Crypto transactions in Indonesia are under the dual taxation, including a 0.1% income tax and a 0.11% value-added tax (VAT), imposing a significant burden on users. Additionally, local crypto exchanges are required to contribute around 0.04% of their revenue to the national crypto stock market. Despite the overall growth of the cryptocurrency market, Indonesia’s crypto tax revenue experienced a downturn primarily due to a notable 51% decrease in crypto transaction volumes during 2023 compared to the previous year.
Local exchanges are also unsatisfied with the high tax rates and believe they are responsible for resulting in thinner revenues, as users seek out alternative platforms. The suggestions made by local exchanges, particularly the proposal to subject crypto transactions solely to income tax, underscore the need to foster growth and stability in the Indonesian cryptocurrency market.
In its statement, the SEC stated that the granting of the bitcoin ETF does not mean that the SEC is promoting the cryptocurrency and called for individual investors to be cautious when they invest in digital assets.
What is the exchange-traded fund?
Invented back in the 1990s, exchange-traded funds are baskets of bonds or other assets that are usually managed by the leading financial investment firms. They can be traded on the stock exchanges and, therefore, realise gains and losses from trading. They are invented as a platform for the individual investors to participate. By investing in several assets and diversifying its portfolio, individual investors reduce the chance for significant losses.
Why is the bitcoin exchange-traded fund important for digital assets?
Considering that cryptocurrency use and safe storage still require certain technical knowledge, the ETF offers the opportunity for individual investors to invest directly in the cryptocurrency markets without the risk associated with cybersecurity. The bitcoin exchange-traded fund opens the way to invest in digital assets managed by professionals. From eleven companies that applied for the SEC approval, there are some Wall Street financial giants such as BlackRock or Van Eck but also a new wing of the crypto and innovative tech industry such as Fidelity or Ark Investments. Together, they manage hundreds of billions of dollars that will now be exposed to the cryptocurrency market. The ETF will follow the spot price of the bitcoin cryptocurrency, and may benefit the price stability of bitcoin. It will also serve as a safeguard for individual investors from the industry known for its many blunders
The SEC announcement comes one day after the security incident related to their X account. In the alleged hack, shared content was news that the SEC approved spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund. Was this a message that went public by accident or mistake from the account holders? Or was it a malicious act from the third party to undermine the government agency? Answering this question will be the primary purpose of the FBI investigation announced yesterday by the Securities and Exchange Commission
The upcoming release of the iPhone 15 is expected to mark a significant shift in Apple’s manufacturing strategy. Apple plans to introduce the India-made iPhone 15 model on the day of its global sales launch in India and other regions. Although the majority of iPhone 15s will still be produced in China, this will be the first time that a newly released India-manufactured device will be available on the first day of sale.
This move highlights India’s increasing production capabilities and departs from Apple’s previous practice of primarily selling Chinese-made devices to eager customers worldwide. The device is expected to be available for purchase in the coming days or weeks after the unveiling of the iPhone 15 today.
Apple has been working to reduce the gap between its manufacturing operations in India and China. Prior to the iPhone 14, Apple only assembled a small percentage of its global output in India, which lagged behind China’s production by six to nine months. However, the delay has since then been significantly reduced. Additionally, the financial incentives provided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to promote local manufacturing, along with Apple’s strategy to diversify its supply chain beyond China, have contributed to India’s growing importance to the tech giant.
According to the Economist, Adobe has defied predictions of its demise in the face of AI by leveraging its vast database of stock photos to develop its suite of AI tools called Firefly. Unlike its competitors, Adobe’s Firefly creates images without mining the internet for pictures, allowing the company to avoid copyright disputes. Since its launch in March, Firefly has generated over 1 billion images, leading to a 36% increase in Adobe’s share price. This success highlights a broader competition in the AI tools market, as model builders increasingly seek massive amounts of data to improve their AI models.
The demand for data is growing so rapidly that high-quality text for AI training may be depleted by 2026, according to research firm Epoch AI. Companies like Google and Meta have trained their AI models on over 1 trillion words, while Wikipedia contains around 4 billion English words. The data quality is just as important as the quantity, with text-based models benefitting from well-written and factually accurate writing. AI chatbots also yield better results when they can explain their workings step-by-step. As a result, there is a rising demand for specialized information sets and sources like textbooks.
Acquiring data has become more challenging as content creators demand compensation for the material used in AI models, resulting in copyright infringement cases against model builders. This has triggered a flurry of dealmaking as AI companies scramble to secure data sources. Open AI has partnered with Associated Press and Shutterstock, while Google is reportedly in discussions with Universal Music to license artists’ voices for a songwriting AI tool. Data holders are leveraging their bargaining power, with websites like Reddit and Stack Overflow increasing the cost of data access. Furthermore, companies are actively improving the quality of their existing data through tasks like image labelling and user feedback mechanisms.
Corporate customers possess an untapped source of valuable data, such as call-centre transcripts and customer spending records. Utilizing this data is challenging as it is often spread across multiple systems and buried within company servers rather than in the cloud. Despite these obstacles, Adobe’s success with Firefly and the ongoing data land grab in the AI industry indicate that the competition for AI dominance drives the demand for large, high-quality datasets.
The European Commission has inaugurated the European Centre for Algorithmic Transparency (ECAT), a new body dedicated to assisting the Commission in exercising some of the supervisory and enforcement roles established through the Digital Service Act (DSA). The DSA imposes risk management requirements for companies designated as Very Large Online Platforms and Very Large Online Search Engines; these are asked to identify, analyse, and mitigate various systemic risks on their platforms, from how illegal content and disinformation can be amplified through their services, to the impact on the freedom of expression or media freedom. ECAT will provide the European Commission with in-house technical and scientific expertise to ensure that algorithmic systems used by these companies comply with the DSA’s risk management, mitigation, and transparency requirements.
Within ECAT, data scientists, AI experts, social scientists, and legal experts will combine their expertise to assess the functioning of algorithmic systems – through technical analyses and evaluations of algorithms – and propose best practices to mitigate their impact. In addition, ECAT will investigate the long-term societal impact of algorithms.
The new 2024 Revenue Proposal in the US will consider the progressive tax on electricity that is used for cryptocurrency mining. The US Department of the Treasure proposed a tax for energy used in mining of any digital asset, and defines digital assets as: ‘any digital representation of value which is recorded on a cryptographically secured distributed ledger or any similar technology (blockchain)’
Cryptocurrency mining is seen as a wasteful use of energy and the proposed tax would start from 10% in year one (2024), increasing to 30% in the two-year time. The environmental impact is the main reason behind the proposal as the document suggest that: ‘the increase in energy consumption attributable to the growth of digital asset mining has negative environmental effects and can have environmental justice implications as well as increase energy prices’
The instability of the mining operations is also stated as one of the reasons, as the mining industry follows the cheapest energy sources. ‘Digital asset mining also creates uncertainty and risks to local utilities and communities, as mining activity is highly variable and highly mobile.’
At the outskirts of the G20 summit in India, the International Monetary Fund Managing Director, Ms Kristalina Georgieva answered the questions from media around the cryptoassets and digital currencies. In her words, the IMF is very much in favor of regulating the world of crypto and digital money. The IMF, alongside the Bank for International Settlements and the G20s Financial Stability Board (FSB) believes this is a top-priority in the forthcoming period.
She pointed out the difference between legal tenders (national currencies) which are backed by countries that issue them, and the ‘publicly issued cryptoassets and stablecoins calling them ‘just a speculative asset’. If such assets start to pose a threat to the consumers and/or financial stability for countries we should have a mechanism to ban crytpoassets altogether. We have requests from our members not to rule out the mechanism for the total ban. If there are strong consumer protection laws set in place, we will not need a ban. The ban of cryptocurrencies is indeed a tool of last resort, she added in her interview.
Twitter announced that starting 9 February 2023, it would no longer support free access to its application programme interface (API), both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead, although details about how much the company plans to charge for API usage are not yet available.
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) and eight US states filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing it of illegally abusing its dominance over internet advertising business and limiting fair competition.
The lawsuit by DoJ alleges that Google used anti-competitive methods to eliminate or drastically reduce any threat to its dominance over the technologies used for digital advertising. Allegedly, Google has undertaken a systematic campaign to take control of a wide range of high-tech tools used by publishers, advertisers and brokers to facilitate digital advertising and manipulate the mechanics of online ad auctions to force advertisers and publishers to use its tools.
The suit, filed in the state of Virginia, asked the US District Court to force Google to sell its suite of ad technology products, including software for buying and selling ads, a marketplace for completing transactions and an online ad-serving service. The lawsuit also asked the court to stop the company from allegedly engaging in anti-competitive practices.
The Bundeskartellamt’s preliminary conclusions of its administrative proceeding against Google state that users of Google services ‘are not given sufficient choice as to whether and to what extent they agree to [a] far-reaching processing of data. The choices offered so far, if any, are, in particular, not sufficiently transparent and too general.’ The office argues that users should be able to limit the processing of data to the specific service used and to differentiate between the purposes for which the data are processed. In addition, the choices offered must not be devised in a way that makes it easier for users to consent to the processing of data across services than not to consent to this.
Following the issuance of the statement of objections, Google has the opportunity to comment on the office’s preliminary assessment and present either reasons to justify its practices or suggestions to dispel the concerns. A final decision on the administrative proceeding is awaited in 2023.
