Brazil’s oldest bank, Bank of Brazil allowed citizens to pay their tax bills using cryptocurrencies. The initiative is done in collaboration with Brazilian-based crypto firm Bifty.
The bank informed that taxpayers can now pay their pay their taxes, fees, etc., in crypto. The bank said the facility is available to Brazilians with cryptocurrencies under the custody of Bifty, who will act as a “collection partner” for the bank.
Besides giving national coverage to the use of cryptocurrency, the initiative gives consumer protection from a reputable bank. Lucan Schock, Bifty’s founder and CEO, said, “This partnership makes it possible to expand the use and access to the ecosystem of digital assets with national coverage and with the seal of security and reliability of Banco do Brasil.”
US SEC to Sue Crypto Trust Co. Paxos Over Binance Stablecoin
The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to sue stablecoin issuer Paxos over its Binance USD (BUSD) token, according to the Wall Street Journal. BUSD is a Binance-branded stablecoin issued by Paxos, a New York-regulated trust company.
SEC alleged that BUSD is an unregistered security, said a CoinDesk report. Reportedly, Paxos was previously under investigation by the New York Department of Financial Services, but the scope of that investigation remains unclear.
After reports of SEC's intention surfaced, Paxos said it would halt the minting of new BUSD tokens.
A Binance spokesperson said, “BUSD is a stablecoin wholly owned and managed by Paxos. As a result, BUSD market cap will only decrease over time. Paxos will continue to service the product, manage redemptions, and will follow-up with additional information as required.”
“Paxos also assured the funds are safe, and fully covered by reserves in their banks,” the spokesperson added.
LACMA Art Museum Acquires NFT Collection
A series of notable and valuable NFT pieces have been acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) through donations from notable collectors, making it the latest major art museum to acquire NFT artworks.
The American museum accepted a donation of 22 tokenized digital artwork pieces from the pseudonymous Cozomo de’ Medici, a well-known Crypto Twitter personality. CryptoPunks NFT #3831, which was last sold for $2.1 million worth of ETH in 2021, is included in the collection.
CryptoPunks is an NFT collection minted on the Ethereum blockchain. Each of the 10,000 “punks” is a 24×24-pixel image, one of crypto’s most dominant and enduringly popular profile pictures, a new form of asset tokenization.
The museum will also feature NFTs from Art Blocks, a popular platform that features artwork generated by algorithms deployed on a blockchain network.
