South Korea is reportedly bringing forward—yet again—plans for a tax on digital currency profits, which will see gains liable to a 20% tax, according to local media.

Reporting on an announcement from the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Korean Herald said profits from trading and holding digital currencies in Korea would be subject to the new tax from as early as January 1, 2022, as part of the country's commitment to establish a more robust legal framework for digital currency dealings.

The tax is liable on gains of over KRW2.5 million, roughly equivalent to about $2,300. Any gains up to that level will not be liable for taxation, but must still be reported to the tax authorities at year end, as with other forms of income.

The country had previously sought to introduce the tax in 2020, but encountered significant pushback from the digital currency community. Several delays in policy followed, including pushing a previous 2022 deadline back to 2023, until the latest announcement.

With the latest update, it looks as though the tax authorities are set to impose the levy from the start of 2022, in line with the reclassification of digital currencies as financial assets.

Digital currency inherited and gifted will also be subject to the tax, according to the reports, which the Herald says will be calculated using weighted average values for digital currency over a period of time.

"In such cases, the price of the asset will be calculated on the basis of the daily average price for one month before and one month after the date of the inheritance or gift."

The tax has again met with local opposition, with some 38,000 citizens having signed a petition against the plans to introduce the tax.

Nevertheless, the authorities are intent on pressing forward with the new levy, as part of its ongoing process of overhauling securities laws.

Vladimir Zhuravlev, a Gravity Tech and Waves Association developer, notes that for several years, the Odyssey hackathon (held in the Netherlands) had offered opportunities for software engineers to collaborate on various projects.

Zhuravlev revealed that this year, Odyssey was hosted online for the very time (due to COVID). The event's team tried to ensure that the hackathon would be a unique experience for all participants. They introduced a 3D online arena that connected all 105 teams, jedis and challenge hosts in one virtual space, Zhuravlev noted.

He added:
"The Waves Association was honored to participate in the event in several aspects. First, the Waves protocol was suggested as a building block with support from Waves Jedis: Rob van de Camp and Inal Kardanov. Second, the Waves platform was used for issuing awards to winning teams. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for digital art were created on Waves and sent to participants as a special prize."

The Waves team took part in the hackathon as one of the 105 competing squads, Zhuravlev  confirmed. He also mentioned that the challenge that the team attempted to solve was provided by the Dutch police: Inclusive Safety Communities that "coordinate citizens in emergency situations." (Note: for more details on this update, check here.)

Waves has also teamed up with UNION for asset protection.

UNION will be providing its collateral protection product to various lending protocols that use Waves' Neutrino USD (USDN) and smart contract protection to the inter-chain communication protocol Gravity.

John Liu, CPO of UNION, stated:
"Waves' complete decentralized finance (DeFi) solution with a broad market reach is the perfect platform for building UNION's complete DeFi protection. We look forward to advancing the industry together in 2021 with an inclusive, safe, and accessible portal."

Sten Laureyssens, Strategic Advisor for the Waves Association, remarked:

"The [steady] growth of USDN allowed us to identify demand for advanced risk management and asset protection products. UNION's mission to offer full-stack DeFi protection that decreases the barrier to entry for retail, while advanced enough for institutional investors, is accurately aligned with our approach. As we step into 2021, our integration through Gravity will be a vital-for-growth milestone to reduce multi-layered risks in our ecosystem."

UNION and Waves will work on liquidity provision programs such as the UNN/USDN liquidity pool on Uniswap, a UNN/USDN pair on Waves.Exchange, along with support for the UNN/USDN pair on UNION's Geyser liquidity pool.

Additionally, UNION will be used in Waves' products based on the lending model. For example, users of these products will be asked to choose over-collateralization protection (OC) for "a premium." As noted in the announcement, "in the case of a liquidation trigger, should the OC ratio fall below a specific threshold, the UNN protection product will be called to fill the portion of the OC protected while the borrower pays the remaining difference."

UNION will also be working closely with Waves on issuing a smart contract protection instrument for Gravity early next year. The product will aim to offer additional security to the technology, "ruling out human factors, such as node collusion." Gravity currently utilizes "mathematically proven multi-party computation (MPC) security for its assets held in decentralized custody." UNION will offer "an additional protection layer for users of Gravity's cross-chain system," the announcement confirmed.

Deposits via Gravity, USDN-related (decentralized applications) dApps or future Waves lending protocols will "initiate a prompt to add a specific protection product for a premium or forgo the protection before finalizing the deposit." UNION will "render an intuitive integration and UI for the product, simplifying the asset protection process for Waves users," the announcement noted.

UNION is a full-stack protection platform that aims to lower costs and risks in DeFi by offering a modular infrastructure for the development of advanced coverage products and risk management tools.

As noted in a blog post by Waves Protocol:
"UNION's platform enables the creation of asset protection products based on organic market demand, ranging from discretionary smart contract coverage to complex derivatives on credit default risks and coverage for impermanent loss of liquidity providers. UNION's platform is composable and decentralized, offering secondary markets for protection and an inclusive no-KYC ecosystem."

The Reserve Bank of India is exploring the need for a digital version of its fiat currency. In a recent outlook on payments in the digital era, the bank justified its earlier apprehension, but revealed that it's now open to the possibility of a digital rupee.

The RBI has come to be seen as one of the greatest impediments to digital currency adoption in India. It has previously banned commercial banks from processing digital currency-related payments. This decision was overturned in March 2020 by the Supreme Court, however.

In a new report, the regulator has now revealed it's warming up to the possibility of a central bank digital currency. The report stated that digital currencies have gained great popularity in India. Regulators in India have taken a keen interest, while at the same time being skeptical about the associated risks. It added:

"Nevertheless, RBI is exploring the possibility as to whether there is a need for a digital version of fiat currency and in case there is, then how to operationalise it."

The report is just the latest suggestion that the bank has left the door open when it comes to a CBDC. A year ago, the country's National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) published a draft National Strategy on Blockchain advocating for a digital rupee. It recommended a permissioned blockchain rollout for the CBDC.

The Institute, which consults for state and the national governments, believes that a digital rupee would allow Indians to monetize their data.

"Unlocking the value of the data in the hands of citizens in a secure manner could give a big boost to citizens' disposable incomes," the Institute stated.

Two years ago, the RBI created an inter-departmental group to explore the feasibility of a CBDC. It cited the emergence of private digital tokens and the rising cost of minting fiat currency as key reasons for the CBDC. The RBI never made the findings of the group public. It, however, shelved its digital rupee plans in 2019.

"The government doesn't want the digital currency any more. It thinks it is too early to even think about a digital currency," a source told a local outlet.

Ripple's XRP has lost almost 40% of its value after the token price dropped from $0.51 on December 21 to $0.31 at the time of writing. The token's plunge appears to be the result of legal proceedings initiated against Ripple by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). At the time of writing, the fourth-ranked crypto token had seen traded volumes of $4.85 billion recorded in 24 hours.

$1.3 Billion Lawsuit
As data on markets.Bitcoin.com suggests, the sell-off of the XRP token appears to have been sparked by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse's warning that the SEC was about to launch legal proceedings against the company. A day later, the SEC announced the $1.3 billion legal action against Ripple and two of its executives for allegedly conducting an unregistered security offering.

Meanwhile, as the XRP token continues to plummet, an angry Garlinghouse has accused the US regulator of being biased against Ripple while appearing to give a free pass to BTC and ETH. In its determination, the SEC says the XRP is a security and therefore is subject to the dictates of the US Securities Act. Garlinghouse, who has previously threatened to exit the United States due to its regulatory approach, rejects the characterization of XRP as a security.

In his many very public attempts to push back against the SEC, Garlinghouse says the XRP token is a fully functional currency that offers a better alternative. He adds that alongside bitcoin and ether, "the two Chinese controlled virtual currencies" according to the company, XRP ranks as one of the most capitalized cryptos.

Crypto Community Reacts
However, the latter comment appears to have prompted a swift response by some bitcoiners and the ETH creator Vitalik Buterin. In his tweet, Buterin accuses Garlinghouse and his team of "sinking to new levels of strangeness." The ETH creator adds:
They're claiming that their shitcoin should not be called a security for *public policy reasons*, namely because Bitcoin and Ethereum are 'Chinese-controlled.'

Also weighing in on the controversy is Mike Novogratz, the CEO of Galaxy who says he "finds it strange that Clayton waited years to do this."

On the other hand, Ryan Selkis thinks the SEC is going to lose this case because it is "outclassed on legal." He adds that the classification of XRP as a security "further hurts the U.S. businesses while global companies will continue to make these markets."

Meanwhile, at the time of writing reports emerged that the Hong Kong trading platform OSL had suspended XRP services as a result of the SEC lawsuit.

Trezor has warned users of its hardware wallet about a phishing scam it said was related to an earlier hack on one of its competitors. The company said the attackers claim a user's wallet has been disabled, before redirecting to a clone site to steal their credentials.

In a blog post, Trezor revealed that the attackers have been sending its users emails claiming they need to pass verification due to new KYC regulations. It then provided a website that's a replica of wallet.trezor.io on which the users can supposedly verify their identity. This site requests the users to key in their recovery seed, giving the attackers full control of the wallet.

Trezor reminded its users that they "will not be asked to enter their seed anywhere other than on their Trezor device." It also assured its users that all their funds are safe and that no Trezor customer data has been leaked.

"We continue to operate under a policy where we anonymize all customer data from e-commerce within 90 days, once it is no longer needed to complete the order, and will even remove customer data manually if requested before that," the firm stated.

Trezor believes that the recent wave of phishing attacks was a result of a hack on its hardware wallet competitor Ledger. The French company was hacked in late June, with the attackers accessing one million emails. They also accessed additional details such as postal addresses, first and last names and phone numbers for close 9,500 of the users.

Trezor believes that this is the data the attackers in the latest phishing attack are relying on.

"The timing and scope of this phishing scheme suggests it is a second wave of attacks resulting from a breach of our competitor's e-commerce database. Malicious actors who acquired the data from that attack are blindly targeting Ledger customers whom they presume may also own a Trezor wallet."

Trezor advised its users against ever digitizing their recovery seed or sharing them. They should also ensure they perform every important action using their hardware wallets.

This is not the first phishing campaign that has relied on data from the July Ledger hack. In October, thousands of Ledger users were targeted by a phishing attack that many described as "really legit-looking." The attackers told the targets that Ledger had found several of its servers to be infected with malware.

One user described the attack on Reddit, "Wow this looked really legit, so much so I used Contact Us form to ask Ledger if it was real. I am normally pretty good at sniffing things like this out – this was by far the most convincing attempt I have ever seen."

See also: CoinGeek Live presentation, Custody Changes Everything: How BSV Opens a New World for Digital Asset Custodians

As Ark approachs the launch of MarketSquare, we want to give our community an inside look at some of the partnerships we have formed. These strategic partnerships will not only help make MarketSquare the new homepage for the decentralized web but will also create inroads between ARK and other projects looking to build and collaborate together. Today we would like to introduce you to Magic.Link!

What is Magic?
Magic is a developer SDK that can be integrated into applications to enable passwordless authentication using magic links - similar to systems used by Slack and Medium.

Once a developer integrates Magic into their application a user is able to sign up or log in by doing the following:

A user requests a magic link be sent to their email address.
The user clicks on the magic link
The user is securely logged into the application.
#Saying Goodbye to Passwords
You may have noticed that this process occurs without the need for signing in or registering with a password. The benefits of passwordless authentication in modern applications and services are becoming more apparent. Let's go over a few of them below:

Increased Security: Passwords are becoming obsolete. The resources required to manage user credentials and passwords are increasing. It is estimated that 81% of security breaches are due to poor passwords set by users. The problem is further complicated due to the fact that 59% of users reuse their passwords everywhere. By using Magic, password leaks can be prevented which reduces risk and liability for companies using passwordless authentication.

Less Overhead: Statistics show that nearly 50% of all support tickets are related to lost and forgotten passwords. The estimated cost for handling 10 support tickets a day is $128,000 annually. Magic takes a different approach. Magic leverages blockchain-based, standardized public-private key cryptography to achieve identity management. When a new user signs up for an application or service, a public-private key pair is generated for them. Private keys are used to sign cryptographic proofs of a user's identity.

Boost Conversion: By removing passwords, Magic creates a better user experience. The number of steps necessary to login and signup for a new platform or application is reduced by over 66%. This amounts to better conversion rates and happier users.

Magic & MarketSquare
One of the main goals of MarketSquare is to be an industry leader in providing educational and informative content centered around blockchain. By working closely together with Magic we have an opportunity to explore integrating their robust SDK, create content around decentralized identification management, and more.

Other areas of collaboration include:
Creating MarketSquare content centered around Magic.
Explore integrating Magic's SDK for ARK's products.
Exploring other areas where working together would make sense and be beneficial for both projects.
As we expand the number of developer tools that we are featuring on MarketSquare, we believe that Magic is a great fit and are looking forward to having them as a partner.

Digital currency holders in South Korea have been granted an extra three months before a new taxation rule is implemented. The rule was to be implemented in October 2021, but will now be delayed until January 2022.

South Korea finalized its digital currency tax proposal in July, with the Deputy Prime Minister Hong Nam-Ki revealing it would take effect in late 2021. The rule requires Koreans to pay a 20% on digital currency profits above KRW2.5 million ($2,259).

Soon after the government revealed the rule, several stakeholders in the digital currency industry were up in arms against it. Some felt that the industry was still too young to face such a huge tax cut. Yonsei University economist Sung Tae-yoon stated at the time:

"It is premature for the government to impose cryptocurrency taxes at a time when the market has not developed enough in a stable manner. Any rash taxation or introduction of regulations can be a stumbling block for sustainable growth of the industry."

The Korea Blockchain Association soon after called on the government to delay the implementation for two years. According to the lobbying organization, the time period given to exchanges was too short. Oh Gap-soo, the association's chairman remarked:

"It is necessary to provide a reasonable minimum period of preparation so that it can contribute to the national economy and to secure tax revenue in the long term."

South Korean lawmakers have offered this reprieve to the digital currency industry, local outlet Dong-A Ilbo reports. The outlet reports that the lawmakers concurred the timeline wasn't sufficient for the exchanges to adhere to the new rules. The tax sub-committee at the national assembly is expected to announce the specific implementation dates in the coming week.

Rep. Lee Dong-min of the ruling Democratic Party stated, "It's good to implement it [the new tax rule] quickly, but it's also critical allow the system to settle calmly while securing a considerable degree of consensus."