At-A-Glance

• Several crypto firms will participate in a summit at IRS headquarters on March 3.
• Samsung confirms its commitment to crypto with the announcement of the Galaxy S20.
• Bitcoin experienced a “flash crash” of around $1,000, the fifth-largest in its history.

The IRS Is Inviting Crypto Firms to a ‘Summit’ in DC Next Month

Coindesk

An undisclosed number of cryptocurrency firms have been invited to a summit taking place in a few weeks. On March 3, the invited firms will descend on IRS headquarters in Washington, D.C. to participate in four panels addressing technology, regulatory compliance, and other common concerns in the industry. The list of panelists has not been finalized.

According to Blockchain Association Executive Director Kristin Smith, the IRS has shown interest in setting up such a summit since at least January.

While the IRS has not explicitly said the summit will inform its future guidance, Smith said she hopes the agency will use the information it gathers from the event to develop better regulatory frameworks around cryptocurrency moving forward.

The news comes days after the Government Accountability Office, a Congress-funded watchdog for government agencies, announced the IRS had declined to adopt several recommendations to clarify its existing guidance.

The IRS published fresh guidance around cryptocurrencies last autumn, addressing hard forks, how to calculate gains and valuing crypto income. However, the guidance, the first published since 2014, raised new questions around airdrops and did not address small transactions.

Samsung Keeps Cryptocurrency Functionality in Galaxy S20 Models

Cointelegraph

Earlier this month, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S20 series, the next in its flagship line of high-end smartphones. The device boasts all the coveted high-tech features: 8K video, 5G speeds, and integrated blockchain security features.

Samsung first introduced the crypto-friendly feature in its Galaxy S10 models a year ago. According to Samsung, security is a major focus of the S20’s design: “We created a secure processor dedicated to protecting your PIN, password, pattern, and Blockchain Private Key. Combined with the Knox platform, security is infused into every part of your phone, from hardware to software.”

Following the unveiling of the Knox platform in the Galaxy S10 last February, Samsung further developed its mobile blockchain offering with the release of a software development kit in July 2019. This included a toolkit for the Samsung Blockchain Keystore, which holds users’ private keys.

Later that month PundiX announced that it had integrated its XWallet app into Samsung’s blockchain ecosystem, allowing users to link the app to their Samsung Blockchain Wallet.

Samsung then added Bitcoin-support to its Blockchain Keystore, along with several other advances. Previously it had only officially supported Ethereum.

Bitcoin’s Latest Flash Crash the Fifth-Largest in History

BeInCrypto

It’s been a tough week for bitcoin; the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency saw a “flash crash” in the early morning hours of February 20. During that time, the value of the token dropped from $10,200 to $9,200 — that’s nearly a 10% decline in value in mere minutes. This makes it the fifth-largest price drop in BTC history, and the first such crash since bitcoin hit its peak in late 2017.

Since climbing back above $10,000 on Tuesday, Bitcoin’s price stayed within the $10,000 to $10,200 range before this sudden drop in price that bottomed out as low as $9,500. The drop itself was sudden and drastic at almost 10 percent in an hour. The reason for this has also been debated across the cryptocurrency community.

One theory as to why the price suddenly collapsed has to do with the fact that more than $100 million worth of long contracts were liquidated on BitMEX, alone.

That’s the roundup for February 22, 2020. Check in next week for the latest news of cryptocurrency innovation and regulation around the world!

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