Bitcoin Gains Ground as Virtual Currency Fairness Tax Bill Introduced

February 7, 2022

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Bitcoin found strength last week as Representatives in the U.S. enacted new legislation to encourage the greater use of cryptocurrencies for digital payments. Elsewhere, the NFL and Ticketmaster confirmed that NFT tickets will be gifted for the upcoming Super Bowl LVI event and Microstrategy took centre-stage as it hosted its cryptocurrency-focused World 2022 conference.

U.S. lawmakers introduce ‘Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act’
Microstrategy hosts World 2022 and purchases more BTC
NFL embraces NFT technology for the Super Bowl

U.S. lawmakers introduce ‘Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act’

In a step towards true cryptocurrency adoption, House Representatives have introduced a ‘Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act’ within the U.S, which should provide a much more advantageous tax structure for cryptocurrency use.

It is the hope of Suzan DelBene and David Schweikert that the new law will further encourage the use of cryptocurrency payments and, therefore, expand the digital economy within the country. As described on Thursday, the current law “makes the everyday use of virtual currency near impossible, discouraging people from using it, and inhibiting the growth of our digital economy.”

Current legislation commands that all cryptocurrency gains must be reported as a taxable event regardless of how large the transaction might be. As emphasized by House Representatives this can include “purchases as small as buying a cup of coffee”

According to the new legislation, “the Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act would exempt personal transactions made with virtual currency when the gains are $200 or less.” This should make it far easier to spend cryptocurrencies on a daily basis.

Upon release of the act, DelBene stated “antiquated regulations around virtual currency do not take into account its potential for use in our daily lives. Instead of treating it more like a stock or ETF, this common sense bill cuts the red tape and opens the door to further innovations, ultimately growing our digital economy.”

NFL embraces NFT technology for the Super Bowl

The National Football League (NFL) has confirmed that fans attending the upcoming Super Bowl will be gifted a commemorative ticket in the form of an NFT. The event is currently scheduled to take place on February 13 2022 in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals will battle it out for the title.

Working together with Ticketmaster, the NFL hopes to leverage the capabilities of blockchain and use NFTs to celebrate the 56th Super Bowl event. Every fan that enters the event will be granted a customized NFT that features the section, row, and seat of the owner. Although innovative, it is not the first time that the NFL has embraced NFT technology for virtual commemorative tickets.

The organization has utilized the technology throughout the season, which was adopted with great success among fans. According to the NFL’s SVP of Club Development, Bobby Gallo, it was this success “which provided the momentum to continue this program throughout the postseason and ultimately at Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles. Collecting ticket stubs has always been something our fans love to do, especially for the season’s biggest game, and offering customized Super Bowl NFTs allows us to enhance the gameday experience, while also enabling us to further evaluate the NFT space for future ticketing and event engagement opportunities.”

Alongside the commemorative fan tickets, starting from February 6, seven historic commemorative NFTs will be released for sale to the public. One will be released each day up until February 13 when the commemorative fan tickets will be revealed.

The NFL now joins a long list of companies and organizations embracing NFT technology including Adidas, Nike, Playboy, Gamestop, Samsung, UFC, Mastercard, and Visa.

MicroStrategy hosts World 2022 conference and announces new purchase

It was a busy week for the business intelligence company, MicroStrategy, which remains steadfast in its positive approach towards cryptocurrencies. The company confirmed a new bitcoin purchase on Monday, hosted a crypto-focused ‘World 2022’ conference over Tuesday and Wednesday, and rounded out the week with a Q1 earnings call.

Just before the company’s ‘World 2022’ conference, which was scheduled for February 1-2, CEO Michael Saylor, confirmed via Twitter that the company had purchased a further 660 bitcoins. According to SEC filings, the transaction took place between December 30 2021 and January 31, 2022. The latest purchase brings the company’s total holdings to 125,051 coins. The average purchase price now stands at $30,200.

Over the following two days, the company then hosted its annual user conference – ‘World 2022’. The conference included a ‘Bitcoin for Corporations 2022’ section that was composed of a ‘Bitcoin for Corporations Keynote’ with the CEO of Block Inc, Jack Dorsey, a talk on ‘Building a Bitcoin Treasury Strategy’ and a talk focused on ‘Bitcoin Products and Services.’ During discussions between Saylor and Dorsey, Dorsey outlined his unwavering belief that bitcoin will become the native currency of the internet. “We’re the closest we’ve ever been to having a native currency for the internet with bitcoin. The world needs a universal currency where, for instance, decisions made in Washington don’t affect smaller nations on the other side of the globe.”

During the final Q1 earnings call of the week, Saylor explained MicroStrategy’s outlook for bitcoin adoption. “I see evidence of a lot more institutional adoption, greater adoption amongst macro and other hedge funds. We’ve made great progress with corporations. There will be 24 publicly traded bitcoin miners by the end of the quarter, so lots of publicly-traded companies in the Bitcoin space.” According to Saylor, it is just a matter of time before more and more companies start to add bitcoin to their balance sheets.