- Bitcoin spends 24 hours above USD 9,000
- A Chinese intermediate court has ruled that Bitcoin is a digital asset
- Bitcoin forms majority of Square app’s USD 528 million Q1 revenue
Bitcoin markets showed some teeth on Thursday morning Asian trading, raring to go as high as USD 9,408 (CoinDesk). The bigger news, however, is that for an entire 24 hours, price has not seen the other side of USD 9,000, so with just under five days left to the Bitcoin reward halving event, bulls must be licking their lips and eyeing USD 10,000.
Bitcoin continues to gain fame in China, where an intermediate court has settled a dispute between a couple and four would-be Bitcoin thieves, in a ruling that sees Bitcoin deemed as a digital asset. As reported by Baidu news, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court made a public announcement of an appeal for a Bitcoin foreign property damage compensation dispute yesterday on 6 May.
The findings of the second Court’s trial has deemed that Bitcoin is a digital asset and as such, falls under the state’s legal protection. This means that every bitcoin stolen illegally has to be returned or compensated at a discount, according to the report.
The case began in Shanghai in 2018 when four people entered the apartment of an international married couple, Pete and Xiaoli Wang, and robbed them. The duo were forced to transfer their crypto the robbers’ accounts. The news read:
“These four used methods of controlling the couple’s mobile phones, restricting their freedom, beating and threatening them and forcing the two to transfer all the 18.88 bitcoins and 6466 sky coins they own.”
The robbers actually expressed a willingness to return the stolen crypto during the first court hearing and they were sentenced between 6 months and 15 days to 8 months of imprisonment, after being found guilty of illegal detention. They were also asked to return monies, but in yuan, valued at the price of Bitcoin and Skycoin on 12 June 2018.
The accused did not accept the decision and appealed, saying:
“The current Chinese laws do not recognize the property attributes of Bitcoin and Skycoin, and do not regard Bitcoin and Skycoin as objects or property in the legal sense of China. Therefore, Pete and Wang Xiaoli do not have the right to request the return of property rights.”
Two years later, the couple abandoned their fight to retrieve their Skycoin but asked the court to order the return of their 18.88 Bitcoin, to which the court eventually acceded.
Elsewhere, we see more bullish news from the crypto industry, with billionaire Jack Dorsey’s Square releasing positive findings for the year’s first quarter. It made public revenue figures from the Cash App, owned by Square, which sees its majority coming from Bitcoin.
Of the total of USD 528 million revenue accrued by the Cash App, almost 60% of it or USD 306 million apparently came from Bitcoin. Of course, when things are brought down to profit, Bitcoin only makes up a percentage that comes up to just over 3%, at USD 7 million out of a total USD 183 profit figure. Square said, however, that Bitcoin revenue was separated as more of a core mission to provide more access to the world’s most-used cryptocurrency:
“We deduct bitcoin revenue because our role is to facilitate customers’ access to bitcoin. When customers buy bitcoin through Cash App, we only apply a small margin to the market cost of bitcoin, which tends to be volatile and outside our control.”
What is notable as well is that the Cash App saw a 115% increase in profit year-over-year and this is credited, according to a Square team member, to “efficient new customer acquisition”. In layman’s terms, this usually means good marketing and an app that’s easy to use.
Investor tallies were not super positive, as they only made USD 9 million profit this year, compared to USD 119 million in Q4 2019, but this was earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
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