- Bitcoin steps away again from USD 10,000 but is trading comfortably around key support levels near USD 9,600
- The Israeli Attorney General says that banks are wrong to block customer accounts simply based on their connection to crypto-related activities
- The European Commission has issued a memo to say that they are still undecided about Facebook’s Libra in terms of legal relationships in the EU
Bitcoin markets have taken a tumble today, shedding almost USD 800 in an instant some time around 11pm UTC, an hour before Beijing opened for business.
As has been the case with most sudden price fluctuations, there appears to be very little information that can plausibly explain the event. The most logical is that speculators are once more trying to make quick profits after buying around current levels, and selling above USD 10,000.
Nevertheless, the fact that Bitcoin is sitting comfortably above key support levels at USD 9,400, with price trading around USD 9,600 right now, suggests once more that the bulls are firmly in control, preventing selloffs from creating further tests of downward pressure.
In the Middle East, Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has declared that banks in the country should not be denying crypto-based firms banking services, but should instead be looking at every case for money laundering indicators of risk. This is better than a blanket ban on crypto-related accounts, he said to the Tel Aviv District Court.
Last year, several banks in Israel froze customer accounts who had been receiving money transfers sourced from cryptocurrency. This led to some Bitcoin investors being unable to fulfil their tax obligations since banks refused to accept their deposits. It got so bad that in August, an investor launched a lawsuit against Israeli Bank Hapoalim for almost USD 23 million, saying that they had denied deposits of profits earned through Bitcoin.
Mandelblit had made these statements in a case filing against the Mercantile Discount Bank, who had refused to authorize a transfer from local cryptocurrency exchange BIT2C. Globes reports that the attorney general’s statement was in face based on recommendations made by an inter-ministerial team headed by Civil Law Department deputy attorney general Erez Kaminitz. The team was represented by the Israel Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority, the Israel Ministry of Justice, the Israel Capital Markets, Insurance, and Savings Authority, among others.
Outside the Middle East, there are other jurisdictions also doing similar actions, with ongoing litigation against the central bank of India centered around banks freezing the accounts of customers deemed to have been involved in digital asset activity. There, the Internet and Mobile Association of India is awaiting Supreme Court judgment on whether the bank prohibitions had been unlawful.
If some countries are still not sure on what to do with Bitcoin and other digital assets, then the latest developments in Europe indicate that the European Union (EU) is just as uncertain as to where it should go with Facebook’s centralized crypto project, Libra.
The basic argument is that over-regulation will stifle the economy and cause the region to lose innovation benefits, while on the other side of the extreme, doing nothing makes the EU even less competitive to others who will adopt it.
Facebook plans to release Libra this year, so the EU may have to decide quickly. But a memo released yesterday by Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission, suggests that they have not been satisfied by the responses coming from Libra Association in relation to questions posed by the EU. It deems that the answers provided thus far “remains insufficient for determining the precise nature of Libra and, by extension, its relation with existing EU law”. The memo read:
“There is a need to ensure clarity about the legal status of the Libra initiative. However, the
available information on Libra and the Libra ecosystem lacks detail. Therefore, the Commission sent to the Libra Association a set of questions to get further details on the project. However, as Libra is still a project, and thereby a moving target, the information provided remains insufficient for determining the precise nature of Libra and, by extension, its relation with existing EU law.”
Dombrovskis did say that the Commission are willing to move quickly on crypto by providing regulations and monitoring, confirming their December declaration that they would oversee stablecoins and monitor any risk to financial stability in the EU.
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The post Trending Bitcoin News and Market Sentiment February 20th, 2020: Israel Banks Wrong to Freeze Crypto Accounts, European Commission Lacks Information to Determine Libra’s Legal Status appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.
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