Today in Crypto: Germany’s Financial Watchdog Reportedly Decides Against Granting Binance a Custody License, Binance to Lose Support of Its Euro Banking Partner, Slovakia Reduces Crypto Taxes

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Regulation news 

• Germany‘s financial watchdog, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), decided against giving crypto exchange Binance a custody license, Finance Forward reported, citing people familiar with the matter. It is unclear whether this is a formal cancellation or an intention expressed in ongoing talks, it added. A BaFin spokesperson said the authority does not comment on individual companies, while a Binance spokesperson was quoted as saying that, “while we cannot share details of our discussions with regulators, we are continuing to work to meet Bafin requirements. [It’s an] ongoing process.”

Exchange news

• Binance‘s European banking partner Paysafe Payment Solutions said on Thursday that it will cease offering its embedded wallet solution to the cryptocurrency exchange across the European Economic Area (EEA) from September 25, Reuters reported. Therefore, Binance will be changing the provider for euro deposits and withdrawals through the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). “Paysafe and Binance are now working to mutually implement an orderly and fair process to terminate this service over the next few months,” Paysafe said.

CBDC news

• The European Central Bank (ECB) will start exploratory work for financial market settlement based on distributed ledger technology (DLT) in 2024, according to minutes published on Thursday. The bank is looking at ways to innovate settling transactions between financial institutions and developing plans for a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). It said that, “in this context, the ECB raised specific questions to obtain insights into the market participants’ readiness timelines and perceived required pace to participate in trials and experiments. As planned, there will be detailed presentations given on the specifications of the interoperability-type solutions, which was highlighted by members as necessary to be able to participate in exploratory work in 2024.”
• China‘s Digital Currency Research Institute, the central bank agency responsible for developing the digital yuan, was “too generous” in pay rises given to staff in 2020, coming in at eight times the typical ceiling for central government departments, the South China Morning Post reported, citing an audit report published this week. Workers received an average salary bump of 27.93% that year, while the agency’s growth appears to have accelerated since the pay hikes.

Tax news

• Slovakian lawmakers voted in favor of an amendment that would reduce the taxation of cryptocurrencies. 142 members of the National Council of the Slovak Republic voted for and 2 against it. The taxes will be lowered to 7% from the current 19%-25%, and payments received in crypto up to €2,400 will not be taxed. Also, the bill excludes crypto income from a health insurance contribution of 14%.

DeFi news

• Worldcoin, the blockchain identity project founded by the OpenAI team, integrated with Okta, an identity and access management software provider, announcing that ‘Sign in with Worldcoin’ is now available on Okta’s Auth0 Marketplace. The integration leverages World ID’s digital identity protocol, it said, adding that the benefits of the integration are twofold: builders of apps and services have a solution for verifying users are human while protecting against bots, while individuals can maintain their privacy and avoid exposing unnecessary personal information.

Blockchain news

• Sologenic, a blockchain tokenization technology provider, announced the launch of two new offers: SOLONEX, an asset tokenization brokerage solution, and a specialized custom-built CBDC Tokenization Solution. These two solutions aim to provide a seamless tokenization entry point for institutions, banks, and government agencies, said the press release.