According to Bloomberg, the National Treasury of Kenya’s Finance Ministry has proposed a 3% tax on the transfer of digital assets for the upcoming financial year. Despite not necessarily legitimizing the space, the proposed tax on digital assets seems to be a first; other countries have also recently made similar moves. On June 8, the country’s budget will be unveiled. According to United Nations research, Kenya is the fifth-most crypto-adopted country in the world with 4.25 million people, or around 8.5% of the country’s population, owning cryptocurrencies. The Finance Bill 2023 defines a “digital asset” as anything of value that is not physically present, including digital currencies, token codes, and numbers that are stored in digital form and produced via cryptographic techniques or in other ways. The gross consideration for the fair market value of the digital asset received or due at the time of exchange or transfer is referred to as the revenue gained from the transfer or exchange of the digital asset.
Layer 1 blockchain Avalanche and Alibaba Cloud, the company that handles digital technology and intelligence for the Alibaba Group, have teamed up to develop metaverses on the blockchain. At the Avalanche Summit II Conference in Barcelona, the metaverse launcher, Cloudverse, was unveiled. According to a statement from John Wu, president of Ava Labs,”Cloudverse powered by Avalanche offers millions of consumer-facing businesses a quick, low-overhead, one-stop gateway into Web3.” The collaboration seeks to give companies operating within the Alibaba ecosystem a quick and easy way to create and manage their own metaverses. Ava Labs, the company behind Avalanche, will provide crypto infrastructure via Amazon Web Services (AWS) in order to promote “enterprise, institutional, and government adoption of blockchain.” Alibaba, a digital powerhouse, is making yet another foray into Web3. They partnered with Avalanche in December 2022, enabling the launch of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) on the platform for users in Asia.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has issued a subscription invitation for its future digital cryptocurrency with gold backing. Applications must be for at least $10 from private individuals and $5,000 from businesses and financial institutions. In an effort to stabilise its unstable local currency, RBZ declared in April that the tokens would be released on May 8. Zimbabwe’s inflation rate in March was 87.6%, down from a peak of 285% in 2022. The tokens, which will be available for both person-to-person and person-to-business transactions, will be released on May 8 and kept in digital wallets or cards. Physical gold coin owners will be able to trade or exchange their coins for the digital tokens.
