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A Shanghai court ruling has clarified that while virtual currencies are not considered legal tender in China, they are recognised as virtual commodities with property attributes, allowing individuals to legally hold them. However, the judge cautioned against engaging in crypto transactions due to potential illegal activities and the absence of legal protections for participants. Former U.S. Senator Pat Toomey voiced concerns about unresolved issues in stablecoin regulations, such as bankruptcy resolutions, reserve requirements, and regulatory jurisdiction. He believes progress will be made on these issues in 2025 once key political concerns are resolved. In the aftermath of the 2022 collapse of FTX, co-founder Gary Wang was sentenced to time served, three years’ probation, and asset forfeiture after cooperating with authorities. This ruling mirrors those for other executives involved in the scandal, including Caroline Ellison and Sam Bankman-Fried, with Wang expressing remorse for his actions.
Japan is advancing with a proposed stimulus package that includes tax reform measures targeting income, corporate, and cryptocurrency taxes to address challenges in its current tax structure, which imposes a high, variable levy. Some opposition parties advocate for a flat 20% tax rate on digital assets to provide clarity and stability. Meanwhile, Phantom, a non-custodial crypto wallet popular in the Solana ecosystem, reached second place in the Apple App Store’s utilities category, surpassing major apps like Google Chrome. This success comes as Solana-based decentralised applications (DApps) achieve record fee generation, signalling a key milestone in Web3’s mainstream adoption. In South Korea, the Democratic Party is pushing for the implementation of a 20% crypto tax starting in 2025, proposing to raise the threshold for taxable crypto gains to $36,000. This counters the ruling party’s suggestion to delay the tax until 2028, which the opposition views as a political manoeuvre.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) study casts doubt on the decentralisation of liquidity provision in decentralised finance (DeFi), revealing that institutional players dominate liquidity provision on decentralised exchanges (DEXs) like Uniswap v3, controlling 80% of the total value locked. Retail liquidity providers (LPs) earn lower fees and suffer reduced returns, challenging the fundamental ethos of DeFi as a democratised financial system. In a separate news, Sky (formerly Maker) has launched its USDS stablecoin on Solana to increase DeFi liquidity on the network, offering rewards for early adopters and liquidity providers. This rebrand targets Solana’s growing DeFi market, with USDS now ranked as the third-largest stablecoin by market cap. As the DeFi landscape evolves, the financial sector faces other shifts, such as Martin Gruenberg’s upcoming retirement as chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) on January 19, 2025. His departure will allow President Trump to appoint a new FDIC head following Gruenberg’s controversial involvement in Operation Chokepoint 2.0, which allegedly pressured banks to limit services to crypto businesses, leaving a legacy of scrutiny over his management and the FDIC’s toxic work environment.
Source: https://cointelegraph.com
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