Raging dumpster fire of the Alex Tapscott
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Raging dumpster fire of the Alex Tapscott
If you’ve been with my newsletter for a while, you might remember that in 2017, I wrote this:
“A C$100-million blockchain project with big names backing it collapsed after it emerged that those big names — including Bitcoin godfather Andreas Antonopoulos and Dmitry Buterin, father of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin — are in fact not backing it.”
That C$100-million project was a fund to invest in blockchain projects. Now, lawmen are after Alex Tapscott, the Torontonian behind it, for misleading investors. (You might remember Tapscott as one half of the father-son think-tank duo that wrote the book Blockchain Revolution.)
Canadian authorities have reached a settlement with Tapscott, in which he has to pay C$300,000 and teach ethics. The Americans fined Tapscott $25,000, after his company paid a half-million administrative penalty.
For what it’s worth, before Tapscott’s fund collapsed, he did make money for his clients during what was a raging bull market. It’s just a pity that the fund was accused of such farcical misrepresentation — in its investor materials, it used the picture of an Australian fiction writer as that of a "prolific angel investor.”
Price action: clear skies after the storm break
Bitcoin is expected to rise further, analysts say. Bitcoin is at $7,949 (C$10,706) as of 10 a.m. Sunday, Mountain Time, up about 12 per cent for the week. In a tumultuous seven days, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency rose to 10-month highs above $8,300, tumbled to $6,000 levels due to a massive sell order, then bounced back.
Canada: regulators summon their hammer
The Department of Finance is consulting the public on its intention to make cryptocurrency transactions immune to sales tax. But does that mean they are currently subject to sales tax? Nobody knows, but probably no.
Canadian authorities have proposed rules to govern cryptocurrency exchanges in the same way they do platforms that let people buy stocks and other tradable financial instruments. Kraken, which serves Canada and is one of the world’s largest exchanges, is not happy.
World: Binance to open more complex trades
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, is planning to roll out cryptocurrency derivatives — more complex trades for professionals, rather than retail investors.
The owner of the New York Stock Exchange will finally release Bakkt in July. Bakkt provides a Bitcoin-backed futures contract, a mainstream investment instrument.
U.S. regulators have again delayed a decision for another Bitcoin-backed mainstream investment instrument, an exchange-traded fund (ETF).
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