Hong Kong to tighten crypto regulation, Thailand to tax crypto overseas: Law Decoded

Published

2 years ago

September 25, 2023

admin

Hong Kong regulators are looking to tighten the noose around the crypto market after arresting six individuals following allegations of fraud around an unlicensed crypto exchange, JPEX. The government intends to increase its efforts to inform investors and remind them only to utilize platforms granted Securities and Futures Commission licenses.

Meanwhile, Thailand’s Revenue Department plans to impose personal income tax on foreign revenues, including those from crypto trading, of any person residing in Thailand for more than 180 days. Under the previous regulation, only foreign income remitted to Thailand in the year of earning was taxed. The new rule closes this loophole and obligates an individual to declare any income earned overseas, even if it wasn’t used in the local economy.

In Brazil, lawmakers are also pushing to acknowledge crypto as a part of personal financial assets — but for another reason. Lawmakers in the National Congress of Brazil aim to include digital assets in an amendment to a bill that aims to protect the private savings of individuals up to an amount equal to 40 minimum wages from potential seizure on behalf of creditors. In a note to the congressional Committee on the Constitution, Justice and Citizenship, Deputy Felipe Francischini said, “Nowadays, people’s investment behavior changed, with the traditional savings account losing ground to other forms of financial investment.”

The House of Lords approves the bill to seize stolen crypto in the U.K.

A bill aiming to expand the ability of authorities in the United Kindom to target illicit cryptocurrency usage has been pushed to the final stages for approval by the House of Lords. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, introduced in September 2022, will return to the lower chamber of the British parliament, the House of Commons, which will either decide to accept the proposed amendments or recommend further changes to the bill.

Continue reading

Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents officially enter the FTX court saga

Debtors of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX have launched legal action against the parents of exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried, alleging that they misappropriated millions of dollars through their involvement in the exchange’s business. The counsel for FTX debtors and debtors-in-possession, represented by the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, filed a lawsuit against SBF’s parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried.

The plaintiffs argued that Bankman and Fried exploited their access and influence within the FTX empire to enrich themselves at the expense of the debtors in the FTX bankruptcy estate. The debtors alleged that SBF’s parents were “very much involved” in the FTX business from inception to collapse, contrary to what SBF has claimed.

Continue reading

The House Committee approves the U.S. Anti-CBDC bill

The CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act, aimed at preventing “unelected bureaucrats in Washington” from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC), has taken one step further on its procedural journey after it passed the House Financial Services Committee. That means the bill will next face a congressional vote.

The bill contains provisions preventing the United States Federal Reserve from issuing a CBDC to individuals and barring the Fed from utilizing any CBDC to implement monetary policy. In his recent interview with Cointelegraph, Representative Tom Emmer called digital assets a “sleeper issue” in U.S. politics, both at the state and federal levels.

Continue reading

Politics

Badenoch pulls off first conference speech as leader, but it is less clear if this will be her last

Published

3 hours ago

October 9, 2025

admin

Badenoch pulls off first conference speech as leader, but it is less clear if this will be her last

There’s no question that Kemi Badenoch’s on the ropes after a low-energy first year as leader that has seen the Conservative Party slide backwards by pretty much every metric.

But on Wednesday, the embattled leader came out swinging with a show-stopping pledge to scrap stamp duty, which left the hall delirious. “I thought you’d like that one,” she said with a laugh as party members cheered her on.

A genuine surprise announcement – many in the shadow cabinet weren’t even told – it gave the Conservatives and their leader a much-needed lift after what many have dubbed the lost year.

Politics latest: Stamp duty to be axed under Tories

Ms Badenoch tried to answer that criticism this week with a policy blitz, headlined by her promise on stamp duty.

This is a leader giving her party some red meat to try to help her party at least get a hearing from the public, with pledges on welfare, immigration, tax cuts and policing.

In all of it, a tacit admission from Ms Badenoch and her team that as politics speeds up, they have not kept pace, letting Reform UK and Nigel Farage run ahead of them and grab the microphone by getting ahead of the Conservatives on scrapping net zero targets or leaving the ECHR in order to deport illegal migrants more easily.

Ms Badenoch is now trying to answer those criticisms and act.

At the heart of her offer is £47bn of spending cuts in order to pay down the nation’s debt pile and fund tax cuts such as stamp duty.

All of it is designed to try to restore the party’s reputation for economic competence, against a Labour Party of tax rises and a growing debt burden and a Reform party peddling “fantasy economics”.

She needs to do something, and fast. A YouGov poll released on the eve of her speech put the Conservatives joint third in the polls with the Lib Dems on 17%.

That’s 10 percentage points lower than when Ms Badenoch took power just under a year ago. The crisis, mutter her colleagues, is existential. One shadow cabinet minister lamented to me this week that they thought it was “50-50” as to whether the party can survive.

Ms Badenoch had to do two things in her speech on Wednesday: the first was to try to reassert her authority over her party. The second was to get a bit of attention from the public with a set of policies that might encourage disaffected Tories to look at her party again.

On the first point, even her critics would have to agree that she had a successful conference and has given herself a bit of space from the constant chatter about her leadership with a headline-grabbing policy that could give her party some much-needed momentum.

On the second, the promise of spending control coupled with a retail offer of tax cuts does carve out a space against the Labour government and Reform.

But the memory of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget, the chaos of Boris Johnson’s premiership, and the failure of Sunak to cut NHS waiting lists or tackle immigration still weigh on the Conservative brand.

Ms Badenoch might have revived the room with her speech, but whether that translates into a wider revival around the country is very hard to read.

Ms Badenoch leaves Manchester knowing she pulled off her first conference speech as party leader: what she will be less sure about is whether it will be her last.

I thought she tacitly admitted that to me when she pointedly avoided answering the question of whether she would resign if the party goes backwards further in the English council, Scottish parliament and Welsh Senedd elections next year.

“Let’s see what the election result is about,” was her reply.

That is what many in her party are saying too, because if Ms Badenoch cannot show progress after 18 months in office, she might see her party turn to someone else.