Merchants had to initially move their cryptocurrency payments from the commerce platform to the exchange section and then convert them to whatever they desired including fiat.

Now, merchants can easily convert their cryptocurrency to fiat or stablecoins by simply connecting their coinbase.com accounts with the Coinbase Commerce and easily convert USD, EUR, GBP, and USDC with a 1% fee charged from the user.

The ability for merchants with accounts on Coinbase Pro and Coinbase Prime for Conversions and withdrawals are currently being implemented and will come soon. Coinbase has stated that they always work with their customers or users in mind and will continue building and developing in the service they render.

At Coinbase, our mission is to create an open financial system for the world. One of the ways we will achieve this is by helping connect as many participants in the cryptoeconomy as possible. We’re always listening to our merchants and building the best products to meet their needs.

Earlier on this year, Coinbase had released custom branding for all merchants, easier refund support, DAI support and a Spanish-language support.

“There is devaluation of currency. The whole secret to building wealth is to get out of cash and get into assets that are denominated in dollars that will continue to go up in value over long periods of time- Stocks, real estate, gold, Bitcoin, all this stuff – stated Pomp on his live stream on the 18th of July.

The Pandemic on the Economy

The global pandemic Covid-19 has at one time collapsed a lot of the economy, some are still struggling to get back up. The US government and other  governments have been printing and giving away Fiat money in a bid to stabilize the country’s economy and help  restore order.

The more money they print, the higher the chance of inflation, and it is possible  that they are not going to stop soon because unlike the cryptocurrency, fiat  can be  printed to an infinite amount.

Virtual payments are to be calculated based on current price irrespective of the fact that it is very volatile. The committee also added that  fairness  to the client of such fee arrangement should be judged the time the payments are made, not when they become  independent – stated Bloomberg.

Cryptocurrency is to be  treated as a property rather than a  currency for tax purposes, the IRS noted, they also agreed that “payment of fees in cryptocurrency is more akin to payment in property than payment in fiat currency.”

Washington DC would be the fourth jurisdiction to allow this form of payment, Bloomberg news has reported law firms  including big law players accepting cryptocurrency as payments for Services irrespective of the volatile market. Advisory opinions on accepting cryptocurrency as payment has been published by the North Carolina, Nebraska and New York City Bars.

Lawyers who choose to accept virtual assets as payment should do well  to fully understand the technology and how to safeguard it. This would mean the lawyer would need to understand how to safeguard against the many ways cryptocurrency can be  stolen or lost. This would help protect both lawyers and clients who paid in cryptocurrency from possible fights over the loss of funds at some point in time.

Cryptocurrency is, ultimately, simply a relatively new means of transferring economic value, and the Rules are flexible enough to provide for the protection of clients’ interests and property without rejecting advances in technologies,” it concluded.

Kucoin CEO Johnny Lyu said

“As one of the most globalized cryptocurrency exchanges, KuCoin has been expanding its fiat gateways. Now, our P2P Fiat Market supports Chinese Yuan (CNY), Indonesian Rupiah (IDR), Vietnamese Dong (VND), Canadian Dollar (CAD), and US Dollar (USD), the 5 mainstream fiat currencies. We also support 50 fiat currencies like EUR and AUD through our partnerships with Simplex, Banxa and PayMIR. In the future, we will continue to further our work towards globalization, enabling more users worldwide to enjoy the services we provide here at KuCoin, ultimately helping more users enter the crypto world.”

This is indeed huge news for the cryptocurrency world because USD is the most recognised inter-currency PayPal has an estimated 325M users. Latest data from Coinhills shows that among other fiats, USD is the leading fiat or paper money used to purchase Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency by over 63.21%. The combination of USD and PayPal should provide a nice amount of interest from PayPal users in Bitcoin and through the platform without having to worry about moving funds around to other platforms and encounter more fees.

Kucoin also plans to celebrate the first anniversary of the P2P Fiat Market on its platform, they hope to launch different campaigns that will create awareness of the P2P Fiat Market and the USD.

Indian Rupee (INR), Argentina peso (ARS), Philippine peso (PHP), United Arab Emirates Dirham (AED), Azerbaijani Manat (AZN), Chilean peso (CLP), Colombian peso (COP), Costa Rican Colon (CRC), Dominican peso (DOP), Georgian lari (GEL), Kazakhstan tenge (KZT), Moldovan leu (MDL), Namibian dollar (NAD), Peruvian sol (PEN), Qatari riyal (QAR), Uruguay peso (UYU) and Uzbekistan som (UZS). 

Those fiats can be used to purchase cryptocurrencies on Kucoin exchange.

How to Do It

Kucoin has over the years accelerated its fiat expansion, the exchange has introduced 3 platforms that help them achieve this which are ; Simplex, Banxa and OTC trading desk. 

To access this services for fiat, exchange users are to visit the “Buy Crypto with Credit card” page on the kucoin website, select Simplex platform and set the payment to any of the above mentioned fiat and buy Crypto directly from you’re card.

Kucoin has support for over 50 fiat currencies as USD, EUR, and AUD. 

Kucoin CEO Johnny Lyn stated. 

KuCoin has been committed to promoting the mass adoption of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, and an easy channel to transact from fiat to crypto will largely contribute to this. KuCoin is one of the earliest mainstream exchanges to support Simplex. Also, in addition to fiat gateways like Simplex and Banxa, we are investing a lot to develop our OTC Trading Desk service. Through continuous efforts on fiat channels, KuCoin welcomes more newcomers to embrace and make contributions to the crypto world.

Here is a copy of the draft bill written in Ukrainian, an English copy would be uploaded when found.

Reasons for the Bill

Micheal Chobanian, the President of Bitcoin Association Ukraine, said that exchanges are not allowed to own bank accounts.

The new draft bill will help the Crypto industry get recognised as legal and not harmful, this will by extension help all other Crypto companies in Ukraine and other parts of the world.

The bill states that all involved in the Crypto industry ranging from Crypto firms like exchanges, issuers and users have a legal right to open and operate a bank account even owning accounts in other financial institutions.

CRITERIA 

The draft law explained that local firms that aim at operating a Fiat to crypto exchange or business will have to register first with the ministry.

Andriy Khavryuchenko, tweeted out that the Ukraine Bill on Virtual Asset makes all Crypto wallets in Ukraine illegal, unless they register in the Digital Transformation office. 

So basically if you operate without a registry, conducting transactions with Fiat and crypto without registering with the Digital Transformation Office, the Law sees it as an illegal activity.

Another criteria to lookout for is that any crypto firm that aims at registering and becoming legalized must ensure Anti Money-Laundering or AML, and  they must have KYC service among other things.

Ukraine has been looking at making a law that will regulate crypto assets for over 4 years now. Its first attempt to regulate crypto was back in 2015, this was when Verkhovana Rada of Ukraine announced plans to define the legal status of BTC by 2019. The authorities are working on at least three separate bills with one focused mainly at cryptocurrency taxation in Ukraine.