1. Several U.S. lawmakers have introduced the Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act to strengthen “the legitimacy of cryptocurrency in our digital economy.” The bill would create a workable structure for taxing purchases made with cryptocurrency, and also aims to expand the use of cryptocurrencies for payments.
2. The Venezuelan Government has approved a new tax that would affect transactions made in foreign currency and cryptocurrency transactions. Approved by the National Assembly of the country, the tax, called the “large financial transactions” tax would collect up to 20% over transactions made in currencies different from the national fiat currency or the Petro.
3. The total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (defi) has jumped back above the $200 billion range, hovering around $216.49 billion on Saturday morning (EST). The TVL in defi has increased 13.60% since tapping a low of $190.57 billion 13 days ago on January 23. The decentralized exchange (dex) Curve’s $19.41 billion TVL dominates the total value locked by 8.84%.
4. Real estate sales in the metaverse are expected to reach a billion dollars this year, according to a metaverse analytics firm Metametric Solutions. The company expects real estate sales on four major metaverse platforms – Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, and Somnium, which surpassed $501 million last year, to double this year.
5. An African startup, Nestcoin, said it raised $6.45 million in a pre-seed funding round in which tennis’ star, Serena Williams’ Serena Ventures took part. The startup, which was launched in November 2021, plans to use the capital raised to educate, build and invest in web 3.0 applications.
