Today’s Crypto Highlights. Want to know what’s happening in crypto today? These are the latest news on daily trends and events affecting Bitcoin price, blockchain, DeFi, NFTs, Web3, and crypto regulation.
Here’s what you need to know today in crypto: A new report by The Wall Street Journal says that MicroStrategy might have to pay taxes on unrealized Bitcoin gains, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has rescinded a controversial crypto-accounting rule, and Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a crypto working group.
MicroStrategy may owe taxes on $19 billion unrealized Bitcoin gains
MicroStrategy, however, could also be liable for taxes on its unrealized gains even though it has never sold any Bitcoin. The largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy BTC $105,154
the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 requires that, if any of its holders, such as corporate and business enterprise holders.
According to a Jan Today’s Crypto Highlights
According to a Jan. 24 report in The Wall Street Journal, the act created a “corporate alternative minimum tax” that would allow MicroStrategy to be taxed at a rate of 15% on an adjusted version of the company’s earnings.
Yet under the crypto-friendly administration of President Donald Trump, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) might issue an exemption for BTC.
MicroStrategy now holds more than 450,000 BTC after buying $243 million of BTC on Jan. 13, worth over $48 billion.
Today’s Crypto Highlights , SEC revokes SAB 121 crypto accounting rule
On Jan. 23, the Securities and Exchange Commission rescinded the controversial Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, or SAB 121, which required financial firms holding crypto for customers to list them as liabilities on balance sheets.
The new bulletin, SAB 122, stated that it “rescinds the interpretive guidance” of SAB 121—a rule from March 2022 that the crypto industry has long wanted scrapping.
Bye, bye, SAB 121!” SEC commissioner and the agency’s crypto task force head Hester Peirce wrote in a Jan. 23 X post. “It’s not been fun.”
The crypto industry had long resisted the rule, arguing that it would make it administratively more burdensome for financial firms to hold crypto. It is the first big action by the agency under President Donald Trump and his choice to lead it, Mark Uyeda, who is the agency’s acting chair.
(Last June, Joe Biden vetoed a bill to repeal SAB 121 that enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress.) The veto was followed five weeks later by a House vote to override it that fell short, keeping the rule intact.
Trump signs executive order for crypto working group, prohibiting CBDC
United States President Donald Trump has issued his first executive order that could potentially affect crypto users and industry leaders, something many hoped for during his first days in office.
Trump was joined by his ‘AI and crypto czar’ David Sacks; in a televised address from the Oval Office on Jan. 23, Sacks explained the executive order to the US President.
Sacks said the EO created an “internal working group to make America the world capital in crypto,” which he chaired. The order also barred the “establishment, issuance, circulation, and use” of a US Central Bank digital currency (CBDC) and directed the working group to investigate the potential establishment and maintenance of a national crypto stockpile and a regulatory framework for stablecoins.