UK. Her Majesty’s Treasury announced that stablecoins will be brought into the country’s economy as a recognized form of payment. The financial market infrastructure sandbox will also be established for innovative firms. The Economic Secretary noted that the UK is going to become a global hub for cryptoasset technology.
Portugal’s Central Bank granted permission to Bison Bank that allows it to operate as a virtual asset service provider. This is the first case where the bank institution has received such a license in the country.
USA. Texas and Alabama security regulators have determined Sand Vegas Casino Club’s NFT as an “illegal and fraudulent securities scheme”. On April 13, 2022, they issued cease-and-desist orders against the company, ordering it to immediately stop selling Gambler and Golden Gambler NFTs. This precedent can also start a larger trend.
Brasil. As Cointelegraph Brazil notes, the bill regulating the cryptocurrency market in Brazil would allow the president to determine a federal entity to establish the rules for cryptocurrencies, creating a new regulator or delegating this function to an existing entity. The approval is expected until June, 2022.
The Bahamas. The government will allow citizens to pay taxes with digital assets in accordance with a white paper outlining a national strategy for digital assets through 2026.
Singapore. The government passed a new bill on 5 April 2022. It requires virtual asset service providers operating outside Singapore to be licensed and specifies Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism requirements.
Russia. The Ministry of Finance considers an opportunity to allow legal entities to pay for goods, works, services under foreign trade agreements and receive proceeds from foreign entities in digital currency.
Iran plans to increase the penalties for unauthorized cryptocurrency mining. The fines will be raised by at least three and at most five times. Imprisoning the offenders and revoking their business license can be also implied.
India. In addition to the 30% tax on income from digital-asset investments, which went into effect on April 1, 2022, the Ministry of Finance has announced a 1% tax deductible at source on all digital-asset transfers above a certain size, starting July 1.
Furthermore, check out the research Crypto regulatory news by March ’22 or Crypto Industry Regulatory Risks rated by Countries in 2022 in our blog.
References:
- Her Majesty’s Treasury announcement. “Government sets out plan to make UK a global cryptoasset technology hub”, gov.uk, April 4, 2022
- Lammertyn, M. “Central Bank of Portugal Grants Country’s First Crypto License to a Bank”, Insider, April 14, 2022
- Levi, S.D., Drylewski, A.C., Michael, D., Oh, A. “Texas, Alabama Regulators Order Halt to Virtual Casino NFT Sales, Alleging They Constituted an Offering of Securities and Misled Buyers”, Skadden, April 20, 2022
- Gusson, C. “Brazilian Senate announces incoming approval of the ‘Bitcoin law’”, Cointelegraph, April 13, 2022
- Knight, O. “Bahamas to Allow Citizens to Pay Taxes With Digital Assets”, CoinDesk, April 21, 2022
- Chan, E., Hian, K. C. “Singapore Parliament Passes The Financial Services And Markets Bill To Address Key Risks Through A Financial-Sector Wide Regulatory Approach”, Mondaq, April 15, 2022
- Kuznetsov, E. “Payment visibility: the authorities discuss the legalization of cryptocurrency in foreign trade”, Izvestia, April 20, 2022
- Pesserlay, W. “Iran tightens penalties for illegal block reward miners”, Coingeek, April 21, 2022
- Shukla, S. “The 1% Tax That Has India’s Crypto Industry Predicting Chaos”, Bloomberg, April 2, 2022
