Russian expatriate Katie Ananina has spent the last three years helping people dodge taxes on their bitcoin gains. It is all part of her mission to stick it to the man, one case of tax avoidance at a time.

As the name suggests, Plan B Passport offers crypto-rich clients a path to a second passport in their pick of seven, mostly tropical, tax-haven states, all of which are exempt from capital gains taxes on crypto holdings.

“I was smart enough to figure out that $200 in bitcoin will be worth $100,000 at some point,” said Ananina. “I don’t think the government should have 40% of that.”

Origin story
Ananina isn’t your stereotypical bitcoin maximalist, a phrase used to describe people who believe that bitcoin, and not necessarily other cryptocurrencies, is the future of finance.

Born and raised in Chelyabinsk, a city in central Russia, 90 miles north of the Kazakhstan border, the former professional sailboat racer moved to the States in 2016 after landing a green card, thanks to her status as one of the world’s top sailors.

Five and a half years ago she spoke no English, but you’d never know it to meet her.

For Ananina, the appeal of bitcoin was laid bare when she saw the Russian currency drop 50% during the two months she was living in Spain while competing for the Russian national sailing team in early 2015…read more.

Russia-based hacking group REvil attacked over 200 US networks and demanded $70 million in Bitcoin as ransom. The leading cryptocurrency is increasingly used in Ransomware attacks, and this is causing problems for the authorities.

Russian-based ransomware group brought down the networks of at least 200 United States companies over the weekend. The hacking group is now demanding $70 million in ransom and wants it to be paid in Bitcoin.

According to ABC News, the hacking group targeted software supplier Kaseya and proceeded to use its network-managed package to spread ransomware through its cloud. This resulted in over a million machines getting infected by the ransomware.

Following the attack, the Russian-based group is now demanding to be paid in Bitcoin in exchange for a decrypter for the infected machines. The group wrote, “On Friday, we launched an attack on [managed service providers]. More than a million systems were infected.”

United States President Joe Biden has already ordered investigations into the incidence. In a Reuters report, Biden said they were not certain of the origins of the hack. “The initial thinking was it was not the Russian government, but we’re not sure yet,” the president said…read more.

(Reuters) – Britain’s financial regulator has said Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, cannot conduct any regulated activity and issued a warning to consumers about the platform, which is coming under growing scrutiny globally.

In a notice dated June 25, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said Binance Markets Ltd, Binance’s only regulated UK entity, “must not, without the prior written consent of the FCA, carry out any regulated activities… with immediate effect”.

It also issued a warning to consumers about Binance Markets and the wider Binance group.

Binance said in a statement that Binance Markets, which it acquired in 2020, was not yet using its regulatory permissions, and that the FCA’s move would not impact services offered on its Binance.com website.

“We take a collaborative approach in working with regulators and we take our compliance obligations very seriously. We are actively keeping abreast of changing policies, rules and laws in this new space,” a spokesperson said.

Binance announced in June last year that it had bought an FCA-regulated entity and would use it to offer cryptocurrency trading services using pounds and euros.

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