Cryptos Rise; China Moves to Crack Down on Digital Coins

Investing.com – Cryptocurrency prices were higher on Tuesday, while China’s central bank plans to strengthen its supervision of initial coin offerings and other blockchain-related financings.

In its report, the People’s Bank of China highlighted its plan to crack down on airdrops, which it says are actually ICOs. Airdrops are when companies give tokens to participants while reserving a portion of the total supply.

The bank plans to strengthen regulatory coordination and promote international cooperation in regards to virtual coins. ICOs are illegal in China, as such activities have been used for capital control evasion.

“Crypto assets which are not issued by the government do not have legal status equivalent to fiat currencies,” the PBOC said.

“There is no law or regulation that explicitly prohibits parties from holding bitcoin or private transactions in bitcoin, [only warnings to] the public about the investment risks. The contract, in this case, stipulates the obligation to return the bitcoin between two natural persons and does not belong to the [Sept. 2017 ban],” the report stated.

Bitcoin fell 0.13% to $6,476.80 on the Bitfinex exchange as of 9:03 AM ET (14:03 GMT).

Cryptocurrencies overall were higher, with the total coin market capitalization at $216 billion at the time of writing, compared to $212 billion on Monday.

Ethereum,or Ether, increased 1.56% to $215.48 and Litecoin was at $54.951, up 1.35%, while XRP jumped 14.75% to $0.53750.

Meanwhile, Thailand is exploring ways to track tax payments using blockchain, the Bangkok Post reported.

Blockchain, which is the technology behind bitcoin and other alternative coins, will be used to verify taxes and speed up the refund process, officials told the paper.

The Thai government also plans to use machine learning to study how taxes are avoided.

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