Synopsis
- Japan to debut new tax reforms
- All aboard the Shibarium hype-train
- Litecoin’s new milestone
- Biggest winner and loser of the week
Key Observations
Analysis
Japan’s ruling favours companies holding crypto
The Japanese government has granted approval for a tax regime revision set for 2024, aiming to exempt corporations from taxing unrealized crypto gains if they hold assets over the long term. As of now, corporations holding third-party-issued cryptocurrencies are subject to an audit at the fiscal year-end, treating them as profits or losses.
The approved revision seeks to eliminate this valuation method for long-term holdings, ensuring that companies are taxed solely on profits realized from cryptocurrency sales. However, the proposal is pending submission to a regular Diet session scheduled for January 2024, requiring approval from both the Lower House and the Upper House.
Explaining SHIBA’s milestones
Shibarium, the Layer-2 blockchain network, has been in the news for quite often. Let’s break down some of their important achievements.
- Shibarium has reached a remarkable milestone of 180 million network transactions, hitting a peak of 7.82 million on December 24.
- This success was accompanied by key achievements, including the formulation of Shibarium’s first hard fork and the successful migration of the testnet to Sepolia for increased scalability and reduced transaction costs.
- Onchain data suggests that large holders are moving their SHIB holdings which hint at indicating renewed interest and the potential redistribution of SHIB holdings among major investors.
- Reports from Shibburn claim a significant burn of over 33.8 billion SHIB tokens by the Shiba Inu team in just 18 days. These accomplishments underscore Shibarium’s growing success and the Shiba Inu team’s dedication to enhancing token utility and sustainability.
Figure 2: SHIB sees a 5000% surge in the burn rate
Litecoin Picks Up Pace
Litecoin recently experienced a surge in new network addresses, witnessing an increase of approximately 1.2 million addresses in a single day, which has since dropped down to around 800k at the time of writing.
This trend indicates that Litecoin’s daily active addresses consistently exceeded those of Ethereum. On December 22, Litecoin claimed more active addresses than the combined total of Bitcoin and Ethereum, recording 1.4 million on-chain transactions within a day.
On the NFT side, LTC reported 2 million ordinal inscriptions in four days, contributing to the network’s total count of over 12 million assets. Ordinals play a significant role in Litecoin, which recorded its 200 millionth transaction on December 22, with over 10 million transactions occurring within the last two weeks alone, highlighting the blockchain’s rapid acceleration.
Figure 3: LTC Addresses touch 1.2M
Top gainer of the week: Near Protocol (NEAR) up by 89.43% ⬆️
Opinions:
Technical Analysis: NEAR has seen nearly a 100% surge over the last week. We can anticipate a correction to 4.25 before dropping further. The RSI levels indicate that NEAR is sitting in the overbought region and should see an impending correction.
Oscillator indicators: 1 bearish, 8 neutral, 2 bullish
Moving average indicators: 0 bearish, 1 neutral, 14 bullish
Biggest loser of the week: Internet Computer Protocol (ICP) down by 5.28% ⬇️
Opinions:
Fundamental Analysis: A recent press release revealed a new European subnet launched on Internet Computer Protocol (ICP). This will provide General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)-aligned infrastructure for dApps. This resulted in a spike in its value, following which it saw a correction.
Technical analysis: ICP is expected to break out from the resistance at 10.54, and this seems unlikely considering the current levels. We can anticipate the levels of 9.32 if current levels fail to hold. The RSI levels indicate that ICP is sitting in the overbought region, denoting an impending price correction.
Oscillator indicators: 1 bearish, 9 neutral, 1 bullish
Moving Average indicators: 1 bearish, 1 neutral, 13 bullish
Conclusion
The cryptocurrency market was marked with important events. The markets recovered, with Bitcoin holding steady at $44k. Litecoin and Shiba Inu’s achievements round up the highlights of the week. There is a bullish sentiment as Bitcoin is expected to continue its trajectory after the consolidation phase.
