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Citibank of India banned the purchase of cryptocurrency on debit cards.
On Tuesday, February 13, Citibank's representative office in India informed its customers about the ban on cryptocurrency operations on both credit and debit cards. "Given warnings, including from the Reserve Bank of India, about economic, financial, operational, legal risks, as well as risks related to consumer protection and security, Citibank of India does not permit the use of credit and debit cards of the Bank for the purchase and trading of bitcoins, cryptocurrencies and digital currencies," the Bank said in an email. Citibank has already reported such a measure, but previously it was applied only to credit cards. In January, many Indian banks refused to support cryptocurrency exchanges. And in early February, Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitli said that the government does not recognize cryptocurrency as a means of payment. Buying cryptocurrency by credit cards is already prohibited in American banks Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Capital one, English Lloyds Bank and Australian Commonwealth Bank.
0.04% of the U.S. traders said the service tax on their activities.
Less than 100 out of 250,000 citizens who have filed a tax return through Credit Karma's personal financial services service have indicated their cryptocurrency earnings. Credit Karma Manager Jahit Chawla said that the company is not surprised by such a small number of cryptocurrency taxpayers, as citizens with a "difficult tax situation" prefer to file a Declaration at the end of the tax period. Given the rise of cryptocurrencies in 2017, the company expects more registered reports. The tax period of 2018 in the United States began on January 29, the income Declaration for 2017 can be submitted until April 17. The US tax administration (IRS) began to regulate cryptocurrencies in March 2014 and treats them as property, hence taxing the purchase, sale, trading and mining of cryptocurrencies. Independent trader Brandon Williams told CNBC that it is more reasonable, in his view, to consider cryptocurrencies as a currency, because the status of the property "almost terrifies, preventing global adoption." According to Williams, the percentage of reported returns indicates "the difficulty of accurately determining their income and losses", given trading volumes and volatility.
A member of the Ethereum team left his post, doubting the legality of the new development.
Developer Yoichi Hirai resigned from the position of EIP 867 code editor-proposals to improve the Ethereum Protocol, which refers to methods of refund. The leading developer of EIP 867 is Dan Filfer, who lost 16,475 ether due to freezing of equity funds. Ititi fears that the code violates the criminal law: "Some editors EIP irresponsible approach to the legal consequences of this plan, but I warned them, and that's all I could do," he wrote on GitHub. Yoichi refers to the Japanese law on" unauthorized creation of electromagnetic records " and believes that at the stage of implementation the project will be considered a crime. It was supported by one of the veterans of the Ethereum Foundation, developer Greg Colvin: "I'm sorry that you made this decision, but I admire the integrity of your personality. We are all forced to put up with the realities and uncertainties of the legal systems to which we obey. I have no doubt that I meet the requirements of the US law. But I can't be responsible for other countries and for your situation," he wrote in comments on GitHub. Recently, criticism from the bitcoin community and one of the main developers of Bitcoin Core Gregory Maxwell was subjected to Vitalik Buterin, defending the idea of "rescue hardforks" for a refund.
"Is there anyone here?": mining prevents to establish contact with extraterrestrial civilizations.
In addition to increasing energy consumption, mining opponents have a new reason to worry: lack of equipment. This caused a protest among researchers of the Institute for search of extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) and other similar organizations. Scientists report that they cannot access the necessary resources to improve observations in their observatories. An increased demand among miners leads to a shortage of chips: "We would like to use the latest graphics processors, but we can't get them", — said the chief researcher of the SETI research center at Berkeley Dan Werthimer. He noted that this is a new problem, and it concerns orders made in the last couple of months. While the mining of bitcoin and other coins that run on ASIC-compliant hashing algorithms is no longer profitable when using GPUs, many blockchains, including Ethereum, are still most profitable to mine using the same generic chips that are used in gaming and many other areas. The cost shares of major manufacturers such as AMD and Nvidia over the past year has soared by 64% and 88%, respectively. Moreover, the sharp decline in the crypto market in early 2018 did not affect the situation. Like SETI organizations use graphics processors to scan data matrix the sound to intercept extraterrestrial communication: "We want to analyze as many frequency channels as possible, because we do not know what the modulation mode of signal they use," said Dr. Wertimer.
Demand for blockchain developers increased by 35,000%.
Today, the labor market for each blockchain developer has 14 offers. At the same time, cryptographer Nick Sabo, who owns the idea of smart contracts, speaks about the imbalance of funds and knowledge in the blockchain industry: according to him, capital is significantly higher than talents. The portal for freelancers Upwork reports that the demand for blockchain specialists, including ICO consultants, engineers and blockchain consultants, increased by 35,000% last year. Toptal blockchain specialists are in demand by 700%, and blockchain skills are needed in 40% of all development positions. Technologies, the knowledge of which is especially welcome, were distributed in the following order: Hyperledger Fabric, Ripple, Solidity (Ethereum smart contract language). Based on these indicators, the founder and CEO of Toptal Tazo Du Val believes that "different types of contracts will take off first", and the more complex improvement of payments will take a long time, taking into account regulatory requirements. Vitalik Buterin believes that " chief developers and researchers should be hired by different companies, and the technical side of the Protocol should be democratized so that more people can participate in research discussions and propose improvements."
During the divorce, the British couple shares $840,000 in cryptocurrency.
The British law firm Royds Withy King is currently conducting three divorce proceedings related to the section" crypto-property", and one of them is a cryptocurrency worth $840,000. On February 14, the firm published a press release entitled "the nightmare of crypto divorce is becoming a reality": "This is the first wave of cases awaiting our firm. In all three cases, husbands have invested in or bought cryptocurrency, including bitcoin, litecoin, ripple, and ether." The most expensive case — the initial investment in November 2016 in the amount of £80,000, which in the December race soared to £1 million and now costs £600,000 ($840,000). Vandana of Chitroda, partner at Royds Withy King, said that the volatility "is a real problem in the evaluation of cryptocurrency" and the calculations have to be reworked several times until there is a divorce.