Amazon rumored to be accepting Bitcoin, MicoStrategy pledges to buy more BTC, Bitcoin struggles at $40K: Hodler’s Digest, July 25-31
Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.Top Stories This Week Amazon plans to accept Bitcoin payments this year, claims insiderThe crypto community was going wild at the beginning of this week after rumors circulated that Amazon was planning to accept Bitcoin payments. The rumors started after Amazon posted a job opening for a digital currency and blockchain product lead on July 22. Four days later, an anonymous source within Amazon reportedly told London business newspaper City A.M. that the e-commerce giant was planning to start accepting Bitcoin (BTC) payments by the end of 2021. “This isn’t just going through the motions to set up cryptocurrency payment solutions at some point in the future — this is a full-on, well-discussed, integral part of the future mechanism of how Amazon will work,” the source told City A.M., according to a report published on Sunday.Chinese crypto journalist Colin Wu attributed Monday’s surging market action, during which Bitcoin gained roughly 15% in less than three hours, to Amazon’s rumored plans. How wrong that very self-assured sounding quote from an unnamed source turned out to be after the multinational giant refuted the speculation two days later. “Notwithstanding our interest in the space, the speculation that has ensued around our specific plans for cryptocurrencies is not true,” a spokesperson said. Bitcoin struggles at $40K after ‘most confusing’ Jerome Powell press conferenceBitcoin rose above $40,000 on July 29, a day after the Federal Reserve hinted that it was getting closer to winding down its asset purchasing program that has boosted the economic recovery of the United States. The digital gold previously approached $41,000 ahead of the critical Fed update. Unsurprisingly, it started losing upward momentum after the Federal Open Market Committee released its policy statement, followed by a press conference helmed by the Fed’s chairman, Jerome Powell.Powell had previously said that the Fed’s asset purchases would continue until it sees “substantial further progress” in the U.S. economic recovery. However, for a while, it was unspecified as to what that actually meant, and Powell finally cleared that up after being questioned in a July 28 press conference.Turns out that “substantial further progress” means strong labor numbers and gains towards maximum employment. Maximum employment refers to the highest level of achievable employment that the economy can sustain while maintaining a stable inflation rate. Given the rise of inflation and the decline of jobs due to the pandemic, the Fed’s maximum employment targets may need further clarification. BTC investors have been closely monitoring how soon the central bank might unwind its $120-billion-per-month bond-buying program due to its role in aiding the Bitcoin bull market. Binance cuts withdrawal limits, rolls out tax reporting toolFollowing increased scrutiny aimed at Binance from governments and financial institutions across the globe, the world’s biggest crypto exchange has been working on regulatory compliance. In the latest attempt to maintain dialogue with global regulators, Binance introduced withdrawal limits and a new tax reporting system. The company officially announced on July 27 a major update to its Know Your Customer policies, significantly reducing maximum withdrawal amounts for users who have not completed full identity verification.Effective from the date of the announcement, new Binance accounts whose users have completed only basic account verifications will be unable to withdraw more than 0.06 Bitcoin per day, worth roughly $2,329 at the time of writing. Previously, the maximum daily withdrawal amount was capped at 2 BTC, or about $77,661. On July 30, the platform also announced that it will be shutting down its crypto derivatives trading for customers across Europe, first starting with Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. This week, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO and founder of Binance, said he wanted the crypto exchange to work with local regulators as it establishes regional headquarters.Zhao, also known as CZ, hinted that Binance would depart from its decentralized approach to finance and that wanted the exchange to coordinate with regulators as the company expands.“We want to be licensed everywhere,” CZ said. “From now on, we’re going to be a financial institution.” MicroStrategy pledges to buy more BTC despite paper loss on its holdings of $424.8M in Q2MicroStrategy pledged to buy more Bitcoin despite reporting impairment losses of $424.8 million in Q2, after it stated that it was “pleased” by the results of its digital asset strategy in its July 29 Q2 report. At a first glance, it appeared that MicroStrategy had lost the plot, as the Q2 report showed that as of June 30, MicroStrategy held an approximate 105,085 BTC with a carrying value of $2.051 billion, at an impairment loss of $689.6 million since acquisition. The average carrying amount per Bitcoin was an estimated $19,518. Earlier this week Elon Musk’s Tesla also published a Q2 report which showed a $23 million impairment loss on its Bitcoin holdings.As both firms categorize Bitcoin as an “intangible asset,” accounting rules mandate that they must report an impairment loss when the asset’s price drops below its cost basis. However, they are not required to report price appreciation in the specified asset until the position is realized through a sale.The digital asset figures were calculated using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) — a collection of commonly accepted accounting rules used for financial reporting. The firm also provided non-GAAP calculations, which in this report exclude the “impact of share-based compensation expense and impairment losses and gains on sale from intangible assets.”The non-GAAP figures paint a different picture for MicroStrategy’s digital asset holdings, with the BTC cost basis at $2.741 billion but its market value is $3.653 billion, which reflects an average cost per BTC at $26,080 and a market price of $34,763 as of June 30.This may be the reason why MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor continues to double down on BTC and pursue the hodl modl. PayPal set to launch crypto trading in the UK and may embrace DeFiOn July 30, it was revealed that global payments platform PayPal is looking to…