Market Update
At the time of writing, the Bitcoin price is sitting at $14,596.57 representing a gain of .58% in the last 24 hours. More than $2.1B worth of BTC were exchanged in the BTC/USD market representing a 40% share of daily volume, followed by the BTC/JPY pair that represents a 33.5% share.
See live charts here: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/
The Ethereum price has risen by 11.5% over the past 24 hours and is currently sitting at $1,194.65, with over $1.1BM worth of Ether exchanged in the past 24 hours on the ETH/USD pair which has a 32.6% market share of the daily trading volume.
See live charts here: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/
New York Stock Exchange Files to List Leveraged Bitcoin ETFs
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has filed to list five leveraged exchange-traded funds that track the price of Bitcoin (bitcoin ETFs) on its Arca trading platform.
According to documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the NYSE hopes to list five bitcoin ETFs created by Direxion Asset Management, a fund provider that has about $12.5 billion under management, per data from its website. Launched under the Direxion Daily Bitcoin banner, the funds are titled: Bear 1X, 1.25X Bull, 1.5X Bull, 2X Bull, and 2X Bear.
Vermont Could Collect Taxes in Crypto Under Proposed Law
A state legislator in Vermont has proposed a bill to create a new regulatory framework for the use of blockchain technology. Sen. Alison Clarkson introduced the bill, and the measure has since been forwarded to the Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs.
In addition to mandating several reports on cryptocurrencies and blockchain, it notably outlines how the state could classify certain firms as "digital currency limited liability companies," particularly those that operate their own networks.
"This bill proposes to implement strategies relating to blockchain, cryptocurrency, and financial technology in order to: promote regulatory efficiency; enable business organizational and governance structures that may expand opportunities in financial technology, and promote education and adoption of financial technology in the public and private sectors."
Electrum Moves to Patch Bug That Left Thousands of Bitcoin Wallets Exposed
Electrum has issued an emergency patch for a critical bug in its Bitcoin wallets. The flaw allowed any website hosting the Electrum wallet to potentially steal the user’s cryptocurrency. A vulnerability meant that passwords were exposed in the JSONRPC interface, granting hackers complete control of the wallet. The first patch failed to fix the problem, forcing Electrum to issue a second update on Sunday evening. In a Bitcointalk forum post, the site admin Theymos explained:
“If at any point in the past you had Electrum open with no wallet passphrase set; and had a webpage open then it is possible that your wallet is already compromised. Particularly paranoid people might want to send all of the BTC in their old Electrum wallet to a newly-generated Electrum wallet.”
South Korean Government Can Tax Cryptocurrencies Under Current Law
The South Korean government has announced that some taxes can be applied to cryptocurrencies under the current law, which will be finalized in the first half of this year. Other taxes are also being considered but some are not easily implemented under the current tax system, according to News1 Korea. The news agency stated:
"At present, it is concluded that the taxation of income tax, corporation tax, transfer income tax, etc. is possible in the case of virtual currency, while taxation of virtual currency is difficult in terms of value-added tax."