Welcome to the daily crypto news :

• Here’s a New Banking Tool for Vetting Crypto Exchanges;

• Bitcoin Is Closing on Historically Strong Price Support;

• China’s SEC May Soon Have a Crypto-Savvy Department Chief: Report;

• Is Greece Cracking Down on Tax Evasion or Taxing Anonymity?;

• Russia’s National Energy Grid Operator Tests Blockchain for Retail Payments;

Here’s a New Banking Tool for Vetting Crypto Exchanges

A risk-based approach rather than a blanket ban on crypto activity – that’s what blockchain forensics startup Elliptic is hoping to engender among banks with its latest offering.

“Most banks at the moment have a zero-tolerance approach to crypto,” said Tom Robinson, Elliptic’s chief scientist and co-founder. “They don’t have any visibility into the risks that a particular exchange may possess – they all look the same to them. So, many of them won’t bank any exchanges.”

The product, called Elliptic Discovery, aims to give institutions up-to-date risk profiles of more than 200 of the largest exchanges globally.

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Bitcoin Is Closing on Historically Strong Price Support

Bitcoin is still feeling bearish pressure and could soon drop to historically strong price support below $7,100.

The cryptocurrency fell 1.7 percent on Tuesday, reinforcing the bearish view put forward by the strong rejection above $7,600 witnessed over the weekend.

The longer term picture is also looking bleak. Bitcoin is currently down 48 percent from the June high of $13,880 and is reporting nearly a 13 percent drop on a quarter-to-date basis, according to Bitstamp data.

With the sellers in control, bitcoin looks set to re-test the 21-month exponential moving average (EMA), currently at $7,097. The EMA had acted as strong support in the five months to October 2018, as seen below.

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China’s SEC May Soon Have a Crypto-Savvy Department Chief: Report

China's securities watchdog is reportedly setting up a technology regulation bureau and may soon appoint Yao Qian, the former head of China's central bank digital currency initiative, as its new department chief.

According to a report from Chinese business publication Caijing on Wednesday, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has announced Yao's appointment on its internal bulletin.

The markets had anticipated Yao's hiring due to his contribution to the development of the People's Bank of China's central bank digital currency (CBDC) and deep understanding of financial technologies, especially blockchain, Caijing said.

The new division has been set up in with the aim of integrating more advanced technology into the regulation of China's securities markets, enabling more comprehensive and precise data analytics.

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Is Greece Cracking Down on Tax Evasion or Taxing Anonymity?

Greece's plan to curb tax evasion by mandating digital receipts shows a fundamental dilemma of modernization: Economic policies rarely address corruption without sacrificing civil liberties.

The Greek prime minister’s chief economic adviser, Alex Patelis, told The Telegraph on Sunday that in 2020 Greek citizens will need to produce digital receipts for spending 30 percent of their annual income. Citizens that fall short of this documentation requirement – for example, only having credit card purchases and bank transfers for 20 percent of their income – will be fined 22 percent tax on the remaining amount (the remaining 10 percent, in this example).

When it comes to Greece, this drastic policy shows nation-states can mandate that citizens rely on banks. Credit cards and bank transfers – and their incumbent surveillance features – are no longer payment options for Greek citizens, they are obligations. And while bitcoin experts say cryptocurrency likely won’t be much help in this situation, they have been quick to pick up on the policy’s broad implications.

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Russia’s National Energy Grid Operator Tests Blockchain for Retail Payments

Russia’s national energy grid operator Rosetti is testing a blockchain solution for payments in the retail electricity sector.

The system — initiated by Rosseti and developed by the Russian distributed ledger technology (DLT) startup Waves — aims to automate and make transactions between energy producers, suppliers and consumers more transparent, as a Dec. 10 blog post from Waves has outlined.

Domestic energy sector battling debt

Waves indicates that the main driver for the project is the inefficiency, opacity and mounting debt that currently besets the domestic industry.

The blog post cites data from the government of the Russian Federation, which revealed that total debt for electricity as of Sept. 1, 2019, hit 1.3 trillion rubles ($15.7 billion‬), of which 800 billion ($12.6 billion) was accounted for by households.

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