Top Crypto News On October 20: Court approves Voyager assets sale to FTX, US to tax NFTs on par with cryptos, and more

> Bankrupt crypto lending firm Voyager has sought creditors' approval for its $1.42 billion worth of sale to cryptocurrency exchange FTX, after securing initial approval from a court. As long as Voyager makes specific revisions stating that the firm remains open to larger and better proposals than the FTX bid, US bankruptcy judge Michael Wiles will accept Voyager's sale contract and creditor solicitation materials. If the plan falls apart, there's no part of this agreement that survives, according to the judge.  Read full here

According to the Internal Revenue Service's 2022 tax year guidance, all digital assets, including stablecoins, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and cryptocurrencies, would be subject to the same tax regulations in the United States. The previous year's guidance, which used the more constrained term "virtual currencies", only covered the laws governing cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. Taxpayers who "disposed of any digital asset in 2022" through a sale, exchange, gift, or other transfer will now be responsible for paying capital gains tax. Read details here

JP Morgan Chase has appointed former Celsius Network employee Aaron Iovine as the company’s executive director of digital assets regulatory policy. The move comes days after JP Morgan’s chief executive officer Jamie Dimon touted Bitcoin as fraudulent and a decentralized Ponzi scheme. Iovine worked for the now-defunct cryptocurrency lender Celsius for eight months before quitting in September as head of the company’s policy and regulatory relations. Take a look

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) and the Office of the Accountant General of the Israeli Ministry of Finance are working together to test a blockchain-based platform for trading digital bonds. The initiative will be backed by Israeli blockchain infrastructure firm Fireblocks and multi-cloud service provider VMware, according to local media sources. The new initiative, dubbed "Eden," intends to reduce costs and simplify the national bond issuance procedure. Read more here

The cryptocurrency market traded flat on Wednesday, with tokens from decentralized finance (DeFi) being in the limelight, even as the top digital currencies like Bitcoin and ether were relatively stable given their chaotic past. Bitcoin’s market capitalization was down 0.8% and was trading in a tight range of $19,000 and $19,500. The second-largest cryptocurrency Ether (ETH), was down about half a percent around $1,300 levels.