News of the week. Friday, April 9


Friday, April 9. The week is coming to an end, so we can talk about the most interesting news in the crypto industry for this week.

The Russian tax service continues to require reporting from the owners of the crypt

Publisher “Commersant” informs: the bill on the tax for ownership of cryptocurrency in Russia, which obliges owners of virtual currencies to give full information about their digital assets, has not changed to the second reading.

In accordance with the document, this draft law should serve to ensure that the tax authorities receive full information about the cryptocurrency wallets of legal entities and individuals. This implies that it will oblige people to report their virtual money. This version states that an individual and a legal entity will report to the tax service if the annual amount of transactions exceeds 600 thousand rubles.

If a citizen chooses to conceal or somehow circumvent a given law by a party, for example, by giving false information in a report, a fine equivalent to 10 percent of the maximum transaction will be imposed.

From all of the above, it can be understood that Russia now does not grant the right to report or not to report its digital assets, but obliges anyone connected in any way with the crypt to tell in order to pay the tax.

The court ordered the SEC to disclose its documents in response to an official request from Ripple

In the past, we have mentioned Ripple, its rise and fall, and how it faced SEC’s lengthy legal proceedings, paid a $700,000 fine, and since then new charges have been brought for $1.3 billion.

Now Ripple has struck back. In January of that year, the company filed a formal request to the court for information as to why the SEC did not classify Ethereum as a security. In their opinion, such a request could show that the SEC wrongly accuses Ripple.

“In 2016, the agency called Ripple a company that specializes in digital currencies, and now says it’s digital paper. The SEC will have to explain in court how this happened.” says lawyer Jeremy Hogan.

In December 2020, SEC accused Ripple labs of selling unregistered securities totalling $1.3 billion.

The company became interested in why the agency was only interested in them when everyone else was doing the same thing.

Matthew Solomon, who is a legal adviser to Garlinghouse, says that this court decision should serve as a reason to dismiss the lawsuit against the company.

Forbes: Pavel Durov in the top ten richest Russian businessmen

Once the founder of the social network Vkontakte and now the owner of the messenger telegram, Pavel Durov, has had quite a busy 2020. At the beginning of the year, in Dubai, where Durov currently lives, he was interrogated by the SEC. The latter became interested in the blockchain platform TON. The whole interrogation was documented on video. The SEC tried to find any way to prove that Pavel’s team knew from the beginning that they were dealing with securities, rather than the cryptocurrency. The agency was also interested in knowing how and on what the investors’ money was spent through the provided banking transactions. 

Durov, in turn, stood on his own, saying that Gram is a digital currency, and investors’ money was spent to purchase equipment for the platform.

The whole story ended with a settlement between the parties. Telegram was to return $1.2 billion to the buyers of the tokens, and for the SEC itself was to pay a $18.5 million fine.

On May 12, 2020, Pavel Durov gave an official statement that he was abandoning work on TON, leaving it to future generations of entrepreneurs and developers.

Today, Telegram’s founder is doing very well. It has entered the top 10 richest Russian businessmen according to Forbes. Its fortunes as of 2021 were estimated at $17.2 billion in just one year, rising by $13.8 billion. In the Forbes World Ranking, he is listed as a UAE representative and there ranked 112th, when in the Russian version he is ranked 9th.

Akon and its African Crypto Cities

Popular rapper Aliam Damala Badara Akon Tiam, who is best known in the world as Akon early last year, decided to build the first crypto city in the world to be located in Africa, namely Senegal. The city will be named after the singer Akon-city and the  crypt will be named Akoin accordingly.

The rapper talked about his plan as early as 2019, calling the city’s main “chip” that it would be 100% based on cryptocurrencies.

As Akon himself stated:

“The construction of the city is estimated to take a decade. The city begins construction in March 2019, with a second phase to be completed in 2025.”

But before the first city was built, the rapper decided to take up the second. And so it is in Africa, but now in Uganda. The land allocated to the project is about 2.6 sq. km. In Senegal, the land is about 8.2 sq. km. The city will also be named after its creator.

The Initiative will be implemented in 2036. Uganda looked forward to investment and job creation.

In the second city, as in the first, all payments and transactions will be made only in the cryptocurrency Akoin.

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