The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
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Ridgewood NJ, Acting Attorney General Andrew J. Bruck today announced that the Bureau of Securities has issued a Summary Cease and Desist Order to stop a financial services company based in Jersey City from selling unregistered securities in the form of interest-earning cryptocurrency accounts that have raised at least $14.7 billion worldwide.
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Ridgewood NJ, May 22, 2021, marked the eleven-year anniversary of the first Bitcoin transaction, in which a Florida man paid for two pizzas with the cryptocurrency. The day has become part of folklore, not because of the transaction, but more the price: the man in question paid 10,000 Bitcoins, which today is worth over $80 million, for the two pizzas.
On May 22, 2010, now known as Bitcoin Pizza Day, Laszlo Hanyecz agreed to pay 10,000 Bitcoins for two delivered Papa John’s pizzas. Organized on bitcointalk forum, the Florida man reached out for help. “I’ll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas… like maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over for the next day,” Hanyecz wrote.
The man who took up Hanyecz’s offer and bought the two pizzas for him in exchange for the 10,000 Bitcoins. Even then the recipient of the Bitcoins got himself a bargain, paying $25 for the pizzas, while 10,000 Bitcoins were worth around $41 at the time.
We know the 22nd was Saturday but we are trying to make this a “Monday Holiday” .
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Washington DC, Technological advances are driving rapid change in the global payments landscape. The Federal Reserve is studying these developments and exploring ways that it might refine its role as a core payment services provider and as the issuing authority for U.S. currency.
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Ridgewood NJ, Cryptocurrency can be stored on small physical drives securely, unconnected to the internet. The IRS is looking for help to break into cryptocurrency hardware wallets, according to a document posted on the agency website in March of this year. The tax collection agency is now looking for contractors to come up with solutions to hack into wallets that would be of interest to investigations. While the agency may be in possession of a hardware wallet as part of a case, they may not be able to access it without the suspect’s cooperation. The IRS is looking for tools it can reliably use in multiple cases.
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Tokyo Japan, SBI Holdings and the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) have partnered together to build the Osaka Digital Exchange (ODE), a blockchain-based stock exchange to compete against the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The exchange will allow investors to trade digital securities using blockchain technology. SBI and SMFG will set up the ODE in March. The exchange will start trading digital securities in 2023.
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Ridgewood NJ, proving a project can work is what’s called Proof Of Concept (POC). If you can’t prove a project can work then there isn’t one to begin with. May 22, will mark the anniversary of the first Bitcoin transaction, in which a Florida man paid for two pizzas with the cryptocurrency. The day has become part of folklore, not because of the transaction, but more the price: the man in question paid 10,000 Bitcoins, which today is worth over $80 million, for the two pizzas.
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Ridgewood NJ, Signal is testing a new peer-to-peer payment system in the UK called Signal Payments. The system uses MobileCoin, a cryptocurrency with a close relationship with Signal co-founder and CEO Moxie Marlinspike. Signal will not have access to users’ balances, full transaction histories, or funds. Users will have full control over their funds. A link to the Signal beta sign-up page is available for those who are interested in testing the feature.
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Washington DC, the FDIC named Sultan Meghji as its first Chief Innovation Officer, charged with leading the agency’s drive to promote the adoption of innovative technologies across the financial services sector.
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Washington DC, Today, U.S. Congressman Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5) called on the Department of Justice and federal agencies to redouble investigation efforts into the reported single $520,000+ bitcoin transfer to multiple alt-right groups and extremist personalities leading into the deadly failed insurrectionist attacks on the U.S. Capitol.
Provides Clarity but Questions Remain
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ROSELAND NJ, The New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants (NJCPA) reminds taxpayers that the Internal Revenue Service’s newly released two-part guidance on the tax treatment of virtual currency — such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and Libra — helps to clarify many issues relating to accounting, financial reporting and distribution. However, questions still remain over addressing noncompliance as well as whether or not the IRS will differentiate hard forks (blockchain nodes that no longer accept the newest version of the blockchain and diverge from the existing distributed ledger) from airdrops (means of distributing units of a cryptocurrency to the distributed ledger addresses of multiple taxpayers). Soft forks do not generate a taxable event due to the lack of new cryptocurrency creation.
Continue reading New Jersey Society of CPAs Reminds Taxpayers of New IRS Guidance on Cryptocurrency
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Ridgewood NJ , according to CPA James Brown the IRS announced in late July 2019 that it is ramping up its campaign to ensure that taxpayers with cryptocurrency transactions report these transactions on their income tax returns – and report them correctly – by sending “educational” letters to approximately 10,000 taxpayers who either didn’t report their crypto-transactions or may have reported them incorrectly.
The IRS said it used its compliance efforts to identify the taxpayers who may be noncompliant. Because fewer than 900 taxpayers reported virtual currency gains and losses each year on their tax returns from 2013 to 2015, the IRS stepped up enforcement of the rules. As part of that effort, the IRS got court approval in March 2018 for a summons to obtain account and transaction information on more than 14,000 customers from Coinbase, a company that services buyers and sellers of Bitcoin. Although the IRS didn’t say so in its recent announcement, presumably the leads for the 10,000 taxpayers who will receive a letter came from this source.
Continue reading IRS Cracking Down on Cryptocurrency Tax Transactions
