Bitcoin Daily: UK Tax Agency Defines Crypto As Commodities; Crypto Exchange Bittrex Sued For SIM Card Bitcoin Theft

The U.K.’s tax authority has released cryptocurrency tax guidance for businesses, revealing that crypto assets will still be defined as commodities. That means that companies that participate in trading exchange tokens must make tax payments. The type of tax paid — capital gains tax, corporation tax, income tax, national insurance contributions, stamp taxes or VAT — will be decided by the tax authority.

In other news, crypto exchange Bittrex is being sued over a SIM swap that enabled criminals to obtain 100 bitcoin, currently worth nearly $1 million.

The lawsuit was filed by Seattle-based angel investor Gregg Bennett, who has accused Bittrex of violating its own security protocols and ignored industry standards, failing to stop the April 2019 theft. In addition, Bennett says that the company didn’t respond fast enough when he notified them of the hack.

But CEO Bill Shihara told CoinDesk that the exchange’s security protocol was strong enough to prevent account breaches, including two-factor authentication and email verification when an unknown IP address logs into an account.“I think this is a problem that requires a lot of solutions and a lot of layers of security. And unfortunately one of the mantras that we use and often publish articles about is that ultimately you can’t trust your phone. You have to be aware that you could lose control of your phone,” he said.

And the Token Taxonomy Initiative announced the launch of the Token Taxonomy Framework (TTF) V 1.0, which enables businesses and developers to understand and define what a token is in non-technical terms.

TTF enables users to create a new type of token from a set of reusable, cross-industry components.

“Whether it’s a ticket, supply chain documents, stocks, property titles, loyalty points, or other as-yet unthought-of blockchain-based products and services, token use should be able to flow across platforms. If we want to take full advantage of what collaborative platforms have to offer, cross-platform transactions have to be able to communicate with one another. Standards are where that starts, and this Framework makes unlocking the untapped potential of tokens on the blockchain possible,” said Marley Gray, chair of the Token Taxonomy Initiative, EEA Board member and principal architect at Microsoft.