April 1, 2022
Mark your calendars! We’ve officially entered the filing season. Preparing your taxes can be a challenge on its own, but you may have encountered a new question when filing your taxes this year: “Did you receive, sell, exchange, or dispose of any cryptocurrency?”
Sound familiar? Fear not — we made it easier than ever to prepare your crypto taxes, with free tools and resources to help you file. Visit our Cryptocurrency Tax Reporting 101 page for detailed information on whether you owe crypto taxes, how to estimate your tax liability, calculate gains and losses, and more. Whether you’re filing with a third party tax platform like TaxBit, TurboTax, or CoinTracker, or preparing to file on your own, learn how to use our free Tax Statements Portal to export statements or connect to your third party platform of choice.
*Note that the contents of this newsletter are subject to a legal disclaimer located below*
The Big Story
Going to Bitcoin 2022 in Miami Beach? Friendly reminder to pack your bags this weekend, because the biggest Bitcoin event in the world starts next Wednesday, April 6. Cruise down to the Binance.US booth and stop by for a conversation with the team — we’ll be giving away some limited edition swag and doing a raffle for .21 BTC. Catch us on the Bitcoin Beach at #Booth511. (Get directions)
Our exclusive Bitcoin 2022 swag is first come, first serve, so arrive early. If you’re attending with some friends, be sure to have them stop by our booth for a special $5 sign-up bonus we’ll be giving out, valid for new Binance.US customers only.
Can’t make the conference? You can always add some Bitcoin (BTC) to your wallet.
Now Trending
More cryptocurrency news…
- Gas Prices Reach Record Highs with the average cost of gas in the United States rising to $4.33 per gallon, prompting some states to suspend gas taxes. These price increases come at a time when consumers are already reeling from broad inflation concerns.
- Ukraine Unveils NFT Collection to raise money as the Ukraine-Russia war continues. Mykhailo Fedorov, the Ukraine Minister of Digital Transformation announced the collection in a tweet: “While Russia uses tanks to destroy Ukraine, we rely on revolutionary blockchain tech…” The collection? An illustrated timeline of key events in the ongoing war.
- Bitcoin Erases 2022 Losses as Ukraine, Russia and COVID-19 fears begin to subside. Other analysts are tracking Luna Foundation Guard (LFG)’s ongoing BTC purchases, which have already far surpassed the billion dollar mark at the time of writing. Skip to The Deep Dive for an analysis of LFG’s recent activities, presented by the Binance.US Research team.
- Crypto Mining Looks To Renewable Energy due to ongoing scrutiny over the environmental impact of Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining, which is typically energy-intensive. Crypto mining companies are trying to limit carbon emissions and make mining more clean and sustainable.
- Pro-Crypto Candidate Wins South Korea Presidential Election as candidates from both parties raced to make their crypto-friendly platforms known, in a closely-decided race where the results were influenced primarily by young crypto-savvy voters.
Top Movers
Get to know the cryptocurrencies on Binance.US that made the biggest moves this past month…
The section above refers to price changes over the past 30 days, ending on April 1, 2022 at 1 a.m. EDT.
The Deep Dive
Stories and analysis from the Binance.US Research team…
The Bitcoin Standard Deepens
The Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) has raised over $2B for its Bitcoin reserve and hopes to hit $10B in the long term, according to Teraform Labs CEO Do Kwon. LFG, a Singapore-based non-profit working on the Tera blockchain, will use Bitcoin (BTC) as a reserve asset for Terra (UST), which is currently the largest algorithmic stablecoin with over $17B in supply. Do Kwon explained that to reach the $10B mark, the stablecoin may set aside a portion of the seigniorage — the protocol’s revenue generated from issuing UST — to accumulate BTC.
So why exactly are Terraform Labs trying to acquire such an enormous amount of Bitcoin? Well, algorithmic stablecoins aren’t always perfect. While they all have well-intended tokenomics to encourage a perpetual 1:1 peg ratio with the U.S. dollar, black swan events, or low chance events with extremely high impacts, can be detrimental to the issuing protocol. UST maintains its peg to the U.S. dollar through a network of arbitrageurs, who buy and sell Terra’s volatile cryptocurrency, LUNA (otherwise known as Terra)
LFG’s push into building a sizable Bitcoin reserve has also had profound market impact on both the spot and derivative markets. Since Do Kwon’s initial announcement, we have seen over $1.5b in shorts liquidated (see chart below). Liquidation occurs when assets are forced to be converted to cash because a trader fails to meet the margin requirement set for a leveraged position, thus creating buy pressure and pushing the price of the underlying asset higher, when they happen at significant scale. These liquidations, in tandem with Do Kwon’s already existing buy pressure, has sent the price of Bitcoin higher. According to OTC trading desk Genesis, there has been a pause of sell pressure as traders are speculating they can sell at a higher price. They’ve also seen an increase in call options with several $50M+ notational call buyers in BTC, across the curve from April to Dec. maturities, largely positioning into the anticipated spot buying.
March 11 was the date of Do Kwon’s original announcement. March 28 was the largest single day of Bitcoin shorts liquidated in the year to date, with over $309M eliminated in a single day
MicroStrategy Uses Bitcoin Loan To Buy More BTC
On top of this, Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, a publicly traded company with over 125,000 Bitcoin ($5.9B) on their balance sheet, recently received a $205M loan to purchase more Bitcoin, using their existing Bitcoin as collateral. Essentially, Bitcoin is being used here as a productive asset, where holders can leverage the asset itself to buy more of the underlying asset. While this is, mathematically-speaking, only effective with very large positions, it is impressive nonetheless.
With many crypto-native funds currently sitting on stablecoins and awaiting macro economic clarity before allocating capital, they may be forced to chase the market higher as buy pressure intensifies. In the short term, we will likely see some volatility as the market weighs all these seemingly positive factors, given the state of the real economy.
What’s New
Newsworthy updates from Binance.US…
- Binance.US x SXSW. Shoutout to everybody who attended our Women in Web3 panel at the Grit Daily house, which showcased diverse perspectives and opportunities within the Web3 and DeFi space. For those who couldn’t make it, watch the full panel session with our very own Leah Li, Head of Marketing at Binance.US, along with artist VÉRITÉ, Ashleigh H. from TheFutureParty, Meral A. from Passage Protocol, and Alex P. from Mod Tech Labs.
- Binance.US Officially Launches in Louisiana. Customers across the Bayou State can now register to buy, sell, and convert 85+ cryptocurrencies with some of the lowest fees in the industry. Learn more about the official announcement or refer friends and family to Binance.US to earn up to 40% commission on their trading fees.
- Binance.US Receives Money Transmitter License in Wyoming. Wyoming marks the third state in which Binance.US has received a Money Transmitter License in 2022, following West Virginia and Connecticut. Through its licenses and those of its partners, the company now operates in 45 out of 50 states across the United States. Stay tuned as we work to expand into new jurisdictions across the country.
- Looking Back on Women’s History Month at Binance.US. We rounded up all the top highlights from the AMAs and events we held to celebrate Women’s History Month during the month of March. Read excerpted transcripts or listen to the original recordings in our recap article.
- 10 Ways To Build An Unstoppable Workplace Culture. Our Chief People Officer, Carol MacKinlay shares her top tips when it comes to building a thriving workplace culture. Whether you’re starting a company, organization, or even club, it’s important to set the right tone so every participant feels valued and empowered. Entrepreneurs, leaders, HR experts, and workplace professionals — this one’s for you.
What’s Trading
New cryptocurrencies on Binance.US…
- Audius (AUDIO) is the native token that powers Audius, a free decentralized music streaming platform designed to reward artists for their work and remove intermediaries from the music creation and distribution process. Trading is available on the AUDIO/USD or AUDIO/USDT pairs. (Learn more)
- ApeCoin (APE) is an ERC-20 token released by ApeCoin DAO that serves as the governance and utility token for the APE ecosystem. Trading is available on the APE/USD or APE/USDT pairs. (Learn more)
- Alien Worlds (TLM) is the native token and in-game currency of Alien Worlds, a blockchain-based play-to-earn (P2E) game that rewards players with NFTs and token rewards. Trading is available on the TLM/USD or TLM/USDT pairs. (Learn more)
- Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is a governance token that serves as the native token of the Ethereum Name Services protocol, which allows users to connect complicated identifiers like wallet addresses with human-readable names ending in “.eth”. Trading is available on the ENS/USDT pair. (Learn more)
- Flux (FLUX) is the native coin of the Flux ecosystem, a decentralized cloud infrastructure designed to serve as a scalable and trustless foundation for Web3 and dApp projects. Trading is available on the FLUX/USD and FLUX/USDT pairs. (Learn more)
- Request Network (REQ) is an ERC-20 token that helps power Request Network, a decentralized protocol that allows users to create, share, and fulfill payment requests or invoices. Trading is available on the REQ/USD and REQ/USDT pairs.
- Synthetix Network Token (SNX) is a utility token that serves as the native token of Synthetix, formerly named Havven. Trading is available on the SNX/USD and SNX/USDT pairs. (Learn more)
- Tron (TRON) is a TRC-20 token that helps power the TRON Protocol and dApp ecosystem. Trading is available on the TRX/USD, TRX/USDT, TRX/BUSD, and TRX/BTC pairs. (Learn more)
Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) is an ERC-20 token that is equivalent in value to one Bitcoin (BTC). Trading is available on the WBTC/BTC pair. (Learn more)
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What $BTC exchange was initially a website for trading Magic: The Gathering cards?
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