Crypto Highlights Week #49 – Russia to Recognize Bitcoin as Property With Legal Protection

Crypto Highlights: Russia recognizes Bitcoin as property, Bitcoin to hit $250k by Nov. 2021, Crypto crimes to surge in 2021, Sell pressure mounts at the 20k region: there is more in this week’s Crypto Highlights.

Top Headlines Of The Week

• Two of the most powerful economies in the Middle East UAE and Saudi Arabian central banks released reports on the Project Aber CBDC trial.
• Bitcoin has relentlessly tried breaking the 20k mark severally with no success, this area is serving as the biggest psychological resistance as whales clusters large sell orders. 
• Russia has taken a u-turn in recognizing Bitcoin as properties, although no information about which the crypto asset will be taxable.

Top Stories Of The Week

Institutional money may propel Bitcoin to $250K in one year’s time, says macro investor

One interesting thing about the current crypto bull-run is that unlike the 2017 bullish trend, the current positive market sentiment is being fueled by high-profile institutional juggernauts. Everything looks solid for Bitcoin as the digital asset trades within the $19k region. 

Leveraging on the current bullish momentum, founder and CEO of Global Macro Investor and Real Vision Raoul Pal believes that the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization could reach $150,000 by November 2021. He further reiterated that due to a large amount of institutional money currently flowing into the Bitcoin market, we could even witness a $250,000 per Bitcoin.

Pal further mentioned that most of the Bitcoin circulating supply is currently being absorbed by PayPal, Grayscale, and Square, pointing out that the resulting supply squeeze is the catalyst for Bitcoin’s latest surge. With the continuous printing of money to cushion the effect of the Coronavirus pandemic, the U.S dollar is already locked for further devaluation. This too will have a positive effect on Bitcoin. 

Coronavirus-Induced Poverty Will Bring More Bitcoin Crime in 2021: Kaspersky Report

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Despite the fall in crypto crimes in 2020, there are reports that a rise in crypto crimes could be witnessed in 2021 due to coronavirus-induced poverty. This was contained in a report written by Cybersecurity specialist Kaspersky on financial threats for 2021. Based on data and patterns from this year the company predicted that attacks aimed at stealing bitcoin will “become more attractive as many nations plummet into poverty as a result of the pandemic.”

The continued weakening of local currencies, the huge number of people put out of work, and the surging number of businesses that failed due to the pandemic will unarguably push a lot of people into crypto crimes. Kaspersky noted that the focus will likely be on Bitcoin as its the largest and most popular crypto assets. 

The study further pointed out that privacy coins will likely be used by criminals in extorting money from their victims, “the use of “transition currencies” with privacy-enhancing features, such as Monero (XMR), will see greater use as a way to hide criminals’ tracks.

Top Adoption Of The Week

Russia to Recognize Bitcoin as Property With Legal Protection

Just the way institutional players are lined up so are regulators who are ready to draft out a fair playing ground for cryptocurrency assets. In the most recent unfolding, the Russian prime minister has drafted a government’s plans to amend existing laws to recognize cryptocurrency as property. 

The implication however is that those who own bitcoin now possess the legal rights to defend and recoup their crypto assets in court. This was confirmed in a statement issued  by the Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin:

“Digital financial assets will be recognized as property, and their owners will be able to count on legal protection in the event of any illegal actions, as well as defend their property rights in court.”

Questions about the possibility of Bitcoin being treated as a taxable property keep sprawling up. There have been discussions in this direction among lawmakers to treat bitcoin as taxable property, however, it is important to note that this is not yet official.

UAE, Saudi Arabian central banks release report on Project Aber CBDC trial

Whether you like to call it FOMO or not, the quest for digital currency assets that copies most of the blockchain capabilities is on the rise among top Nations around the world. With China already testing the pilot version of their digital Yuan, Central banks from two of the most powerful economies in the Middle East have released a report detailing a joint central bank digital currency (CBDC) project.

Featuring a top spot in this week’s crypto highlights,  ‘Project Aber’ is a joint effort between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The project aims to establish a “proof of concept” designed to “contribute to the body of knowledge in CBDC and DLT technologies.” It was first announced in January of 2019. 

Although the report stated that a dual-issued CBDC was “not only technically viable” for cross border payments, however CBDCs present “a significant improvement over centralized payment systems in terms of architectural resilience.” Interestingly, Aber aims to be a fully decentralized project which takes privacy and decentralization seriously. 

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This Week’s Market Sentiment

Psychology, Sell Pressures Keep Bitcoin Below $20K

Since setting an all-time high at a point slightly above the previous all-time high, Bitcoin has been showing signs of weakness as it continues to trade around the $19k region. With a diminishing volume and negative traders’ psychology, the $20k mark is now serving as a major psychological resistance.

According to analysts and traders, a lot of sell orders are clustering around the $20k region, putting a lot of sell pressure in that region. That price point is very significant considering the fact that this was the exact region the market topped in 2017 before the start of the bear market which led to the biggest Bitcoin correction in history.

“A huge [number] of sellers are offering orders near the $20,000 level, which has no doubt created a strong resistance level,” Simon Chen, executive director of investment and trading at Hong Kong-based crypto lender Babel Finance, said. “People are trying to sell at this level based on what happened during the 2017 bull market.”

The decrease in exchange outflow could also be another pointer that traders think the 20k psychological region won’t be broken in the near term. Keeping those bitcoins in exchanges shows traders are willing to sell, else they would have been making a lot of withdrawals.

Meme Of The Week

We hope you enjoyed this week’s edition of crypto highlights. For a peek at our last edition of crypto highlights & blockchain news, click here.