• Finance Minister Enoch Gondogwana says the South African Revenue Service has managed to go above its initial targets
• The minister says the tax revenue agency managed to collect R37.5 billion more than what was estimated for the 2020/2021 financial year
• Although South Africa continues to have an issue with compliance activity, Sars managed to collect R171 billion

JOHANNESBURG – The South African Revenue Service has had a great year of tax collection for the financial year of 2020/2021.

Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana says SARS managed to collect R1 249 billion in the past financial year.

Godongwana explained in the SARS annual report which was presented to parliament, that what was collected by SARS is R37.5 billion more than what was initially estimated, according to a report by SABC News.

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Despite a difficult year, Godongwana says SARS fought hard to safeguard the fiscal capacity and sovereignty that had been established during the previous 27 years.

SARS also went over the estimated R93 billion revenue from its direct compliance activity which amounted to R171 billion. R78 billion more than what was initially estimated.

Despite SARS going beyond the collections from direct compliance activity, Godongwana says there is still an issue with tax compliance in the country.

SARS set to destroy illegal cigarette cargo

The unlawful cargo of 1 032 cartons of cigarettes worth R20 million that were seized at the Durban harbour will be destroyed by Sars.

According to IOL,…

In fact, this is a16z’s first investment in India, and Coinbase Ventures’ second in an Indian crypto platform. In August, the corporate venture arm of Nasdaq-listed Coinbase
backed CoinDCX in a $90-million funding round, making the company India’s first crypto unicorn.

The developments are significant, especially since India is
leading the charge for South Asia and Oceania as one of the fastest growing cryptocurrency markets globally, according to a report by Chainanalysis, a New York-based blockchain data platform. “Large institutional-sized transfers above $10 million worth of cryptocurrency represent 42% of transactions sent from India-based addresses, versus 28% for Pakistan and 29% for Vietnam,” the report stated. “Those numbers suggest that India’s cryptocurrency investors are part of larger, more sophisticated organisations.”

Against that backdrop, here’s a look at the Top 5 cryptocurrency platforms in India, and their unique selling propositions:

CoinDCX

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We reported last month that Andreessen Horowitz (A16z), the storied Silicon Valley venture capital firm, was on the verge of making its first investment in India. Now that its deal with CoinSwitch Kuber is official, we take a look at the details, and what this means for India’s startup ecosystem.

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Founders: Neeraj Khandelwal and Sumit Gupta

Founded in: April 2018

Headquarters: Mumbai

Business model: CoinDCX helps people buy and sell crypto tokens. It also offers other crypto-based financial products such as lending. CoinDCX Prime initiative, its…

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U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Yang Jiechi, a Politburo member and top foreign policy official, are meeting today in Switzerland. The goal: to set up a virtual summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.

The backdrop is tension over Taiwan, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai promising not to “inflame trade tensions with China” (can you inflame something that’s already on fire?), and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg telling Global Insider that China “is not an adversary, not an enemy.”

JENS STOLTENBERG OPENS UP ON CHINA, FRANCE, CLIMATE AND TERROR

For Stoltenberg, the global war on terror is personal: He lost friends and staff in the twin terror attacks on Oslo in 2011. In this week’s Global Insider podcast, he opens up about how that impacted his politics and why he thinks we need to cooperate with China. Plus: why France needs to get over it’s lost submarine contract, and how climate change will mess with the world’s militaries from top to bottom.

HIGHLIGHTS:

On China: “We don’t regard China as an adversary or an enemy. We need to engage with China on important issues such as climate change, there’s no way to reduce emissions enough without also including China. We need to discuss arms control with China.”

Should…

Cryptocurrencies are inherently cryptic — it’s right there in the name. And if you follow Warren Buffett’s advice to never invest in businesses you can’t understand, it may be hard to justify investing in a currency made of math instead of gold.

But it’s also hard to ignore some cryptocurrencies’ astounding performance: The price of one Bitcoin jumped from just under $5,000 (roughly Rs. 3.74 lakhs) in March 2020 to over $60,000 (roughly Rs. 44.91 lakhs) as of this April. Bitcoin price in India stood at Rs. 40.62 lakhs as of October 6 (6:22pm IST).

The excitement surrounding digital currency may leave some investors feeling like the lonely kid at the pool party, wanting to join their friends having fun in the deep end, but too nervous to jump in.

For those investors who are cautiously curious, here are ways to gain exposure to cryptocurrency without buying it, and if you do decide to purchase, how to lower your risk.

Invest in companies with cryptocurrency holdings

Think of this strategy as cryptocurrency investing once removed. Some publicly traded companies have cryptocurrency holdings. And because they are betting on its success, you can too, with those companies acting as a buffer.

“When you’re thinking about investing in a company because they have exposure to crypto, it really runs the gamut from how direct or indirect you are in terms of that exposure,” says Douglas Boneparth, a certified financial planner and president of Bone Fide Wealth in New York City. “It just depends on how much of their balance sheet is in crypto.”

Checking a company’s balance sheet can be revealing: As of June 30, 2021, Tesla held $1.31 billion (roughly Rs. 9,806 crores) in digital assets. And while the tech giant has received lots of media attention for its investment, that $1.31 billion currently equates to only about 2.4 percent of Tesla’s total assets. But if those assets balloon in value, as cryptocurrency is sometimes wont to do, Tesla’s stock value could too.

Invest in…

Globant (GLOB) has acquired Atix Labs to strengthen its position in the blockchain market, forecast to grow 10x by 2025. The financial terms of the deal have been kept under wraps.

Shares of the I.T. and software development company based in Luxembourg, with a current market capitalization of $11.3 billion, have gained 45% over the past year. (See Globant stock charts on TipRanks)

Atix Labs, founded in Argentina in 2013, is a professional services company specializing in the blockchain market. It operates in the United States, Argentina, and Uruguay. It has an impressive project pipeline, strong partnerships, a world-class portfolio of Fortune 500 clients, and top global players on the crypto stage.

The addition of Atix Labs will complement and enhance Globant’s Blockchain Studio offering. It will also assist Globant in offering cutting-edge solutions to its clients across various…

If you want to make sure you’re legally playing at a casino using Bitcoin, your best bet is to stick with online casinos that hold a government-issued license in your state and accept Bitcoin transactions.

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Two sectors came out of the COVID-19 pandemic stronger than ever before: Cryptocurrencies and online gambling. Let’s see how Bitcoin and casinos do as a team.

After an initial dip at the very start of the pandemic, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies exploded, seeing unprecedented levels of value and institutional adoption. At the time of writing, the value of Bitcoin is just under $47,000. In the same vein, the online gambling market grew from $64.13 billion in 2020 to $72.02 billion in 2021. Players stuck in their homes during lockdowns were unable to visit brick-and-mortar casinos, so many of them turned to online gambling.

However, the marriage between gambling and cryptocurrencies happened before COVID. The inclusion of cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals on gambling sites has been popular for a while. The main reasons are privacy, transaction speed, and the option to gamble from countries where that’s illegal.

For most people who do not use Bitcoin specifically to circumvent gambling legislation, it remains unclear whether Bitcoin gambling is legal at all, and under which circumstances. This is due to two factors: Non-existent cryptocurrency regulation in some countries, and vastly differing laws between countries that do have some in place.

Here, we’ll go through the confusing legislation and answer the question: “Are Bitcoin Casinos Legal?”

Legal Considerations for Bitcoin Gambling

Before taking an in-depth look into whether Bitcoin gambling is legal in your country, there are two essential aspects to look at beforehand. First, does your country allow online gambling at all? Secondly, does it allow transactions in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies?

OMAHA, Neb., Oct. 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Cryptocurrency usage is increasing worldwide, and recent consumers surveys show that most U.S. adults are now at least somewhat familiar with the term. Despite growing consumer enthusiasm, aside from exploration in the crypto industry by larger enterprise-level merchants, little information is available showing the perspective of small businesses and their sentiment regarding cryptocurrency acceptance.

To examine their attitudes toward cryptocurrency, The Strawhecker Group (TSG) conducted a survey of nearly 600 small business owners in the U.S. Results from the survey showed that most merchants still do not accept cryptocurrencies at their place of business in exchange for goods and services – less than one in ten surveyed.

The complete findings, an overview of trends in merchant crypto acceptance, and profiles of popular crypto processors, can be found in the firm’s new eReport The Crypto Divide.

However, TSG found that acceptance is gaining traction; 65% of small businesses who reported taking cryptocurrency just started accepting the payment method in the past two years. Related findings point to a level of ‘stickiness’ within the crypto space, as 92% of merchants who accept cryptocurrencies also reported owning crypto as a store of value, while only 17% of merchants who do not accept cryptocurrencies own crypto themselves.

A thematic analysis of those who do not currently accept cryptocurrency illustrated three key themes: active avoidance, low motivation to adopt, and low awareness. Only 28% of merchants reported planning to accept cryptocurrency in the future, indicating that acceptance at the current point in time is not a widespread priority.

“We found that merchants that do not accept crypto have a variety of nuanced reasons,” said Jared Drieling, Senior Director of Market Intelligence and Insights at TSG. “Some are closed off to the payment method entirely and see it as something only used by criminals….

Ukraine’s yearlong marathon to legalize cryptocurrencies has taken a detour. Instead of signing the country’s first bill regulating digital assets into law, President Volodymyr Zelensky returned it to the parliament for changes.

According to an announcement on the president’s website, Zelensky wants the bill changed so that the National Commission on Securities and Stock Market, Ukraine’s equivalent to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, becomes the main crypto regulator. The current version has the Ministry of Digital Transformation regulating cryptocurrencies, the National Commission on Securities and Stock Market regulating digital assets backed by securities and the National Bank of Ukraine in charge of central bank digital currency (CBDC) issuance.

The version proposed by the president leaves CBDC supervision to the National Bank, but everything else goes to the securities regulator, including the licensing of the crypto brokers and other services.

“In particular, the public reports of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) state that certain types of virtual assets contain, in their economic essence, features characteristic of financial instruments. Regulation of issuance of such types of virtual assets should be carried out by financial market regulators, as this function is specific to them,” said the president’s message to parliament, which was published on the legislature’s website.

Parliament will now have to give the bill another hearing and suggest a new version.

The bill, introduced to the parliament last summer, was created with input from the local crypto community. The document passed a second hearing in September and was sent to Zelensky for signing into law.

Ukraine is home to multiple well-known blockchain developers and startups. However, the country is struggling with its status as a risky jurisdiction on the global market. The bill, sponsored by Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, is…