-0,5%

🇯🇵 Bank of Japan leaves interest rate unchanged

🔼 Contrary to fears, the Bank of Japan has not raised its interest rate, leaving it at 0,25%. Combined with the Fed's rate cut of 0.5%, this is a great bullish signal for the markets to rise in the long term.

🐼 But I'm still a bit bearish - market move down in the first two months after a Fed rate cut is still very likely. The fear of recession in the global economy remains.

🤯 Everything is very good... or is it?

🏛 As I have already written many times, the state of the crypto market depends on the policy of the world's monetary regulators. Simply put, central banks.

💚 Over the past two weeks we received three positive signals at once.

🇺🇸 The Fed lowered the rate by 0.5% in a single move.

🐉 This week, the Bank of China adopted a stimulus program. It lowered capital requirements for banks and lowered the mortgage rate.

💹 The Bank of Japan, which lends to speculators, kept its rate at the same level. Its previous rate hike of 0.15% in July hurt the markets.

📈 All this combines into a good signal - in the long run.

🙀 But there's a problem. If the world's central banks are gleefully lowering rates, it means they fear a recession in the economy.

🏺 Markets react positively to rate cuts, but that was the case in 2001 and 2008... then the stock market panic started and it took several years for US indices to recover to previous highs (from 2001 to 2007 and from 2008 to 2013).

🤔 No one knows what will happen this time.

🇨🇳 Monetary pump

🚀 The Chinese stock market is booming after PBoC announced its new stimulus program last week. The CSI 300 Index showed +8% growth.

🌐 If this trend continues on the global stock market, it will push crypto, too.

🌏 Taiwan has started VASP registration and other regulatory news in Asia

🇹🇼 The main financial regulator in Taiwan published VASP registration rules yesterday.

🏯 Currently, Asia is the largest crypto market in the world and some other countries have new regulation updates too:

🇮🇩 There is a great move in Indonesia: Tokocrypto, Binance's local subsidiary, received its license in September.

🇮🇳 India is expected to publish a new concept of crypto regulation by the end of October.

🇭🇰 Hong Kong unveiled new rules for OTC trading.

🇹🇭 Thailand's second-largest bank, Kasicornbank, will launch the first licensed crypto custodian in the country. Thailand already legalized Bitcoin ETFs this year, following Hong Kong's example.

📊 Volatility is decreasing...

🗺 The panic associated with geopolitical factors has calmed a bit and BTC is back above $60,000. Coinbase analysts record a significant decrease in volatility in anticipation of a new Fed rate decision in November and the results of the U.S. presidential election.

🇺🇸 In general, the crypto market is hovering in a sideways trend and the regulators' rate cuts are not leading to a new bull cycle yet, nor is there a strong fall due to recession fears - regulators are taking action. It is likely that this situation will last until the US presidential election.

💱 Stablecoin market and Tether FUD

🎤 Tether’s CEO, Paolo Ardoino gave an interview to Cointelegraph amid the delisting of USDT from European exchanges and circulating rumors about the company's issues. In the face of competitive pressure, even a giant like Tether needs to reassert its position in the market.

🤑 Stablecoins are attracting more and more attention with their high levels of profit: the USDT issuer earned $6,3 billion in 2023, $700 million more than BlackRock. The company has also surpassed VISA and Mastercard in transaction volume. Against this backdrop, Revolut and PayPal are creating their own stablecoins, while VISA is developing solutions to transfer cryptoassets via Swift.

🇺🇸 Tether is still the leader, but there is some distrust in the company, due to the low level of transparency of reserves. Paolo Ardoino probably decided to dispel these doubts and, during the interview, noted that Tether has a good relationship with the US government - working closely with the FBI and other intelligence agencies- and at the same time storing $98 billion in US Treasuries. That's comparable to the reserves of major economies like Brazil.

🗺 From this interview, we can also highlight the reason why USDT has not yet received a license in the EU: the company is focused more on markets in Asia and other countries where the demand for the dollar in digital form is higher and less focused on over-regulated markets such as the EU. As Ardoino said: “'There is no point for us to compete in the US and Europe. Our focus has to be where we are needed the most.“

🎓 In my opinion, for Tether, a lower level of transparency is a necessary business approach to reduce business costs and protect against competitors. So there is no real threat for USDT now. However, no one prevents users from reinsuring themselves and transferring part of their reserves to other stablecoins, such as USDC. Futhermore, Tether is developing its business with TON ecosystem. Currently $768 mln of USDT is available on TON blockchain and its transaction fees are lower than on Tron.

❓Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

🎥 Authors of the HBO movie have recognized developer and member of the Bitcoin Foundation Peter Todd as the creator of Bitcoin. Other popular versions are Nick Szabo, Hal Finney, and Len Sassaman. Of course, this is most likely not true, also because Peter Todd is alive, and we haven't had any signs of activity from the real Satoshi since 2011. And he's pretty much 100% dead.

💸 Given the intense scrutiny of even small early BTC holdings by researchers, special forces, and criminals, the real Satoshi Nakamoto would have been uncovered long ago if he was alive. Or at least would sell some Bitcoin - there is little doubt about that.

🇸🇨 One of the major crypto offshores has introduced new regulations

📅 On September 1st, the VASP Act came into force in the Seychelles, which is a very popular offshore zone for crypto operations. The Seychelles were for a long time a super-simple jurisdiction to set up a company for crypto operations without unnecessary restrictions. These were mostly offshore exchanges, including cases of scam projects.

🛂 Now the regulatory regime of the island nation has moved closer to the Caymans and the British Virgin Islands. All cryptocurrency companies operating in the Seychelles are required to register as VASPs by December 31 this year.

🗒 It has also become mandatory for crypto companies to have a physical presence on the island. Among other things, companies must now:
- have a physical office,
- employ a minimum of two managers
- not engage in mining activities; mixers are also prohibited from operating

✅ The new law is likely to have a positive impact on crypto entities operating in the country as their activity will become more transparent. The adoption of legislation for crypto business worldwide is inevitable.

🇹🇷 Türkiye postpones crypto tax

☂️ Recently, Türkiye's Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz has officially declared the postponement of crypto tax. The reason for this decision is the collapse of the country's stock market. In the summer, the government planned to introduce a tax on profits from transactions with shares and cryptocurrencies but, after the fall in the stock market, the plans were changed.

⤴️ Also this year, Türkiye legislated licensing rules for crypto exchanges and other VASPs. They can be considered quite lenient - previously there were fears about a possible ban for foreign exchanges. However, these exchanges will be able to continue operations after registration. The adoption of crypto regulation was one of the FATF conditions to remove Türkiye from the gray list. Now, Turkish residents and companies operating there will be less closely examined by banks.

💸 Nevertheless, it's too early to be happy about this decision. Türkiye is a very unpredictable country, both is the exchange rate of the national currency and in the government's attitude to cryptocurrencies. The introduction of the crypto tax is possible next year.