The Weekly Crypto Digest: Biden’s E.O., the EU and Polygon
Joe Biden’s Executive Order
On Wednesday last week, US President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order on cryptocurrency that outlines highly anticipated digital asset regulation as well as the potential for CBDC introduction. It also calls on US state agencies to make sure the nation’s cryptocurrency regulations align with those of US allies.
Reports from across the news world had anticipated the signing of this executive order to take place back in February. It was likely the signing was postponed due to the increasing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Crypto leaders within the industry have thus far responded optimistically to the executive order. The Crypto Council for Innovation, which includes major coin exchanges such as Gemini and Coinbase, released a statement on Twitter:
“We look forward to working in partnership with regulators and policymakers in the coming months to develop smart policies that bolster America’s position as a global leader of crypto innovation,” the CCI said in the statement. “Collaboration is crucial” they said.
EU to vote on crypto
Following the lead of the US, the European Parliament is scheduled to vote on a legislative package titled the Markets in Crypto-Assets Directive. Chairman of the Parliament’s economic committee and architect of the directive, Stefan Berger, confirmed on Twitter that the vote was to be held this coming week. His Tweets hinted at some of the content included in the directive, suggesting that crypto will fall under the remit of the EU’s taxonomy for sustainable activities.
Polygon network goes down
Polygon, a layer 2 solution for the Ethereum blockchain, experienced an extended outage due to an issue with its Heimdall node.
The Polygon team posted an update warning of the outage, saying that a recent upgrade halted the node, and that all user funds and data are “absolutely safe”.
The team suspect the Heimdall node, which is used for validator related transactions, was suffering from a bug which has affected consensus, causing different validators to be on separate versions of the blockchain.
Thailand and crypto
Thailand has announced a range of tax benefits that are aimed at boosting the nation’s use of crypto as an investment opportunity. From April 2022 until the end of 2023, there will be tax relief measures in place, including the exemption of a seven per cent VAT tax on cryptocurrency trades via regulated exchanges.
Thailand is grappling with the various problems that crypto pose from an economic and political perspective. Earlier this year the nation announced that it would be regulating the use of digital assets as a means of payment for goods and services to try and minimise the impact that the highly volatile coins have on people’s ability to buy consume goods.