at crypto conferences and vowed to “lead the fight to defend crypto in the US Senate.” On Tuesday night, Moreno won, flipping control of the Senate.
More than 100 countries allow trading of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, with restrictions, while others have outright bans. The US, Canada, European Union, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand are some countries where trading in cryptocurrencies is legal. China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Bolivia have made it illegal to trade in cryptocurrencies.
Types of cryptocurrency
On 25 March 2014, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ruled that bitcoin will be treated as property for tax purposes. Therefore, virtual currencies are considered commodities subject to capital gains tax.
According to Vanessa Grellet, renowned panelist in blockchain conferences, there was an increasing interest from traditional stock exchanges in crypto-assets at the end of the 2010s, while crypto-exchanges such as Coinbase were gradually entering the traditional financial markets. This convergence marked a significant trend where conventional financial actors were adopting blockchain technology to enhance operational efficiency, while the crypto world introduced innovations like Security Token Offering (STO), enabling new ways of fundraising. Tokenization, turning assets such as real estate, investment funds, and private equity into blockchain-based tokens, had the potential to make traditionally illiquid assets more accessible to investors. Despite the regulatory risks associated with such developments, major financial institutions, including JPMorgan Chase, were actively working on blockchain initiatives, exemplified by the creation of Quorum, a private blockchain platform.
Cryptocurrencies are speculative investments, with significant volatility of cryptocurrency prices and the prices of indirect investments that have exposure to the cryptocurrency market. Cryptocurrency doesn’t fit within traditional asset allocation models, as it is neither a traditional commodity, such as gold, nor a traditional currency. Its volatility is driven primarily by supply and demand, not inherent value. Bitcoin, for example, doesn’t have earnings or revenues. It doesn’t have a price-to-earnings ratio, price-to-sales ratio, or book value. Traditional value metrics don’t apply, so there are no methods for assessing its value that we endorse or find persuasive beyond the trading value. Considering its volatility and the possibility that the entire value of a cryptocurrency investment could disappear, investors who don’t think they could handle the market swings might want to steer clear.
According to a 2020 report produced by the United States Attorney General’s Cyber-Digital Task Force, hree categories make up the majority of illicit cryptocurrency uses: “(1) financial transactions associated with the commission of crimes; (2) money laundering and the shielding of legitimate activity from tax, reporting, or other legal requirements; or (3) crimes, such as theft, directly implicating the cryptocurrency marketplace itself.” The report concluded that “for cryptocurrency to realize its truly transformative potential, it is imperative that these risks be addressed” and that “the government has legal and regulatory tools available at its disposal to confront the threats posed by cryptocurrency’s illicit uses”.
Switzerland was one of the first countries to implement the FATF’s Travel Rule. FINMA, the Swiss regulator, issued its own guidance to VASPs in 2019. The guidance followed the FATF’s Recommendation 16, however with stricter requirements. According to FINMA’s requirements, VASPs need to verify the identity of the beneficiary of the transfer.
