The Netherlands leads the world when it comes to search interest for the term ‘Bitcoin halving’
The Bitcoin block halving is happening in just one week, and Google data shows that searches for the term ‘Bitcoin halving’ are surging in general. This data can also be broken down by country, and it reveals where people are most interested in the Bitcoin halving.
Specifically, Google gives countries rankings from 1 to 100 for interest in a certain search term such as Bitcoin halving, with a rank of 100 meaning that country has the most searches for Bitcoin halving relative to total searches.
Netherlands leads the world with a ranking of 100, followed by Cyprus, Slovenia, Switzerland, Austria, and Latvia, all of which are European nations. Notably, the United States is well behind most European nations with a ranking of just 39.
Thus, this data from Google suggests that the Bitcoin halving is garnering the most interest in Europe.
The Bitcoin ( BTC ) block subsidy halving is all anyone can talk about this week — but according to Google, it’s Europe that is most obsessed. Data from Google Trends shows that when it comes to searching “bitcoin halving,” western and central Europe is leading the way. As Cointelegraph reported , search interest can often translate into adoption through channels such as major exchanges. Purchasing volumes have increased conspicuously since mid-March. As of press time on May 5, these five countries generated the most requests regarding the largest cryptocurrency’s most important coming of age.
The privacy-focused cryptocurrency monero, currently ranked as the 11th most valuable cryptocurrency on data site CoinMarketCap with a total value of just under $1 billion, has added almost 5% in the past week—beating bitcoin’s gains.
The precise reason for monero’s sudden surge wasn’t immediately clear, though there have been a number of positive developments for the bitcoin rival over recent months.
Monero developers recently rolled out an update to its Carbon Chameleon software, designed to improve transaction execution and how the cryptocurrency works with the privacy networks Tor and I2P.
Monero and privacy coins have also recently gained support from some high profile figures in the tech and crypto industry.
“I think we’ll also see privacy integrated into one of the dominant chains in the 2020s,” Coinbase’s chief executive Brian Armstrong wrote in a blog post back in January.
“Just like how the internet launched with HTTP, and only later introduced HTTPS as a default on many websites, I believe we’ll eventually see a privacy coin or blockchain with built in privacy features get mainstream adoption in the 2020s. It doesn’t make sense in most cases to broadcast every payment you make on a transparent ledger.”
The monero price has surged over the last week, beating out bitcoin itself as the broader … [+]
Coinbase
John McAfee, the controversial and outspoken antivirus software developer and curve-ball U.S. presidential candidate, named monero as his cryptocurrency of choice earlier this year.
McAfee made similar allusions to monero’s technological superiority over bitcoin.”Bitcoin was first. It’s an ancient technology. All know it,” McAfee said via Twitter before recommending monero to cryptocurrency users.
“Newer blockchains have privacy, smart contracts, distributed apps and more. Bitcoin is our future? Was the Model T the future of the automobile?”
I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk I reported on how technology is changing business, political trends, and the latest culture and lifestyle. I have covered the rise of bitcoin and cryptocurrency since 2012 and have charted its emergence as a niche technology into the greatest threat to the established financial system the world has ever seen and the most important new technology since the internet itself. I have worked and written for CityAM, the Financial Times, and the New Statesman, amongst others. Follow me on Twitter @billybambrough or email me on billyATbillybambrough.com. Disclosure: I occasionally hold some small amount of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Form 1040 may look similar to last year’s return, but there’s one key difference that’s attracting attention: a question about cryptocurrency.
As I reported late last year, early drafts of Form 1040 reflected a new question on the top of Schedule 1, Additional Income and Adjustments to Income(downloads as a PDF). Schedule 1 is used to report income or adjustments to income that can’t be entered directly on the front page of form 1040.
The new question made it onto the final version of Schedule 1:
KPE
The question asks: At any time during 2019, did you receive, sell, send, exchange, or otherwise acquire any financial interest in any virtual currency?
The placement of the question is important. I believe the question is intended to be so conspicuous that it makes it difficult for any taxpayer to argue that they didn’t know that it was necessary to report cryptocurrency transactions.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has made no secret of the fact that it believes that taxpayers are not properly reporting cryptocurrency transactions. An IRS dive into the data showed that for the 2013 through 2015 tax years, the IRS processed, on average, just under 150 million individual returns annually. Of those, approximately 84% were filed electronically. When IRS matched data collected from forms 8949, Sales and Other Dispositions of Capital Assets, which were filed electronically, they found that just 807 individuals reported a transaction using a property description likely related to bitcoin in 2013; in 2014, that number was only 893; and in 2015, the number fell to 802.
But… so what? If you skip over the question or answer it wrong, you can still claim that you made a mistake, right?
Here’s the thing. Even though the question is new, this kind of question certainly isn’t. Tax professionals have watched taxpayers struggle before when answering a similar question about offshore accounts and interests at the bottom of Schedule B. This one:
Why Companies Like French Chemicals Maker Arkema Are Choosing Kyoto
KPE
The IRS can and has taken the position that willfully failing to check the box related to offshores accounts and interests on Schedule B can form the basis for criminal prosecution. Failing to check the box by accident can still result in expensive headaches and draconian penalties. I fully expect a similar result when it comes to cryptocurrency.
So why all the fuss over this new question? The IRS has made cryptocurrency compliance a priority. Last year, the IRS mailed letters to more than 10,000 taxpayers who might have failed to report income and pay the resulting tax from virtual currency transactions or did not accurately report their transactions. This wasn’t unexpected since the IRS campaigns announced in 2018 that they were making noncompliance related to the use of virtual currency one of their targeted compliance campaigns.
In 2014, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued guidance to taxpayers (downloads as a PDF), making it clear that virtual currency like Bitcoin and Ethereum will be treated as capital assets, provided they are convertible into cash. In simple terms, this means that capital gains rules apply to gains or losses. (You can read more on the taxation of cryptocurrencies here.)
It’s clear that the IRS is getting serious about cryptocurrency reporting. If you have questions about how and what to report, don’t stay silent: ask your tax professional for more information.
Years ago, I found myself sitting in law school in Moot Court wearing an oversized itchy blue suit. It was a horrible experience. In a desperate attempt to avoid anything like that in the future, I enrolled in a tax course. I loved it. I signed up for another. Before I knew it, in addition to my JD, I earned an LL.M Taxation. While at law school, I interned at the estates attorney division of the IRS. At IRS, I participated in the review and audit of federal estate tax returns. At one such audit, opposing counsel read my report, looked at his file and said, “Gentlemen, she’s exactly right.” I nearly fainted. It was a short jump from there to practicing, teaching, writing and breathing tax. Just like that, Taxgirl® was born.
Bitcoin-rivals ethereum, Ripple’s XRP, bitcoin cash, litecoin, EOS and binance coin were also heavily sold off, wiping billions of dollars from the combined cryptocurrency market capitalization.
The cause of the sudden sell-off was not immediately clear, however, analysts have noted a drop in crypto market trading volume recently.
“All is quiet on the crypto front. Perhaps, a little too quiet,” Mati Greenspan, the founder of bitcoin and crypto research outlet Quantum Economics wrote in a note ahead of the bitcoin sell-off today, adding the dominance of the world’s biggest stablecoin, tether, “seems to be waning.”
Bitcoin was earlier trading at $6,880, down by 3.5% over the last 24-hour trading period, according to prices from U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase, with ethereum, Ripple’s XRP, litecoin, and bitcoin cash all off by between 5% and 8%.
EOS, a dectralized app token similar to ethereum, led the bitcoin and crypto market lower.
In periods of low trading volume, crypto prices are more vulnerable to so-called whales moving the market by placing massive buy or sell orders at a little above or below current market rates. These can trigger trading algorithms that then send prices sharply higher or lower and can be a sign of market manipulation.
Meanwhile, research out earlier today suggested the bitcoin price might struggle over the short term due to the $2 billion PlusToken scandal—one of the biggest ever cryptocurrency scams.
The bitcoin price hasn’t fallen below $7,000 since the end of November and its sudden fall knocked … [+]
Coinbase
“That’s certainly something to consider when you are thinking about where the price is going, at least in the short term,” Kim Grauer, senior economist at blockchain analysis company Chainalysis told financial newswire Bloomberg. “It could be, according to our research, continued downward pressure.”
PlusToken scammers are thought to have sold some 25,000 bitcoin, according to Chainalysis data, with a further 20,000 still to be dumped back onto the market.
I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk I reported on how technology is changing business, political trends, and the latest culture and lifestyle. I have covered the rise of bitcoin and cryptocurrency since 2012 and have charted its emergence as a niche technology into the greatest threat to the established financial system the world has ever seen and the most important new technology since the internet itself. I have worked and written for CityAM, the Financial Times, and the New Statesman, amongst others. Follow me on Twitter @billybambrough or email me on billyATbillybambrough.com. Disclosure: I occasionally hold some small amount of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
A bar in Japan is teaming up with a locally-based lightning startup to let customers pay for sparkling wine and soft drinks using the experimental payments network.
For the month of June, the Japan-based lightning startup Nayuta will be partnering with Awabar Fukouka to trial the payment system in what they’re calling a “field test.”
The Lightning Network is seen by its supporters as the best way to scale bitcoin so that more people can use the payment system at once, but the technology is still rather experimental and even risky to use. To that end, Nayuta sees this project as an way to further analyze how the technology works in the real world and to find out what still needs to be done to make it easier to use.
Though Awabar said their role is “small,” as the bar did not design the technology (Nayuta did), they’re “delighted” to participate, offering a place for the experimental technology to be tested in a brick-and-mortar context.
The company said in a statement:
“We hope it helps familiarize the community with the lightning network payment system.”
The following video shows how the point of sale app (created by Nayuta and run on the open source payment processor BTCPay) will look for customers purchasing their drinks:
Nayuta is known for helping to draw up specifications for the lightning network and recently launched its own implementation of the budding payment layer geared specifically for connected devices or the Internet of Things (IoT).
The idea is that as the tech components grow less expensive, more devices such as refrigerators and TVs will connect to the internet for data collection.
