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The Taxman Cometh🏛️
🚨 You can run, but you can’t hide, 🪙 ETH holders last longer, 🦑 Squid scam, and more!
Greetings! Almost there for 2024! I’m Tikta, a reporter at Unchained.
In today’s edition:
🔎 DeFi disclosures loom
🪝 Do Kwon gets reeled in
🏦 ETH HODLers increase
🤨 Squid game’s fishy tokens
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What’s Poppin’?
By Tikta
IRS Finalizes Controversial DeFi Broker Rule
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has finalized a tax rule that would require certain decentralized finance brokers to collect and report on user activity.
The new regulation, set to take effect in 2027, calls for front-end DeFi protocols to file Forms 1099, “Digital Asset Proceeds from Broker Transactions,” and report information such as transaction IDs and wallet addresses.
“This rule has been ready to go for a while now,” Consensys’ legal counsel, Bill Hughes, said in a post on X. “They dump it [on] the last Friday of 2024 in the middle of a holiday stretch on purpose, obviously. As if we wouldn’t notice or make an absolute ruckus over it.”
Crypto lobbying groups such as the Blockchain Association, the DeFi Education Fund and the Texas Blockchain Council have filed a joint lawsuit against the IRS and the Treasury Department’s “midnight rulemaking.”
Do Kwon U.S. Extradition Order Gets a Green Light
Montenegro’s minister of justice, Bojan Božović, has signed an order allowing the extradition of Terra co-founder Do Kwon to the U.S.
The decision comes after the Supreme Court of Montenegro previously ruled that Kwon should be extradited to the U.S. after much back and forth over whether he should be extradited to his native South Korea instead.
Assessment criteria included the severity of Kwon’s criminal offenses, where his crimes were committed, and the order in which the U.S. and South Korea had submitted extradition requests.
Industry watchers believe that Kwon will likely face a harsher sentence in the U.S. than in South Korea, based on the way the American justice system prosecutes financial crimes.
Long-Term ETH Holders Overtook Bitcoiners in 2024
The proportion of long-term ether holders has increased to 75% over the past year, while the proportion of long-term bitcoin holders has dropped to 62%, according to data from onchain analytics firm IntoTheBlock.
Bitcoin’s stellar performance in 2024 and ether’s relatively lacklustre year may have something to do with holders’ behaviour.
Earlier this month, blockchain data firm Glassnode noted that long-term bitcoin holders took profits of $2.1 billion daily, a new all-time high volume.
Ethereum holders, conversely, might be holding out for higher ETH prices before cashing out.
Squid Game Scam Tokens Reappear as New Series Airs
Fraudulent crypto tokens based on the “Squid Game” Netflix series have once again found their way into the crypto market as the show goes to air for a second season.
Blockchain security firm PeckShield warned users about one such token deployed on Base that plummeted in value.
Data and analysis platform DEX Screener show that there are still several more tokens with the same name trading on decentralized exchanges.
In 2021, a group of unknown developers created a token called SQUID, marketing it as a "play-to-earn" opportunity inspired by the show.
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🇲🇾 Malaysia’s securities regulator has launched enforcement action against crypto exchange Bybit for operating without proper registration, ordering the firm to suspend its website and trading platforms in the country.
🚦 Exchange-traded fund firm Volatility Shares has filed an application for ETFs based on Solana futures contracts on Commodity Futures Trading Commission-regulated exchanges despite the fact that no Solana futures products are currently available to trade.
📈 Ethereum NFT trading volume surged 67% in the week commencing Dec. 16, reaching $186 million, with Pudgy Penguins being the main catalyst following the launch of its token, PENGU.
Today in Crypto Adoption...
🇸🇻 El Salvador has reached a milestone of holding 6,000 BTC in its reserves, making the country sixth among the top government holders of Bitcoin globally.
The $$$ Corner…
🤑 Crypto venture capital funding could exceed $18 billion in 2025, according to Robert Le, an analyst at private-market research and data firm PitchBook.
What Do You Meme?
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is down 1.6%, trading at $93,383
ETH is flat, trading at $3,398
BTC dominance: 54.1%
Crypto market cap: $3.42T
*All data as of today, 06:22 am ET. Source: CoinGecko
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