Wed 06/12

Good Morning. Nirmala Sitharaman is one of CoinDesk’s Most Influential, crypto hacker gets 18-month jail and CRO coin surges after Crypto.com launched NFT with Coca-Cola. It's a slow news day today but we tried our best🙃

Special Edition- The Force Behind a 1% Tax That Crushed Indian Crypto Trading 

All signs indicate India’s powerful finance minister disdains cryptocurrencies, and now she is setting the G-20 agenda for how the world's economic powers will regulate it. That’s why Nirmala Sitharaman is one of CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2022. Throughout the year, India’s central bank has repeatedly shown its hostility to cryptocurrencies by favoring efforts at complete prohibition. One person, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sithararman, has kept the parliamentary debate on that possibility at bay by not introducing any draft legislation. “Cryptocurrencies are by definition borderless,” she wrote to Parliament, explaining that no regulation or ban could be effective without “significant international collaboration." Despite keeping the legality of crypto in limbo, Sitharaman was the chief architect of the Finance Bill of 2022, which included stiff taxes on crypto that resulted in the ecosystem entering a period of pain. “I don’t wait till regulation comes into place for taxing people who are earning profits,” she famously said when asked how a nation can tax something that it doesn’t acknowledge is legal yet. Within 10 days of the April 1 imposition of the 30% tax, trading volumes nosedived more than 50% on some exchanges.

• Crypto.com’s CRO Surges as It Launches World Cup NFTs With Coca-Cola: Crypto.com’s CRO token (CRO) is gaining in value Monday on the back of news the exchange is teaming up with Coca-Cola to launch a series of non-fungible tokens (NFT) celebrating the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. CRO climbed as much as 10% after the press release hit, and though it slipped to an 8.5% advance at press time CRO remains one of the top-performing digital assets on the day. Crypto.com said it would be hosting on its blockchain 10,000 NFTs created by Coca-Cola and digital artist GMUNK. The NFTs were produced by tracking via so-called “heatmaps” the in-game movements of players during matches at the Qatar World Cup. Fans can buy the NFTs after they sign up for a Crypto.com NFT platform account. For a chance to win a Coca-Cola “Piece of Magic” NFT, fans can register on Coca-Cola’s fanzone website.

• Crypto Scammer in ‘Geniuses’ Hack Gets 18 Months in Prison: During the sentencing hearing, it emerged that he has $53 million in assets, including crypto, art and jewelry, and has agreed to pay more than $20 million in restitution. Truglia, who pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, has been described in court filings as part of a posse of "evil computer geniuses" who tricked telecom employees into transferring customers' cell numbers to SIM cards controlled by the hackers. But he is the only one to face criminal charges. He has already been hit with civil judgments totaling almost $80 million for the audacious attacks, which targeted wealthy crypto figures on opposite ends of the US. In court, Truglia apologize to the one victim named in the case and spoke of his determination to turn his life around. "I would never steal from someone face to face, so the fact I did that on the Internet is shameful, he said in a lengthy statement before sentencing.

• Korean Prosecutors Seek Arrest of Terra Co-Founder Over $105M LUNA Sale: Terraform Labs co-founder Daniel Shin appeared in court Friday, at a hearing to decide whether he should be arrested for allegedly extracting illegal profits prior to the collapse of the Terra ecosystem. Per the Korea Times, Shin stands accused of selling a $105 million hoard of Terra’s LUNA tokens at the cryptocurrency’s peak price; the tokens had been pre-issued without regular investors being made aware of the fact. The court will decide whether to approve Shin’s arrest either Friday or Saturday, with prosecutors arguing that Terra’s LUNA cryptocurrency constitutes financial investment security. Shin claimed that more than 70% of his LUNA holdings were sold prior to the price surge and that he still held a significant amount at the time of the cryptocurrency’s crash.

Blockchain Developer

What Is a Block Explorer?:  Block explorers are one of the most important tools in a crypto enthusiast’s arsenal. They provide an online interface for searching a blockchain, and enable you to retrieve data about transactions, addresses, blocks, fees, and more. Each block explorer provides data about a particular blockchain, and the type of information included will vary depending on the architecture of the blockchain it serves.

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