Tala is a company that currently counts on 6 million clients focused on people outside the formal economy. Transactions with USDC would happen in fiat money at the time of payment.

Tala, a platform that operates in Mexico and other countries, announced a partnership with Visa, Stellar Foundation and Circle, to allow its users to pay for services with the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) using a debit card.

The main purpose of this startup is to serve as a provider of financial services to people who cannot properly access banks. If this initiative comes to real terms, its users could pay with Visa in any of the 70 million businesses that accept their cards.

Tala, through its agreement with Visa, announced in a press release on the company’s website that it will allow its customers to use a card to make payments with USDC, a stablecoin “tied” to the value of the dollar, so it lacks the volatility of most cryptocurrencies.

The purchase would not happen directly in the cryptocurrency, but the cryptocurrency would face a conversion into fiat money when processing the transaction.

The Partnership Protocol will Grant Tala the Ability to Initiate a Digital Wallet for USDC

Moreover, the partnership with the Circle exchange and Stellar Development’s payment protocol will grant Tala the ability to initiate a digital wallet for USDC in its app. Circle is precisely the company that develops USDC, while Stellar is the operator of one of the blockchains on which the stablecoin works.

In addition, another chance for Tala clients will be the international transfer of USDC quickly and with lower commissions. Both the transactions and the storage in the wallet are “safe and stable” and allow easy exchange with fiat money, according to the information the company recently provided.

Tala is a financial services startup founded in 2014 that has a list with more than 6 million clients in Mexico, India, Kenya, and the Philippines. According to the announcement the company made, more than 3,000 million people around the world find it hard to access the formal economy, which includes the possession of bank accounts, among other privileges.

Visa’s Work with Cryptocurrencies

Shivani Siroya, CEO and founder of the company, said that “digital currencies have a monstrous potential to open access to financial services and set control directly over the unbanked population.”

For his part, Cuy Sheffield, director of the cryptocurrency area at Visa, said that they are very excited to partner with the Tala team to bring the benefits of the cryptocurrency economy to the people who need them most.”

Visa’s work with cryptocurrencies like USD Coin has been happening for a long time. In December 2020, this multinational giant joined forces with Circle to acquire the possibility to include USDC among currencies to consolidate payments at affiliated businesses around the world.

In addition to this project, the company is in charge of frequently clarifying its interest in entering the world of cryptocurrencies. Thus, its CEO, Al Kelly, has recently explained all the alternatives that they offer to their users today to buy, sell and use their crypto assets.

By: Jenson Nuñez

The US government agency seeks the payment of taxes and the identity of cryptocurrency users. A direct order from the Boston Federal Court had also mentioned Kraken as a subsidiary of Circle.

Kraken must now provide its customers’ data to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS). That is because of an order that a federal court in the Northern District of California recently issued.

Under the order, the IRS will be able to issue a “John Doe subpoena” to request the identity of taxpayers that have used the exchange. The US tax service seeks data of taxpayers who have moved at least USD 20,000 worth of cryptocurrencies between 2016 and 2020.

The Californian court made this decision as it is concerned that US citizens may not pay taxes for their activities associated with cryptocurrencies.

IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig stated that “taxpayers have no excuse not to report the income that they earn and the taxes that they owe for trading virtual currencies.” He considers that this approach is a step forward to “discovering those who are trying to evade the reports and avoid paying their fair share.”

The ruling in question is “an important step in ensuring that cryptocurrency owners comply with tax laws,” according to David A. Hubbert. The Acting Deputy Attorney General of the Department of Justice (DoJ) said that “those who trade cryptocurrencies must comply with their tax obligations.”

The document indicates that this order does not contemplate accusations against Kraken for any non-compliance or “irregularities” with its activities.

The IRS says that the subpoena seeks to access data of specific customers. According to the document, the government agency is conducting an investigation and they believe that there are people who “may have breached internal revenue laws.”

The IRS Launches a Crusade to Collect Taxes from Cryptocurrency Users

The new IRS order seeks to identify cryptocurrency users and charge them taxes for their activities with those assets. Between 2016 and 2020, the latter traded more than USD 20,000 worth of cryptocurrencies on exchange Circle and its subsidiaries.

The US Department of Justice explains that the objective is to identify investors who have traded cryptocurrencies without reporting them. In this way, they plan to collect the corresponding taxes, according to IRS regulations.

Last month, a federal court in Boston, Massachusetts, issued a similar ruling for Circle, the Boston-based operator of Kraken. This order covered the exchange as a subsidiary of Circle, but the new ruling is aimed directly at the San Francisco-based company.

The US tax agency has taken these actions to end anonymous transactions with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Its main intention is to have access to customers’ hardware wallets.

At the end of April, the IRS presented its plans to develop a series of tools to hack private keys to these wallets. With this, the agency sought to have access to the funds that they store and avoid tax evasion.

By Alexander Salazar

The FBI leads the number of requests to Coinbase for information about its customers, with 30%. Most of the requests come from countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

Government agencies requested cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase for information about its customers more than 4,000 times during 2020. The company recently told its customers about that situation through a transparency report.

The document seeks to “inform customers about requests for information from law enforcement agencies,” according to the Coinbase blog.

The report corresponds to the second half of the year when the company received 54% of the requests for the whole year. In that period, government agencies made 2,313 of the 4,227 requests for customer data for all of 2020. Likewise, 90% of requests in the second period came from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, the report added.

Potential criminal actions were allegedly the reason for more than 95% of the requests. However, the Coinbase document does not specify how much corresponded to possible money laundering, tax evasion, theft, or other illegal acts.

The transparency statement delimits the agencies that made the highest number of requests for this type of information. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) leads the aforementioned list with 30%.

The figure is not surprising as the FBI has been increasingly aware of the movements of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, in search of illicit activities. However, they use mixers to obfuscate the trail of the bitcoins that they have managed to seize.

A former agent of the government agency recently joined Chainalysis, one of the largest blockchain and cryptocurrency trackers in the world. The new CTO of the company, who actively collaborates with the US government, worked in the FBI for 23 years.

The IRS Requests Exchanges for User Data to Combat the Privacy of Cryptocurrencies

Regulators, tax agencies, and security forces seem to be tightening the control on users of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In recent days, a US court authorized the IRS, the country’s tax agency, to request the Kraken exchange to provide the identity of its users.

The IRS was also involved in the requests to Coinbase for its users’ data, with more than 10% of them. This government agency has always been against the privacy of cryptocurrencies, which could relate to illegal activities. They have even taken an eye on crypto-assets like Zcash and the network of Bitcoin payment channels Lightning Network.

At the same time, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has proposed tighter restrictions on the privacy of cryptocurrency users. The agency made new recommendations on the regulation of Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies, DeFi platforms, P2P markets, stablecoins, and cryptocurrency service providers.

According to Dave Jevans, CEO of blockchain intelligence firm CipherTrace, the FATF will announce the guidelines around June 15^th. Jevans called on the Bitcoin community to be aware of the new regulations on crypto assets.

By Alexander Salazar

Gary Gensler explained that a regulatory framework for digital assets by the SEC or CFTC could generate a considerable amount of confidence in investors.

The chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, seemed to agree with Congress for providing better regulatory supervision over the crypto space, but also said the commission would act within its reach.

In a virtual hearing by the House Financial Services Committee, North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry made some questions to Gensler about what the regulator would add to ensure a better market for digital assets with legal money and a set of law procedures.  McHenry  also talked about collaborations between regulatory entities regarding digital assets and cryptocurrencies.

Gensler said the cryptocurrency market could receive many benefits from “increased investor protection” within the current authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, over securities and other financial products.

Gensler also made clear his beliefs about the US Congress having the power to address such regulatory oversight rather than the commission imposing its authority with his total leadership.

Gensler and its Opinions about Regulatory Structures

Gensler said that the exchanges that handle these crypto assets do not count on a regulatory structure in either the SEC or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That situation could probably generate way more confidence since there is no market regulator around these cryptocurrency exchanges, and therefore there is a lack of protection against fraud.

This hearing is the third that takes place regarding the controversy over GameStop earlier this year. Lawmakers have been digging a bit more into allegations of market manipulation by Robinhood and major hedge funds because of the throttling of short positions in GameStop stocks that happened because of a massive purchase from redditors and other users.

GME’s price’s volatility skyrocketed since it peaked at $ 469.49 on January 28, dipping below $ 50 and fluctuating between $ 100 and $ 300 ever since.

Members of the Senate officially confirmed Gensler’s nomination last month, meaning this was his first hearing on the GameStop controversy as SEC chairman. During his confirmation hearings with the Senate Banking Committee, Gensler had shown his total support to the SEC and its decision to exclude Bitcoin (BTC) from its regulatory scope.

A bit About Gensler’s Story

Members of the Senate confirmed the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Gensler, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, joined as a volunteer in November to aid then-president-elect Joe Biden’s team to improve their finance expertise. Biden announced that the former CFTC was about to own the chair of the SEC shortly before his January inauguration.

During his confirmation hearings before the Senate Banking Committee, Gensler presented a very evasive position about whether he would implement changes to the SEC’s policy regarding cryptocurrencies.

Gensler was chairman of the CFTC during President Barack Obama’s period from 2009 to 2014. Gensler has a famous reputation, being known as an inflexible regulator especially as a head of the CFTC. Gensler oversaw a series of reforms of the $ 400 trillion financial derivatives market.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Ethereum’s cryptocurrency Ether recently exceeded the psychological barrier of USD 3,000. This increase allowed Vitalik Buterin to become the youngest billionaire in the crypto industry.

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin recently became the youngest billionaire following a rise in the price of Ether. Buterin’s public Ether address, which is his primary wallet, has reached a balance of USD 1 billion. That is due to the dramatic increase in the price of Ether above the psychological mark of USD 3,000 in recent days.

Some members of the cryptocurrency network gave their opinion on this event. They consider that 27-year-old Vitalik Buterin could now be the youngest billionaire in the crypto industry.

Buterin has been generous with his cryptocurrency holdings amid the rising prices in the market. At the end of April, the Russian-Canadian programmer donated 100 Ether and 100 Maker (MKR) tokens. That amount went to a relief fund for COVID-19 victims in India.

The Price of Ether Places It Above Bank of America

The price of the second cryptocurrency on the market has exceeded the psychological mark of USD 3,000 per unit. The price of ETH reached that milestone on several major exchanges, including Binance, Bybit, Coinbase, and BitMEX.

Ethereum has been able to outperform The Walt Disney Company and the Bank of America, among other institutions, in terms of total market capitalization thanks. In the last week, the smart contracts company has grown by 24% reaching USD 346.72 billion, according to the tracking website Infinite Marketcap.

Regarding Bitcoin, the pioneering cryptocurrency currently has a market capitalization of USD 1.079 trillion. That figure is just below the total market capitalization of silver, which is at USD 1.416 trillion. Besides, it is above that of the social media company Facebook, which is at USD 923.120 million.

The Factors Contributing to the Increase in the Value of the Ethereum Network

Many tout the Ethereum blockchain as the potential backbone of the Internet of the future. However, the Ethereum protocol is different from the traditional Internet as it is much more suitable to capture the value of the apps created on it.

The main factors driving the price of Ether higher are decentralized finance (DeFi), the rise of the NFT market, and the demand for stablecoins. Although the Ethereum blockchain has congested networks and high gas fees, it still houses most of the DeFi space and the creation of NFT.

The increase in the price of Ethereum is also linked to the increase in activity in the chain and institutional entities. For example, the European Investment Bank recently announced that it would issue a two-year digital bond worth USD 121 million.

Lately, there has been a growing interest in DeFi from retail investors. Additionally, the total locked value (TVL) has reached all-time highs above USD 100 billion.

The community is preparing for the upcoming Ethereum hard fork London scheduled for July. Since this update will allow making more transactions for lower fees, traders are more attracted to investing in it.

By Alexander Salazar