The U.S. state of North Carolina’s Buncombe County plans to enact a moratorium that would force Bitcoin (BTC) miners to halt their operations in the region for one year. The county’s Board of Commissioners will make the final decision on the issue in a public hearing on May 2. More: - If approved, the board will use this break to develop new standards for intensive land uses of BTC miners that could harm the environment.
- The move came shortly after the crypto mining activity in the county faced controversy from a neighboring county, Cherokee, especially over the noise.
- The commissioners plan to categorize data centers and crypto-mining facilities separately.
- In cryptocurrencies based on the proof-of-work (PoW) model like Bitcoin, computers have to perform complex algorithms to create new coins, requiring massive amounts of computing power and electricity that could harm the environment.
Zoom Out: - In November last year, New York’s governor Kathy Hochul signed a two-year moratorium on BTC mining operations.
- U.S.-based mining firms make up 37.8% of the Bitcoin network’s global hash rate used to mine new coins.
- Texas is the mining hub of the country, with more than 30 crypto-mining companies within its borders.
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Decentralized exchanges (DEX) hit $133.1B in trading volume in March, reaching the highest monthly levels since May 2022. The new figure also marked the third consecutive monthly increase in trading volume. More: - The rise in the volume was mainly triggered by the toughened regulatory environment in the U.S. against centralized exchanges, including Kraken, Coinbase, and Binance.
- In March, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) served a Wells notice against Coinbase, citing the violation of securities laws through its exchange and staking services.
- One month earlier, the SEC forced Kraken to halt the operations of its staking service for U.S. customers and to pay a $30M fine to settle, citing that the platform offered unregistered securities.
- Likewise, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) recently filed a lawsuit against Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) with allegations of regulatory violations in seven counts.
- Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, is also under scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the SEC, and federal prosecutors in the U.S.
- Many crypto investors reacted to these regulatory moves by shifting from centralized exchanges to the DEXs, causing a jump in the latter's trading volume.
- The banking crisis, starting with the consecutive collapses of three crypto-friendly banks within just a week in March, has also negatively impacted the centralized exchanges' liquidity level by causing the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin to be de-pegged from the U.S. dollar (USD).
Zoom Out: - Within the first 24 hours of the CFTC's complaint against Binance, withdrawals from the exchange jumped significantly, with nearly $1B in net outflows.
- The popular DEX Uniswap hinted at the rising trading volume in DEXs, with its spot market volume recently surpassing $70B for the first time since January 2022 and beating Coinbase for the second consecutive month.
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The original Bitcoin white paper is hidden within Apple's Mac devices that run on a modern macOS version, according to a blog post from technologist Andy Baio. The independent blogger said the PDF file was shipped with every version of macOS since Mojave (10.14.0) in 2018. More: - Baio found the Bitcoin white paper in his Mac device while trying to fix his printer.
- When he wanted to scan a document through a wireless scanner, Baio saw a device dubbed Virtual Scanner II that had never appeared before.
- Virtual Scanner II showed a photo by default, and the popular blogger was able to view the Bitcoin white paper unexpectedly by changing the media type from "Photo" to "Document."
- Baio used a Twitter thread from 2020 prepared by designer Joshua Dickens, who also found the white paper, to find the file location.
- The blogger also created a prompt for macOS for other people to confirm the existence of the white paper, and everyone could access the file by using the command.
- Anyone can currently open the PDF by opening Terminal, the command line interface of macOS, and typing the prompt created by Baio.
- Baio estimates that the file is placed within the operating system for test purposes and was never aimed to be seen by end users, though Apple has yet to make any official comment.
Zoom Out: - The Bitcoin white paper, titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System," is the original thesis paper written by the pseudonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 to lay out the basic structure and technical details of the Bitcoin network.
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The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the country's financial regulator, has canceled the financial services license of crypto exchange Binance's derivatives business in Australia. The agency said the cancellation was made in response to a request from Binance. More: - As part of the cancellation, Binance will permanently shut down its Australian derivatives business.
- Binance's Australian clients will now be unable to increase derivatives positions or open new ones.
- Aussie users of the service will need to close their existing positions by April 21.
- The spot trading platform operated by Binance Australia will not be affected by the cancellation and will be open to access for users.
- Binance stated that it would pursue a more focused approach in Australia after winding down its derivatives services.
- The popular crypto exchange also said it has informed impacted users about the shutdown process.
Zoom Out: - The cancellation of the license came shortly after the ASIC launched a targeted review of Binance in late February.
- The investigation concerned Binance Australia Derivatives business' classification of retail and wholesale clients in the country.
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Swedish crypto tax platform Divly's recent report has shown that only 0.53% of global investors reported their crypto assets for tax purposes in 2022. In Finland, 4.09% of crypto investors paid taxes on their digital assets, the highest percentage worldwide. More: - Divly's Global Cryptocurrency Taxation Report 2022 analyzed official government figures, the number of people who reported their crypto assets in their tax returns to the local tax authorities, and the search volume for keywords related to crypto taxes.
- In the top five, Finland was respectively followed by Australia with 3.65%, Austria with 2.75%, Germany with 2.63%, and the U.K. with 2.61%.
- The U.S. sat 10th out of 24 countries, with a 1.62% tax compliance rate.
- The report also underlined that the U.S. has the most crypto taxpayers.
- The Philippines had the lowest crypto payment rate last year, with only 0.03%.
- In terms of continents, North America had a 1.62% tax compliance rate, while Asia brought up the rear with 0.20%.
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The crypto-related trademark applications were two-thirds lower in the U.S. in Q1 2023 than in the same period last year. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) received only 559 applications during the quarter, with a 66.1% decline from 1,649 in Q1 2022. More: - Metaverse-related trademark applications also saw a 45% decrease, with 835 filings in Q1 this year, down from 1,819 in the first three months of last year.
- Similarly, NFT-related trademark filings fell to 885 between January and March from 2,530 applications made in Q1 2022.
- Applicants filed for 5,850 metaverse-related and 7,746 NFT-related trademark applications throughout 2022, with significant jumps from the previous year.
- 2022 was also a record-breaking year for crypto-related trademark applications and saw 5,383 filings in the U.S., up from 3,570 in 2021.
- The data regarding the trademark applications was shared by a trademark and patent attorney, Michael Kondoudis, citing the numbers from the USPTO.
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- The Web3 project team of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has approved a Web3 white paper outlining suggestions to support the growth of the Japanese crypto market.
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 |  | Doga is a tech and science editor who has been writing news for nearly 10 years. She worked for leading tech platforms and mainstrem media channels as an editor and presenter throughout his career. Then, she carried her know-how to more than one platform. She is a part-time cat lover and binge-watcher, and also fond of science, space, and emerging tech. She always has a story to tell. She is a bit addict to the laughter and -unfortunately- the '90s culture. |  | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 and 1972 Fords. | |
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