These are the 5 most important news of the last week

Another exciting week in crypto space is coming to an end. The most important events around BTC and Co. at a glance.

MiCA, TFR and trilogue: EU struggles over crypto regulation

the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) is one of the most discussed topics in the European crypto industry. The regulation is intended to create a clear legal framework for BTC, stablecoins and Co. within the EU. The Commission, Parliament and the Member States (Council) each submitted their own drafts for this. In the trilogue, the institutions now want to find a common line. The negotiations on the MiCA regulation were actually supposed to take place last Wednesday, but they had to be postponed indefinitely – the reason was the corona disease of a participant.

It crunches in the European Union. Actually, the legislators of the federal state are currently negotiating in a trilogue on the so-called Transfer of Funds Regulation (TFR). This aims to introduce comprehensive anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing policies for the crypto sector. However, as insiders report, the negotiations currently seem to be faltering.

Terra (LUNA): The end of a crypto ecosystem

The price of Terra crashed south in an unprecedented manner in the last week of trading, impressively showing that investments in cryptocurrencies that were believed to be safe are also subject to a high risk.

After Terra Labs failed with its Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) at the beginning of last week to tie the in-house algorithm-based stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) back to the US dollar value, all investors began to save what could still be saved was. Investors sold their Luna Coins and TerraUSD holdings en masse. In addition, the opening of large short positions, so-called short sales, pushed the LUNA price south.

Crypto taxes – yes or no? Portugal in conflict

“I believe in the future, I believe in BTC.” With these words, Miguel Albuquerque, President of Madeira, the entry of the Portuguese island into the BTC Standard. But shortly after the announcement, things got quiet again around the island, which has a population of 250,000.

BTC-ECHO takes a closer look: What could a BTC future for Madeira look like and don’t the recently announced tax increases for cryptocurrencies in Portugal contradict this?

China: A mining stronghold despite the ban?

The mining ban in China almost a year ago marked a turning point for the crypto space. Suddenly, mining cryptocurrencies such as BTC or ETH was illegal and mining operations were outlaws, so to speak. The restrictive course of the government surprised quite a few market observers at the time, as the Middle Kingdom had previously provided a considerable two-thirds of the computing power for the BTC network.

Shortly thereafter, the exodus of mining companies followed – to neighboring Kazakhstan, for example, or to the USA. But the latest figures show that China continues to provide a large part of the hash rate in the BTC network. How can that be?

Money laundering and crypto theft celebrate record numbers

The decentralized finance industry (DeFi for short) is becoming a honey pot for cybercriminals of all kinds. This is confirmed by the current one “Web3 Safety & Compliance Report” of the largest crypto data service provider worldwide, Chainalysis. Whether hacks, money laundering or scams: DeFi is ahead almost everywhere. The biggest beneficiaries: North Korean hacker groups like Lazarus.

Illegal DeFi transactions have skyrocketed since 2021, driven primarily by theft of funds through hacking and abuse of DeFi protocols for money laundering, Chainalysis reports in its report. Almost 70 percent of stolen funds are sent here.