Italy to INCREASE Capital Gains Tax on Bitcoin to 42% | Bitcoin News by CoinCorner

Transcript

Michael Saylor has announced plans for MicroStrategy to become a Bitcoin bank with an anticipated $1 trillion valuation. The Italian government is planning on raising capital gains tax on crypto and Bitcoin to a whopping 42%. Meanwhile, Tesla appears to be up to something as they moved their entire $765 million Bitcoin holding to a series of new wallet addresses.

Looking first at Bitcoin's price, we've had a great week for price action as we're up around 12% from the lows we saw last week. That being said, it's now sitting at a critical resistance level of $68,000 per coin, so we'll have to wait and see if it breaks above this or gets rejected. Hopefully, we are lined up to see some more exciting price action, and we’re out of the sideways chop that we've experienced for the last six months.

Now, one story that may be positive for the price is coming from the failed crypto exchange Mt. Gox, as it's been announced that the asset repayment deadline to customers who lost money on the platform has been postponed by a year. After the exchange collapsed following a series of hacks back in 2014, they finally began repaying creditors $9 billion worth of recovered funds earlier this year. However, according to Arkham Intelligence, Mt. Gox still holds $2.8 billion worth of Bitcoin. In a statement posted on the Mt. Gox website, a considerable number of rehabilitation creditors have not received their repayments due to various issues arising during the repayment process. As a result, the deadline to distribute the remaining assets to creditors has been postponed by one year to 31st October 2025.

This is good news for creditors, as it should give them more time to resolve any issues they've had with the repayment process and hopefully receive their funds. It’s also potentially positive news for Bitcoin's price, as it eases concerns that sellers might flood the market looking to cash out their redistributed assets, which could create volatility to the downside.

Our next story is coming from Google, which has, for some reason, removed Bitcoin's price chart from its search page. Last week, it was noted that the popular chart feature, which had been in place since 2018, had been completely removed when searching for the asset. What was unusual is that the chart feature was still available for stocks and indices, and it appeared to be only crypto that was affected by this change. This caused some to contemplate whether this was an intentional change, and if so, why—or if it was just a glitch within the wider system. It's still unclear, and there's been no official statement from Google. However, at the time of recording this, the feature has since been reinstated.

Another big tech company making headlines this week is Tesla, as they moved their entire $765 million Bitcoin holding to a number of unidentified Bitcoin wallets. Initially, there were concerns that they could be selling off their vast Bitcoin holding. According to Arkham Intelligence, despite the large-scale shift, the funds have not been linked to any crypto exchanges, indicating that Tesla may not be liquidating its Bitcoin at this time. Tesla's history with Bitcoin started with a huge $1.5 billion purchase back in 2021, when they held approximately 44,000 coins. However, they quickly U-turned on this decision and sold off portions of the holdings, including 4,320 Bitcoin in early 2021 and an additional 29,000 Bitcoin in 2022. Up until now, this remaining Bitcoin has remained dormant since June 2022, causing some to speculate on the firm’s strategy and what they might be doing if they are not selling. Nothing is known at this time, but more information may emerge during the company's third-quarter financial report, expected on 23rd October.

Also in the news, Michael Saylor has announced plans that his company, MicroStrategy, is positioning itself to become a Bitcoin bank with an enormous $1 trillion valuation. Saylor explained during an event hosted by Bernstein that he sees Bitcoin as a "big tech monetary network," like Google or Facebook, but for money. MicroStrategy's broader vision is to evolve into a Bitcoin bank, creating capital market instruments tied to Bitcoin that can be offered to investors. This builds on their current model, where they have discovered a huge opportunity in raising capital through debt to then reinvest in Bitcoin. This has allowed them and their investors to capitalise on the growing acceptance of Bitcoin within traditional finance. With Saylor’s strong conviction in Bitcoin, he believes each coin will be worth millions of dollars in the future, which is why the firm believes its current strategy will turn it into a trillion-dollar company.

For context, achieving a $1 trillion valuation would require around a 24x on today's market cap, which is approximately $42.5 billion.

Up next, another Satoshi-era Bitcoin whale has moved millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin after being dormant for 15 years. According to Arkham Intelligence, this whale mined coins just five days after the network went live and holds a total of 1,139 Bitcoin, which today is priced at $74.5 million. In the past two months, they have moved $5.4 million worth of Bitcoin to the Kraken exchange. When Bitcoin whales make big moves to exchanges, the price of Bitcoin can drop as speculators anticipate big sales could be coming. However, in this case, given the small size of the move, the transaction is more noteworthy for the age of the coins rather than their value.

Our final story this week is coming from the Italian government, which has announced plans to raise capital gains tax on Bitcoin from 26% to a huge 42%. Since the 2023 tax year, capital gains above €2,000 have been taxed at 26% after several new rules for cryptocurrency taxation were introduced. However, this is now set to significantly increase, mirroring recent reports that the UK Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, may be considering raising capital gains taxes—including those on cryptocurrencies—from 20% to 39%. Despite this, earlier in the week, Italy's Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, had said that there would be no new taxes, seemingly referring to general or widespread new taxation policies that would affect most citizens, rather than a crypto-focused one. The irony is that these governments are often considered the catalyst that forces individuals to invest in assets such as Bitcoin, as they try to escape from the ongoing fiat currency devaluation. So, it's amazing they deem it acceptable to tax so heavily on individuals often just trying to maintain their purchasing power.