On Bitcoin This Week, three blockchain-focused bills heading for Congress, Brazil’s largest brokerage expands to crypto and much more.
U.S. Congressman Pushes Blockchain-Linked Bills
U.S. Republican Congressman Tom Emmer is set to introduce three blockchain-focused bills, aimed at supporting distributed ledger technology and digital currencies. In an official statement, he said legislators need to create a business environment, which encourages the private sector to lead in innovation and future growth.
Emmer’s first proposal recommends blockchain should be lightly regulated, allowing it to evolve the same way the internet did. It also calls for measures to ensure future blockchain technology is secure, transparent and authentic and that consumers are protected. The second bill stipules that miners and certain other providers of blockchain services ‘never take control of consumer funds’ and hence, could not be obliged to register as money transmitters. The final, third bill will provide a safe harbor for taxpayers with “forked” digital assets and will stop the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) levying fines against taxpayers who profit from these tokens, until clearer guidance is published. This news was published on the same day Tom Emmer joined the Congressional Blockchain Caucus, a bipartisan group that campaigns for a more hands-off regulatory approach.
Brazilian Brokerage To Open Crypto Trading Desk
Brazil’s largest brokerage will soon launch an exchange for Bitcoin and Ethereum, Bloomberg reports. Guilherme Benchimol, the CEO of Grupo XP, said the exchange aims to have 1 trillion reais ($245 billion dollars) under custody by the year 2020. In addition, XP will launch a new bank.
Benchimol claims around 3 million Brazilians have exposure to Bitcoin, compared to only around 600,000 that invest in stocks; and that this was the reason for expanding his company’s business operations. However, he doesn’t personally sound too keen on crypto, saying at an event in Sao Paulo, “I must confess, this is a theme I’d rather didn’t exist, but it does”.
Bitcoin Core Team Fixes Critical Vulnerability
The team behind Bitcoin Core have released a patch for a critical vulnerability, that could have paralyzed the entire network. The bug could have led to a DDoS attack, when multiple compromised computer systems attack a target. In terms of the Bitcoin Network, the perpetrators could have flooded the nodes on Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer network.
What’s perhaps more worrying is that this bug has laid undiscovered in the code for two years. The Bitcoin Core team have also been criticized for the way they handled the patchwork, without consulting other altcoins, many of which rely on the same code.
Markets: Prices Remain Stable
Bitcoin (BTC) started last Monday at $6,520. Through the same day it suffered a sudden drop to a daily low of $6,285 and it stayed more or less at that level throughout most of Tuesday. It then recovered to $6,350 climbing up to the $6,700 mark by Friday. The weekend high came early Saturday morning, with prices briefly reaching $6,814 before ending Sunday at $6,690.
