This week, the UK's tax authority - HMRC - seized NFTs for the first time, Coinbase spent millions on a Super Bowl ad that broke their app, and the Hungarian bank joined the government's calling for crypto regulation.
Crypto companies were some of the Superbowl's biggest sponsors this year, with some spending at least $7 million for a 30 second advertising spot.
Back in the UK, HMRC seized three nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as part of an investigation into suspected tax evasion and worldwide, the cryto market has continued to tumble.
Read more: Mark Zuckerberg is selling Facebook's cryptocurrency Diem
Here's your round-up of all the latest goings-on in the world of cryptocurrency.
Coinbase crashes after ads break the Internet
Coinbase made its Super Bowl debut with a simple but crazily effective ad that showed a QR code bouncing around the screen like the DVD logo.
Once scanned, the code took users to Coinbase's promotional website, offering first-time customers $15 worth of free Bitcoin, and the chance to enter a three million dollar giveaway.
The 60-second ad, which cost an estimated $14 million, proved so popular that the app crashed.
The Superbowl is one of the most watched shows, raking in an estimated 117 million viewers who crashed the app when they tried to claim their free bitcoin.
This year, crypto companies were some of the Superbowl's biggest sponsors, with FTX, Coinbase, EToro and BitBuy all spending at least $7 million for a 30 second advertising spot.
Coinbase is a popular cryptocurrency exchange platform that makes buying Bitcoin as easy as buying a stock through an online brokerage.”
The promotion saw Coinbase's app jumped from 186th place to second on the App Store.
Three accused of using NFTs to evade £1.4 million in taxes
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the United Kingdom tax authority, have seized three nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as part of an investigation into suspected tax evasion.
The authority has claimed it's the first UK. law enforcement agency to seize an NFT.
Alongside the NFT seizure, three people have been arrested on suspicion of evading taxes using sophisticated means.
Those who have been arrested are accused of using fake identities to create 250 fake ‘shell’ companies to evade £1.4 million ($1.8 million) in value-added taxes (VAT).
Through a court order, HMRC confiscated $6,765 (£5,000) worth of digital assets along with the three NFTs from the suspects.
HMRC deputy director Nick Sharp said that this should serve as a warning to those looking to hide money from the tax authorities. He said: "We constantly adapt to new technology to ensure we keep pace with how criminals and evaders look to conceal their assets."
The crypto market continues to tumble
Despite recovering and stabilising somewhat, the market is still red across the board. Over the last 24 hours, the overall market is still in the red despite coins gaining a little value. Still, the major coins have still experienced a loss since last week.
Bitcoin is currently valued at £31,535.30, which is an improvement on its January flop, but is still 10% below what it was a year ago.
Trading is very much still active, with 70% buying rather than selling. Crypto is a speculative asset, with buyers choosing to invest when the price is lower, banking on it gaining again.
Ethereum has been hit harder by economic factors, losing almost 5% in the last seven days. It's current value is £2,181.43, which is still a gain of over 67.11% since last year. Many analysts believe that ether, the digital coin of the ethereum blockchain, may knock bitcoin off its top spot.
The blockchain is the backbone of all the current tech innovations that are causing a buzz: NFTs, Web3 and the Metaverse. So, a coin that has native functionality for these transactions is proving desirable.
Property tycoon wants to turn a whole island into a crypto haven
Retired British property investor Anthony Welch has announced plans to bring 21,000 cryptocurrency investors to his island so they can form a regulation-free “crypto utopia”.
Welch has been living with his wife Theresa on a remote South Pacific island of the Vanuatu archipelago between Australia and Fiji.
He wants to transform the island, which is almost completely undisturbed rainforest, into a “sustainable smart city” for crypto investors. He details multistorey apartment blocks and offices that will form a “blockchain-based democracy” for “the crypto capital of the world” .
The investor has gone so far as to change the name of the island, which is natively called Lataro, to Satoshi, after the pseudonym of the person who invented bitcoin.
A few years ago, Welch tried to sell the island for $12m (£9m) where he promoted it as a “wildlife nature reserve” to help “prevent the extinction” of the rare coconut crab .
The couple petitioned the government to designate it as a wildlife reservation. They built a website describing the efforts to establish the wildlife reserve, which was deleted soon after the Guardian approached Welch for comment .
Hungarian banking governor calls for crypto crackdown
While crypto moves even more into the mainstream, governments around the world are trying to crackdown on the decentralised market that they currently have little control over.
The Governor of the Hungarian Central Bank György Matolcsy, has recommended that all cryptocurrency-focused activities, including trading and mining, should be banned across the European Union.
Trading refers to the buying and selling of coins, while mining is how they are created and made usable on the blockchain through complex computational equations.
In a recent release published to the Magyar Nemzeti Bank's (MNB), Matolcsy wrote that he agreed with the Russian Central Bank's proposal and supports “the senior EU financial regulator’s point that the EU should ban the mining method used to produce most new bitcoin.”
He added: “it's clear-cut that cryptocurrencies could service illegal activities and tend to build up financial pyramids.” The Russian central bank was right, he said, about “the breakneck growth and market value of cryptocurrencies is defined primarily by speculative demand for future growth, which creates bubbles.”
These comments come after Erik Thedéen, the Vice-Chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) who said Proof-of-Work (PoW) should be banned in the EU.
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