Common notion all around given the crypto market crash is to maintain distance from them, however Utah and Colorado are on their way to use crypto payments.
Reports are that Utah and Colorado, two prominent states in the United States are seeking their ways to move ahead with the program of accepting crypto payments. The states are planning to accept tax payments in cryptocurrencies that would include Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Dogecoin (DOGE) like crypto assets. However, this idea has already started facing criticism from several regulatory authorities and financial scholars given the recent crypto market crash that made major cryptocurrencies lose their value and overall market ended up losing billions.
However, the Revenue Department of both the states, Utah and Colorado, are on their way to implement such programs that will allow businesses and individuals to make payments in cryptocurrencies in order to pay off their tax bills. As these states are early movers in the space and hence possibly prone to face logistical and infrastructure related hurdles prior to launch of their programs.
It’s clearly known to everyone how the market crash started after Terra (LUNA) ecosystem collapse, followed by Fed Interest rate hike reports that created massive selloff across the global crypto market. This ripple effect created the whole crypto market tremble and till the situations could get control, the whole market ended up losing a significant amount from its overall market capitalization that dropped and slid below $900 billion from it’s all time high of $3 trillion barely seven months ago in November last year.
This brings the obvious concerns from financial watchdogs, academics experts and opponents of cryptocurrencies who think that this step could pose financial threat to common people residing within these states. As State Controller of California, Betty Yee considered the crypto-payment bill as fiscally irresponsible given its price volatility and fluctuations, on top of that, they don’t even fall within any federal regulatory body’s control.
Executive Director of Global Financial Markets Center at Duke University, Lee Reiners said that due to the massive drops witnessed in the crypto market due to the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies, employing them into anything is not satisfactory. Reiners further said that it is not known at the moment that if this anyway slows down the pace of tax payments at the state level or anyhow if it would pose risk instead of help. On top of that, the states are not getting any financial benefits from this.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/07/06/how-are-these-two-states-in-the-us-planning-to-initiate-accepting-bitcoin-payments/