Josh Andrews

Poland Imposes New Cryptocurrency Tax Levy Sparking Protests

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Apparently, the United States is not the only place where the crypto-taxation discussion has been a subject of controversy. The Polish Finance Ministry recently issued a tax ruling that will see taxes levied on all crypto transactions regardless of whether they constitute a profit or not. This ruling has sparked a feud between the government and the outraged cryptocurrency traders who have now resorted to protests.

The tax ruling which was published a fortnight ago stated that income form crypto-trading is subject to tax rules and fall under two tax brackets – that is, 18 percent and 32 percent. In addition to this, all the cryptocurrency traders in the country will have to pay a mandatory 1 percent tax on the value of all their cryptocurrency transactions. Furthermore, the taxes that have been imposed on the traders could go as high as a hundred or a thousand times of the traders’ capital investments and this could eventually cripple the crypto trading market in the country.

In response to the ruling, the outraged Polish cryptocurrency traders opted to put together an online petition that argues that the ruling was not only going to wipe out the cryptocurrency community in Poland but will also set the country’s efforts to develop blockchain technology back. As it stands, Poles will be required to file their annual personal income statements on April 30 – the petition that has already been signed by 2,200 people hopes to derail the stipulations of the ruling ahead of this date.

“We are demanding the release of the blockchain technology market and the abolition of all taxes related to this industry,” the petition read. “We want to be active creators of this technology, not just its passive recipients in the coming years, from centralized Polish institutions or foreign entities.”

From a neutral observer’s point of view, the Polish government’s stance on decentralized digital currencies should be enough to keep cryptocurrency traders awake at night. The country’s Prime Minister has previously labeled cryptocurrencies as “Ponzi schemes,” an opinion that is shared by a vast majority of the government officials. As such, the tax levy on crypto transactions stinks of a government-sanctioned attack on digital currencies. But will it be enough to tame the rather spontaneous crypto ecosystem?

Unikrn Acquires Esports Tournament Platform ChallengeMe.GG

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Renowned Esports betting operator Unikrn has acquired peer-to-peer Esports platform ChallengeMe.GG as part of its grand plan of launching “full-blown skill-based betting” to its customers. Scheduled to be launched in May, the Esports betting platform will be launched on Unikrn and will allow the customers to enter Esports betting platforms using UnikoinGold, Unikrn’s in-house virtual currency.

The German-based ChallengeMe.GG has been working closely with Unikrn for quite some time now making the acquisition not much of surprise. ChallengeMe.GG’s management team will be retained under Unikrn’s ownership. Also, the company will keep acting as the matchmaking platform that will be linking players of similar skill levels in leagues, tournaments as well as peer-to-peer challenges. Once it is fully integrated into Unikrn’s platform, ChallengeMe.GG will be able to offer buy-in tournaments using UnikoinGold.

The integration will also involve the inclusion of the Dota 2 events in the ChallengeMe platform. In addition to this, the integration will introduce a raffle system whereby players can earn tickets by completing daily, weekly, and monthly draw missions with the players being awarded cash prizes and gifts from sponsors.

“Joining forces with Unikrn was the ideal match for us. Instead of doing our own initial coin offering (ICO), we can take advantage of the best gaming crypto has to offer: UKG’s ecosystem and technology. Combining the brand-power of Unikrn and UnikoinGold with our world-class tournament & matchmaking platform will provide esports enthusiasts from casual to pro a place to enjoy, compete and be rewarded for playing their favorite Esports titles,” said Simon Seefeldt, the ChallengeMe.GG chief executive.

Unikrn’s acquisition of ChallengMe.GG points to a number of great opportunities for both the company and Esports enthusiasts. For instance, Unikrn will now be offering tournament betting across Europe and North America using its blockchain technology.

“Last October, Unikrn launched the first-ever community CS:GO tournament with a crypto (UnikoinGold) prize pool on ChallengeMe.GG CME,” explained Rahul Sood, Unikrn’s founder and chief executive. “Since then, we’ve been running weekly events, ladders, and challenges with our partners at CME. After that success, we immediately began the months-long process of acquiring them. As we got through the legal process of making this happen, we’ve been strategizing on how Unikrn + CME could be even better. How can we bring unprecedented merger of crypto and gaming and give players around the world revolutionary experiences? Now the acquisition is complete.”
“CME’s platform is beyond its competition, and with their technology and Unikrn’s userbase, endemic reach, brand partnerships, and existing product lines — as well as UnikoinGold, the largest token in esports and gaming history — users are about to see a digital casual-competitive landscape well beyond anything to date conceived,” he added.

There are a plethora of features that will be introduced along the way but generally speaking, this development is a truly promising sign for Esports as a whole as well as the role of the business aspects Esports betting and tournament platforms such as Unikrn.

Disgraced Mt. Gox CEO Appointed as London Trust Media CTO

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The last four years have been pretty tough for Mark Karpelès, the Chief Executive Officer of Mt. Gox, the bitcoin exchange that went bankrupt in 2014 following the loss of 850,000 bitcoins. The situation not only made the former head of Mt. Gox one of the most hated men in the crypto world but also saw him serve a jail term for nearly a year while awaiting criminal trial for charges of data manipulations, breach of trust and embezzlement. This is despite the fact that Mt. Gox was able to recover 200,000 bitcoins – the remaining 650,000 bitcoins are believed to have been stolen by hackers from elsewhere.

“I have no way to be sure that I’ll still be able to work in one year, two years,” Karpelès said in an interview with Fortune in an interview in Tokyo in March. “So I cannot really get a normal full-time job.”

This sentiment by Karpelès clearly indicates that he acknowledges the possibility that he may be sent back to jail. Regardless of all this, he did land a new job as a C-level executive at a U.S. corporation – he will be the new chief technology officer (CTO) of London Trust Media which is paid virtual private network (VPN) service provider based in Denver.

The company also invests in cryptocurrency. In fact, it was an early investor in Zcash, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency, as well as Purse, an e-commerce startup that allows people to pay for Amazon purchases with bitcoin.

“Mark fought and fell. And although he fell, his skills, experience, and know-how unarguably continue to exist. And so, bringing in a seasoned warrior makes perfect sense to me. I am more than willing to give a second chance to Mark in this fight’s critical hour. I wouldn’t dare say that the person who architected the Titanic should never again architect another ship”, said Andrew Lee, co-founder at London Trust Media and former head of Mt. Gox’s North American operations.

In the interview with Fortune, Karpelès admitted that the new position at London Trust Media was now his main job alongside other five different IT consulting jobs, as well as online video game-related and network communications projects with employers he preferred not to mention. Also, since he is on trial and thus cannot legally leave Japan, Karpelès will only be able to work remotely.

However, even though his new job description puts him in charge of London Trust Media’s cryptocurrency ventures, the former Mt. Gox CEO has been quite open about the fact that he no longer believes in bitcoin.

“Bitcoin right now is, I believe, doomed. Its original promise of being the future of currency is clearly out of reach”, Karpelès said.

He believes that the cryptocurrency may have a lot of trouble evolving, scaling up and keeping up with everything. In addition to this, he pointed to the split between bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash as proof of how polarized the cryptocurrency community is.

Pennsylvania Receives No Bids for Sixth Mini-Casino License

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On Wednesday, April 19, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) held its sixth mini-casino license auction in Harrisburg. The board received no bids for the sixth mini-casino license something that according to experts, puts the auctions of the remaining licenses in a rather tight spot. Already, state regulators are pondering about opening the remaining licenses to bidding by non-casino business in the state or even out-of-state casino operator. This applies to the sixth one as well as it goes to the third and final round of bidding.

The board has the option of opening the field of qualifies bidders that has so far been off-limits to the operators of Pennsylvania’s existing casinos. This decision is yet to be made and once it is made, the board will announce it at a later date. If the board chooses to conduct more auctions, it will have to establish suitable criteria and procedures that will be used to justify the qualification of the entities that wish to bid on the licenses.

It is however very likely that the decision will be similar to the one that was made for the March auction of the fifth mini-casino license. Like the case with the sixth mini-casino license, no bids were received and the PGCB was forced to include operators of two relatively smaller resort casinos in the bidding process. The winning bid, however, came earlier this month when a subsidiary of Penn National Gaming known as Thoroughbred Racing Association offered the board $3 over the $7.5 million minimum.

The Keystone state had planned to auction off 10 mini-casino licenses in an effort to make up for its financial shortfalls. Each of the mini gambling halls can host up to 40 table games and as many as 750 slot machines. So far, the state has been able to amass $127 million from the auction of the first five mini casino licenses – officials originally estimated a total of $100 million for all the 10 mini-casino licenses. Therefore, the initial rounds of auctions might as well be over but we will have to wait for the board’s decision before we can be certain of any developments in this regard.

Sweden to Tighten Grasp on Online Gambling with New Measures

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The Swedish government is hoping to implement tighter regulatory oversight for online gambling in the country through proposed legislation that if passed will take effect in 2019. The proposed new legislation is meant to institute a revamped licensing system, establish stronger prohibitions against illegal operation as well as instate more effective consumer protection measures. According to an official press release by the Swedish government, the proposed measures will introduce a fee of nearly $84,000 for both an online casino license and a sports betting license.

The issue of unregulated online gambling in Sweden has been a major concern for the country’s government for a very long time. Ardalan Shekarabi, Sweden’s Public Administration minister spoke about this in a recent interview where he emphasized that new regulatory measures needed to be put in place.

“Unregulated gambling has taken over and gambling is used in criminal activities. It is 14 years since the first in a line of gambling inquiries was appointed. It is now time for us to move from words to actions and regain control of the Swedish gambling market. We are reinforcing the Swedish Gambling Authority, granting it more and sharper tools. Unlicensed operators will be shut out of the market and license-holders must conduct their activities in accordance with the law,” he said.

The minister and other officials have also affirmed that the new regulations would go a long way in ensuring higher levels of consumer protection. For instance, all online gambling operators will be required to offer the players the choice of excluding themselves. Similarly, the operators will be restricted to offering bonuses on only the first deposits.

Furthermore, if the proposed measures that are currently being considered in the Swedish capital are passed online gambling operators will be prohibited from marketing their wares in the Swedish market. The measures would also give Sweden’s gaming operator the power to order the country’s local internet service providers to display warning messages on sites that are not licensed and block any associated online payments.

The proposed legislation would also introduce a new “gambling fraud” criminal offense which would, in turn, lead to the establishment of a government commission for the sole purpose of handling instances of match-fixing.

New Jersey, Nevada, and Delaware to Share Poker Liquidity

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Great news for regulated online poker in the United States! Players from the states of New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada will soon be able to compete against each other as from May 1 according to Associated Press. Recent rumors pertaining to liquidity sharing between the three states was confirmed with the first implementations involving renowned poker operators 888Poker and WSOP NJ.

“This has been a huge collaborative effort from all involved and it is important to thank the elected leadership and regulatory authorities in Delaware, Nevada, and New Jersey for their dedication and diligence to help move online poker forward,” said WSOP’s head of online poker Bill Rini. “Everyone has had the end user in mind throughout this process, and as a result, we believe the United States, for the first time in a regulated environment, will have a large-scale multi-state offering that will propel the industry forward as soon as next month.”

A deal between New Jersey and Nevada was announced last year and hence it is long overdue but the timing could not be better since it still is, by all means, a historic arrangement for the two most popular regulated casino gambling markets in the United States. Furthermore, it presents a big boost for the Nevada and Delaware casino markets – the two states’ population are rather small, that is, Delaware has under one million while Nevada has three million. The inclusion of the New Jersey will certainly improve the statistics of all three state’s online poker industries.

The report further mentioned that online poker players in Nevada and Delaware will, however, be required to download new software and set up new accounts if they want to play against players from New Jersey. This means that existing Nevada and Delaware online poker software will become obsolete once the liquidity sharing process begins.

More States Could Join

Pennsylvania is the fourth state to legalize regulated online poker and it is now awaiting online poker applications which means that online poker in the Keystone State could be a reality by the end of 2018. Hopefully, Pennsylvania could join the other three states in the concerted effort to grow and nurture multi-state online poker which will create a market of nearly 26 million people. On the same note, a number of other states including New York and Connecticut are considering legalizing regulated online poker this year and they too could join in and expand the player pool further.

Microsoft Store Teams Up with ESL to Open Esports Academy

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Microsoft has hopped on the Esports bandwagon by teaming up with Electronic Sports League (ESL) to launch a sports academy at one of Microsoft’s stores in Sydney, Australia. This initiative gives Sydney based Esports enthusiasts an opportunity to learn about the industry by signing up for the Esports Academy that will run from Monday, April 16 to Sunday, April 22.

The Esports Academy will help students who wish pursue careers in Esports to realize this dream by imparting them knowledge about actual Esports gaming as well as the nitty-gritty details of the business element of Esports. There will be appearances from a number of Esports players from Australia’s thriving Esports scene – they will teach the academy’s students all that they need to know about the Esports ecosystem.

“We see a lot of excitement and engagement around video games at the Microsoft Store, from casual gamers to some of the players that attend our regular tournaments and competitions,” said the Microsoft Store’s Gaming Community Manager, Max Ferfoglia. “This event is all about bringing the gaming community at Microsoft Store together with some of the top talent in Australia so people can learn more about Esports, how to improve their game and also hear about the pathways that exist to get into the industry.”
“We wanted to give the gamers the kind of opportunities we never had when we were trying to go pro.”

Even though it will only run for a week, the Esports Academy will give the participants the required knowledge which is much more important in the competitive electronic gaming scene. The three-hour sessions will include lessons on understanding networking, the various roles available in Esports as well as an open pitching session and a Q&A session. At the end of the session, the attendees will be required to plan a hypothetical tournament to any scale they wish.

This program is, of course, not even close to formalized education but it will go a long way in imparting valuable networking opportunities for the students. Hopefully, since it is a pilot project, it will be successful enough to spawn more similar initiatives in Sydney and many other parts of the globe. Meanwhile, interested Esports lovers in Sydney can sign up here.

U.S. Player Associations Weigh In on Sports Betting Debate

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The major professional league associations in the US have finally broken the silence as the country awaits the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that is likely to legalize nationwide sports betting. The unions, which include the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA), and the Major League of Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA) have joined together to insist on being included in discussions pertaining to the legalization of sports betting. This announcement was released via a joint statement that was meant to make public the position of the union with regards to the matter at hand.

The joint effort by the unions is specifically geared towards ensuring that any new laws put players’ rights and integrity into consideration regardless of their respective sports affiliations. As outlined in the statement, the players’ associations concerns revolve around the profits that sports betting would bring as well as the potential costs of such arrangements.

The joint statement further revealed that the unions had discussed the potential impacts of legalized sports betting on players’ privacy and the security. Another key focus for the discussion was the integrity of the games. Still, the main takeaway from the recent development is the fact that the associations share the belief that lobbyist groups are not the only stakeholders and thus should not be the only participants in the process of legalizing sports betting.

The associations are calling for the inclusion of athletes in the discussions so as to ensure that the rights of the players are upheld and the integrity of the games remain intact when sports betting finally becomes a reality.

“Given the pending Supreme Court decision regarding PASPA representatives of the MLBPA, NBPA, NFLPA and NHLPA have been working together on the legal, commercial, practical, and human consequences of allowing sports betting to become mainstream,” the joint statement read. “Betting on sports may become widely legal, but we cannot allow those who have lobbied the hardest for sports gambling to be the only ones controlling how it would be ushered into our businesses. The athletes must also have a seat at the table to ensure that players’ rights and the integrity of our games are protected.”

There have been raging debates for some time now with regards to ensuring the integrity of games intact. So far, the MLB and the NBA have been the most vocal – both have proposed that a 1 percent integrity free from the overall betting revenue should be paid to the leagues. Fortunately, while this legislation has been met with equal amounts of support and opposition, the leagues might just get what they want after all. Case in point, the New York Senate recently passed a legislation that requires a 0.25 percent fee to be paid out to the player leagues.

Bitcoin Declared “Generally Permissible” Under Islamic Law

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Yesterday, the value of Bitcoin went from $6,962.6 to $7,720.27 in less than one hour sparking a whole lot of speculations, one being that the price surge had something to do with an Indonesia-based startup’s report. In the report that was published in Thursday, April 12 press release, Blossom Finance, the fintech startup, concluded that bitcoin is “generally permissible” or “halal” under Sharia law. This conclusion was made in conjunction with the startup’s internal Sharia advisor.

Islam is currently the fastest growing religion in the world with over 1.6 billion devoted Muslims. For the longest time, the adoption of cryptocurrencies has been a rather grey area for Muslims around the world – this is because Muslims are forbidden from using currencies that do not have any intrinsic value and lending money with high-interest rates, a practice known as usury.

With the recent massive worldwide adoption of cryptocurrencies, Muslims were left behind as they were forbidden from staking claims in the crypto space – not anymore.

“In Germany, Bitcoin is recognized as a legal currency and therefore qualifies as Islamic money in Germany. In countries such as the US, Bitcoin lacks official legal monetary status but is accepted for payment at a variety of merchants, and therefore qualifies as Islamic customary money,” Mufti Muhammad Abu Bakar, an Islamic scholar and Blossom Finance’s Sharia advisor wrote in a paper he published to address the issue.
“Bitcoin is permissible in principle as bitcoin is treated as valuable by market price on global exchanges and it is accepted for payment at a wide variety of merchants. Moreover, many private individuals accept bitcoin as a medium of exchange in their private transactions,” the study adds.

What This Means

While many people agree that the assumption that bitcoin’s price surge might be purely speculative, even more people believe that it was largely due to the crypto market finally opening up to the Islam community who account for about a quarter of the world’s population. In fact, the assumption is justifiably reasonable especially considering how the digital currency’s price has been affected in one way or the other by external entities such as media outlets.

Not long after the paper was published, over a billion dollars in trades were initiated across nearly all the cryptocurrency exchanges which subsequently saw bitcoin’s price increase sharply over a very short period – less than an hour to be more precise. Bitcoin has proven time and time again that it is not going away any time soon and the adoption by the Muslim community is certainly another step in the right direction for the entire crypto community.

Rivalry Academy Launched to Educate Esports Bettors

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Since it was launched earlier this year in February, Rivalry.gg has proven to be a formidable force in the Esports gambling arena thanks to its holistic approach in offering services that have made it a one-stop-shop for Esports bettors. In addition to this, the operator has a number of new, exciting and engaging developments in the pipeline.

One of these developments is ‘Rivalry Academy,’ the betting platform’s in-house tool that bettors can use to learn and tone their understanding of Esports gambling. This is certainly a noble move for the relatively young company and thus it may be quite helpful to the company’s overall business.

Creating Guidelines for Bettors

The Rivalry.gg team realized that betting is often intimidating for new and uninitiated – the lengthy spread of odds are sometimes overwhelming and may even be compounded by sub-par bookmarker experience. The team’s solution to this problem was creating their own betting guidelines from scratch.

“It’s terrifying depositing money into something you barely understand. It takes a fair amount of research for non-bettors to be comfortable enough to bet. We created the Rivalry Academy to help with that process. We want to provide clear and concise guidance so that customers are comfortable with betting and how it all works,” Kevin Wimer, Chief Marketing Officer at Rivalry.gg told Esports Insider.

Just like Rivalry.gg, the Rival Academy website features a nicely polished user interface as well as a plethora of other user-friendly qualities. This goes directly in line with what the site’s major focus is: to help bettors understand the parameters of betting and help improve their chances of winning.

Navigating as you progress through the various stages of learning is also quite easy as the guides are broken down into neat segments in both written and video formats each of which is accompanied with real examples. This definitely hits the operator’s target of being clear and concise. However, the stand-out traits of the educational offering are brevity and effectiveness – the language used possesses a friendly that gives learners the feeling that they are learning from seasoned bettors who happen to be their close friends.

“We’re esports fans that have created a betting site. We had to learn all of this ourselves not too long ago. This has resulted in the Rivalry Academy being very authentic and conversational,” Wimmer added. “For people brand new to betting, the Rivalry Academy helps to give a basic foundation and understanding of how betting works. We also have a few videos aimed towards people that know their way around but are looking to learn some more advanced techniques to help give them the edge.”

As the Esports betting market and the Esports industry as a whole keep expanding there have been concerns pertaining to betting education. As such, Rivalry has made itself a champion for its customers by serving as a complete bedrock for betting as well as a proactive participant in betting education.