| Bitcoin | $34,528 | 7 day: +1.7% | | Ethereum | $1,083 | 7 day: -1.3% | | All crypto | $934B | 7 day: +1.7% | | Bitcoin dominance | 68.3% | 7 day: -0.5% | Prices as of 4 p.m. EST
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 South Korean gaming company Nexon (3659.T) says it will not acquire troubled crypto exchange Bithumb for $460M. Bithumb was once the largest S. Korea-based cryptocurrency exchange. More: - Kim Jung-Ju, CEO of NXC Corporation, the holding company of South Korean-Japanese gaming company Nexon (3659.T), allegedly signed a memorandum of understanding to acquire Bithumb crypto exchange for $460M, but backed out of the deal.
- The exchange platform has been available for purchase since August 2020, as reported by local news outlets.
- Samjong KPMG was organizing the sale for Nexon to secure 65% of Bithumb from three shareholders: Bithumb Holdings, Bident, and Omnitel.
- Any deal to acquire Bithumb must proceed under the supervision of South Korea's financial intelligence unit (FIU) due to previous embezzlement allegations against Bithumb executives.
- If the FIU had approved the deal, Nexon would have owned two crypto exchanges: Bitstamp and Korbit.
- Bithumb was raided twice by Seoul police from the Metropolitan Police Agency's Intelligent Crime Unit regarding its initial exchange offering and international remittances.
- Police previously charged Bithumb's beneficiary and owner, Lee Jung-hoon, with fraud.
CoinTelegraph 
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 Seoul, S. Korea South Korea will impose a 20% cryptocurrency gains tax by 2023. - South Korea's Ministry of Economy and Finance is imposing the tax according a revised tax roll-out.
- The revised rules classify all profits made from cryptocurrency transactions as financial investment gains, starting in 2023.
- Any cryptocurrency investor making 2.5M won ($2,200) per annum from the digital assets would also be taxed at 20%.
- The tax rate rises to 35% at profits exceeding 300M won ($273,000).
CoinTelegraph
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 Blockchain analysis and crypto intelligence company Ciphertrace clarified terminology surrounding Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs). - The terms cryptocurrency, crypto asset, convertible virtual currency, digital asset, digital token, cryptographic coin, and virtual asset usually define the same thing.
- A crypto exchange can be called a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP), Virtual Asset Entity, Money Service Business (MSB), Digital Asset Entity, token exchange, or Digital Asset Customer.
Digital Asset Customer: - In January 2020, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) used the term Digital Asset Customer (DAC) in a cease and desist order against M.Y. Safra Bank.
- The New York-based bank operated with inadequate anti-money laundering (AML) practices to monitor and comply with its obligations.
Virtual Asset Service Providers: - For any digital asset entity that engages in financial transmissions to customers, the obligations of any money transmitter — such as AML/CFT (Anti-Money Laundering/Combating Financial Terrorism) — apply.
- The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommends strict know your customer (KYC) requirements for exchange entities that are Virtual Asset Service Providers, irrespective of the technology utilized to conduct their business.
- A VASP can be a centralized or decentralized exchange, an over-the-counter desk, a bitcoin ATM, a peer-to-peer exchange, or even a custodian.
- In May 2019, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) published guidance clarifying that regulators would interpret Decentralized Apps or DApps like CVC kiosks that receive and transfer values.
- The FATF followed a like-to-like approach regarding virtual assets regulations, suggesting in its June 2019 guidance that DEXs are VASPs.
- However, according to the European Union's AMLD5 (5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive), all VASPs are not subject to regulations.
Regulatory entities refer to VASPs and cryptocurrencies using different terminology: - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) calls it Digital Asset Trading Platform and digital assets, respectively.
- The U.S. Treasury's bureau FinCEN uses the terms Money Transmitter or Money Service Business, and convertible virtual currency, respectively.
- The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) uses the terms Virtual Asset Service Provider and Virtual Assets, respectively.
CipherTrace
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 Shapeshifting (Abstract Art by Tavar Zawacki) ShapeShift's digital currency exchange is utilizing third-party, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) to process orders. - The Erik Voorhees-led cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift announced the integration of DEXs in a press release dated Jan. 6, 2021.
- ShapeShift's homepage now proudly advertises trading services "without KYC" (know your customer) protocols.
- The exchange is one of the few in the U.S. that does not require customers to submit personally identifiable information prior to trading.
- Shapeshift used to advertise its "no account required for trading" functionality in the past. However, regulators prompted Voorhees to adopt KYC for most trading functions during 2018.
- Voorhees told Coindesk that adopting KYC cost the exchange 95% of its users.
- In 2016, hackers stole money from ShapeShift in three incidents involving $24.6M, later alleged by Ledger Labs to have been an inside job.
- In August 2020, the exchange filed a civil action demanding a jury trial against a former senior engineer named Azamat Mukhiddinov for allegedly siphoning 90 bitcoins (approximately $3.3M at the time) from the corporate account.
Decrypt
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- The SEC will soon have a new chairman: Gary Gensler.
- Visa (NYSE:V) and Plaid have announced a mutual termination of their planned merger. In December, the Dept. of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit to block the merger. (Coinbase was one of Plaid's many clients in the crypto industry.)
- The Superintendency of Corporations, a Colombian regulatory body, is allowing corporations to buy digital assets such as bitcoin using their capital.
- Charles Calomiris, Chief Economist at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, published a paper explaining why the issuance of national bank charters that encourage the use of stablecoins was advantageous.
- Coindesk interviews various early coiners on why "this bull run feels different."
- Pornhub's cryptocurrency payments continue growing after Mastercard (NYSE:MA) and Visa (NYSE:V) paused their support following a New York Times investigation into illegal videos involving non-consensual violence with children and women.
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*This is sponsored content.
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 |  | Curated by Associated Press fanboy, eye-strained news terminal watcher, and bitcoin follower since $1, Aaron Wise. Temporarily listening to news squawk boxes in Florida while awaiting the construction of cryptopia. |  | | Editor | Charlotte Hayes-Clemens is an editor and writer based in Vancouver. She has dabbled in both the fiction and non-fiction world, having worked at HarperCollins Publishers and more recently as a writing coach for new and self-published authors. Proper semi-colon usage is her hill to die on. | |
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