Does North Korea use cryptocurrencies to evade US sanctions?

Summary:

• Washington-based financial experts claim that North Korea is using digital currencies to evade US sanctions

• US IRS will analyze thoroughly 2018 tax returns seeking any gains made on crypto on which no tax payments have been paid

• Dash trades close to its critical short-term support

After the last week which saw a lot of hectic moves across the cryptocurrency space, this week has been quite calm. Nonetheless do notice that many of major digital coins are currently trading close to their important technical levels suggesting that some breakouts could arise in the nearest future. Today we are focusing on Dash which is trading at its short-term crucial support. In turn, in terms of reports related to the crypto industry we are writing about two major topics: North Korea as well as US IRS - of course both in connection to cryptocurrencies.

Let us begin with a topic concerning North Korea. According to two Washington-based financial experts the Asian country is increasingly using cryptocurrencies to evade US sanctions (those are related to nuclearisation of North Korea). These pundits are Lourdes Miranda, a financial crimes investigator specialized in intelligence collection and analysis, and Ross Delston who specializes in anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism. How is North Korea evading US sanctions? It is reportedly creating its own cryptocurrency and what’s more is likely also using already existent virtual currencies like Bitcoin. In a written statement to Asia Times they said “Crypto-currencies have the added advantage to the DPRK of giving them more ways to circumvent US sanctions.” They also stated that “Having their own crypto-currency would also facilitate their ability to open online accounts under the guise of a non-adversarial nation using anonymous communication to conceal the user’s locations and usage on the internet.” The two investigators concluded that they are not sure about the current scale of North Korea’s cryptocurrency operation though.

After the rally Ripple had last week the cryptocurrency settled down. Taking a look at the short-term technical chart one may notice that it has failed to break above the 50% retracement of the whole increase. Therefore, we may infer that $0.54 could constitute the nearest resistance for bulls. Source: xStation5

The second topic concerns the US IRS and possible tax payments which were not been paid to the IRS by cryptocurrency traders in the past. Looking at the Bitcoin performance this year we may spot that it has shed more than 50% of its value and therefore a lot of crypto traders are expected to incur losses. In turn, those losses could be used to offset any other investment gains so it can also raise eyebrows at the IRS (those who did not pay income taxes made on gains from cryptocurrencies may now be identified). Let us recall that the IRS treats Bitcoin and other virtual currencies as property, not currency, for tax purposes. Moreover, any gains realized from cryptocurrencies owned for less than a year are taxed as ordinary income while gains from digital currencies held more than a year are treated as long-term ones. The rates range from 0% to 20%. Finally let’s mention the IRS found that only about 800 taxpayers claimed Bitcoin gains between 2013 and 2015 which seems to be weird given that the Bitcoin price surged to $430 from $13 during that time.

Dash is consolidating slightly above its short-term support line. If broken, it could push the price at least toward $164. The next support might be localized at around $131. Source: xStation5