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Daily Archives: March 2, 2021

New Report on Tax Treatment of Cryptocurrency Block Rewards

In Custodia Legis – New Report on Tax Treatment of Cryptocurrency Block Rewards Published: “The foreign law specialists of the Law Library of Congress recently completed a multinational report titled Taxation of Cryptocurrency Block Rewards. The report surveys the tax treatment of new tokens obtained by cryptocurrency mining or staking, often known as “block rewards,” in 31 countries around the globe. It also addresses the tax implications of cryptocurrency tokens acquired through activities like airdrops and hard forks (also referred to as “chain splits”) in various jurisdictions. “The Library of Congress report contains valuable information on how countries are responding, or failing to respond, to this new technology. How nations tax the people who maintain cryptocurrency networks will obviously have a big effect on attracting or repelling innovators and investment,” said Abraham Sutherland in the press release issued by Congressman Tom Emmer’s office announcing the publication of the report. The report shows that while tax authorities of a number of countries have published guidance on the taxation of mined tokens such as Bitcoin and other “proof-of-work” cryptocurrencies, only a few specifically address the taxation of tokens received through staking, a term used to describe the process of obtaining reward tokens in the newer “proof-of-stake” cryptocurrencies…”

Library of Congress Builds New Collections Documenting COVID-19 Pandemic

Collections Include Photographs of Community Impact, Web Archiving of Public Health Data and Artist Responses to the Health Crisis – “As the world marks the one-year anniversary of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Library of Congress has been collecting materials and documenting this time in history through a variety of initiatives. The Library’s rapid-response collecting… Continue Reading

The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence Final Report

The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence Final Report – “…The NSCAI Final Report presents an integrated national strategy to reorganize the government, reorient the nation, and rally our closest allies and partners to defend and compete in the coming era of AI-accelerated competition and conflict. It is a two-pronged approach. Part I, “Defending America in… Continue Reading

New Duke paper calls Washington to increase transparency around online political ads

Washington Post – “Major social platforms put new limits on political ads in the run-up to the controversial 2020 election due to concerns they amplify misinformation. But a new Duke University paper published today [J. Scott Babwah Brennen & Matt Perault, March 2, 2021 Breaking Blackout Black Boxes: Roadblocks to Analyzing Platform Political Ads] says a… Continue Reading

Persistent Identifiers and the Next Generation of Legal Scholarship

Retteen, Aaron and Hall, Malikah, Persistent Identifiers and the Next Generation of Legal Scholarship (February 22, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3168863 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3168863 “The world of scholarly communications has seen distinct growth regarding the use of persistent identifiers in the effort to preserve, disseminate, analyze, and help locate academic content. A persistent identifier is a… Continue Reading

CRS – Banking Policy Issues in the 117th Congress

Banking Policy Issues in the 117th Congress, March 2, 2021: “Over the past 14 years, banking has experienced significant events and changes and has regularly been the subject of policymaker initiatives and debates. In response to the 2007-2009 financial crisis, Congress—primarily through the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act; P.L.… Continue Reading

Meta-Research: Citation needed? Wikipedia and the COVID-19 pandemic

bioRxiv preprint – Meta-Research: Citation needed? Wikipedia and the COVID-19 pandemic, Omer Benjakob, Rona Aviram, and Jonathan Sobel. “With the COVID-19 pandemic’s outbreak at the beginning of2020, millions across the world flocked to Wikipedia to read about the virus. Our study offers an in-depth analysis of the scientific backbone supporting Wikipedia’s COVID-19 articles.Using references as… Continue Reading

Microsoft: Chinese Hackers Have Been Exploiting Our Email Product to Steal Data

Gizmodo: “In the latest in a string of security-related headaches for Microsoft, the company warned customers Tuesday that state sponsored hackers from China have been exploiting flaws in one of its widely used email products, Exchange, in order to target American companies for data theft. In several recently published blog posts, the company listed four… Continue Reading

How to build data literacy in your company

MIT Sloan School – “Data literacy — the ability of a company’s employees to understand and work with data to the appropriate degree — can be a stepping stone or a stumbling block when it comes to building a data-driven company. A recent Gartner survey of chief data officers found that poor data literacy is one of… Continue Reading

MIT Press launches Direct to Open

“The MIT Press has announced the launch of Direct to Open (D2O). A first-of-its-kind sustainable framework for open access monographs, D2O moves professional and scholarly books from a solely market-based, purchase model where individuals and libraries buy single eBooks, to a collaborative, library-supported open access model.  D2O gives institutions the opportunity to harness collective action… Continue Reading