Bitcoin Daily: Ukraine Regulator To Scrutinize Crypto Sales Above $1,200; Big-Name Telegram Investors Shown In SEC Documents

Ukraine’s financial watchdog has announced that it will monitor transactions that exceed $1,200, said Oksana Makarova, the head of the country’s Ministry of Finance, according to a Monday (Jan. 27) report by Coindesk.

A new law passed includes crypto as something to be monitored.

“If exchanges, exchangers, banks or other companies make payments in cryptocurrencies worth more than UAH 30,000 in equivalent, they must verify such transaction and collect detailed customer information,” Makarova said. “The customer must provide comprehensive information about the origin and destination of their virtual assets.”

In other news, Rostec, a corporation backed by the Russian government, said it would cut spending on blockchain development in the country by half, according to a report by Cointelegraph.

The company is going to spend $453.2 million instead of between $877 million and $1.3 billion.

Rostec said that introducing blockchain tech into the product labeling system is going to cost ($10.3 million), and into the healthcare system $18.6 million. Also, $9.1 million will go into the counterfeit tracking system for pharmaceuticals. To implement blockchain into housing and utility services, Rostec will spend $7.5 million.

Finally, court documents show that some big-name investors have participated in Telegram’s token sale, according to a report by Coindesk.

The list includes former board member of the Bitcoin Foundation and a partner of Ribbit Capital, Micky Malka.

Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, was asked what investors could be a validator in TON blockchain.

“We didn’t put together a separate list of the purchasers who we would assume have experience in validating other networks, although it was obvious that certain investors… such as, for example, Micky Malka that we have discussed earlier, might … have experience in these processes of validation or at least were closely affiliated with parties that had experience in such processes,” he said.

Also involved is David Yang, founder of digital dictionaries company ABBYY Lingvo and member of the Band of Angels venture fund.