Bitcoin, Ether Value Tanks as EU Parliament Comes Down Hard on Non-Custodial Wallets

Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies plunged on Thursday amid worsening inflation numbers and a vote by the European Union on crypto legislation that the industry viewed unfavourably. In terms of value, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency appears to have faced a steep drop off after what has been a largely positive week for Bitcoin. At the time of writing, the value of Bitcoin is down by 3.21 percent, after recording a 3.37 percent dip through Thursday. At the time of writing, BTC’s value stands at $46,072 (roughly Rs. 35 lakh) on Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber.

On global exchanges, the price of Bitcoin stands closer to the $45,000 (roughly Rs. 34 lakh) mark at $44,709 (roughly Rs. 34 lakh) losing 4.86 percent over the past 24 hours. Despite a substantial dip in value, as per CoinGecko data, Bitcoin has remained in the green over the past week, adding 1.8 percent week-to-day.

Ether, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency has had a similar dip through the latter part of the week. At the time of publishing, Ether is valued at $3,348 (roughly Rs. 2.5 lakh) on CoinSwitch Kuber while values on global exchanges see the crypto’s value at $3,258 (roughly Rs. 2.5 lakh), where the coin has seen a dip of 3.78 percent over the past 24 hours.

CoinGecko data reveals that the cryptocurrency’s value has moved up by more than 4.6 percent over the past week and more than 9 percent in value since March 1.

Gadgets 360’s cryptocurrency price tracker reveals an unexpected bearish pressure building on altcoins too. The global crypto market cap also witnessed a drop of 4.44 percent over the past 24 hours. Cardano, Solana, Polygon, Binance Coin, Avalanche, and Terra all marked considerable losses over the past day with TRON being the only crypto to remain in the green.

Meme coins Shiba Inu and Dogecoin have also witnessed a fall-off in value in what has otherwise been a good week for the two better-known dog coins. Dogecoin is currently valued at $0.14 (roughly Rs. 11) after falling by 4.49 percent over the last 24 hours, while, Shiba Inu is valued at $0.000026 (roughly Rs. 0.002), down by 6.41 percent over the past day, despite fanfare around news of its take on the metaverse.

The unexpected blow for the crypto market arrived in the form of European Union lawmakers who voted in favour of controversial measures to outlaw anonymous crypto transactions — a move that industry players believe would stifle innovation and invade privacy. The proposals are intended to extend anti-money laundering (AML) requirements that apply to conventional payments over EUR 1,000 (roughly Rs. 84,000) to the crypto sector. They also scrap the floor for crypto payments, so payers and recipients of even the smallest crypto transactions would need to be identified, including for transactions with unhosted or self-hosted wallets.

Meanwhile, the Indian Finance Bill 2022, was approved on Thursday by the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament, which will come into effect starting April 1. The approval of the bill by the upper house of the parliament comes within a week of the lower house’s (Lok Sabha) approval.

The Finance Bill was introduced during the budget session 2022–23 of the parliament in January. The Finance Bill amended tax rules to impose a 30 percent crypto tax on digital asset holdings and transfers. Apart from that, traders cannot offset their losses against profits, and each trading pair will be considered independently for tax deductions. The government also imposed a 1 percent tax deduction at source (TDS) on each trade, claiming it would help them track the movement of funds.

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