Crypto users in the US are required to pay capital gains taxes on cryptocurrencies, stifling their usefulness as a currency, argued a Washington DC-based think tank. Cato Institute, a US-based think tank, argued that the government should remove capital gains taxes on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to open the door for more currency competition. The capital gains tax (CGT) is discouraging the use of alternative currencies like Bitcoin (BTC) as it incentivizes long-term holding and adds extra burdens to reporting requirements, Nicholas Anthony, a policy scholar and research fellow at the Cato Institute, said in a report on Wednesday. He said the simplest option is to end capital gains taxes completely; however, another option could be removing them on crypto and foreign currency use to “take the government’s thumb off the scale and let competition be the true decider of the best money.” Read more
Major World Liberty Financial investor Justin Sun called a plan to lock tokens for up to four years “the most absurd governance scams I have ever seen.” The Trump family’s crypto platform, World Liberty Financial, is facing backlash over a new proposal to lock up tokens purchased by early investors for up to four years, or in some cases, indefinitely. World Liberty posted the proposal to its governance forum on Wednesday, which outlined that early investors would have their World Liberty Financial (WLFI) tokens locked for a further two years before their tokens would be released in batches over the following two years. According to the proposal, tokenholders who do not accept the new unlock schedule would “continue to have their tokens locked indefinitely.” Read more
The Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust is also within striking distance of overtaking three other US spot Bitcoin ETFs that launched in January 2024. Morgan Stanley’s new spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund has just surpassed the WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund (WBTC) in total net inflows, despite launching just over a week ago. The Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT) added $19.3 million of investor inflows on Wednesday, bringing its total net inflow to $103 million. The figure has now passed WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund’s (WBTC) total net inflow of $86 million, which it had been accumulating since launching in January 2024, Farside Investors data shows. Read more