Venezuelan authorities are on the lookout for a scammer accused of disappearing with 23.66 Bitcoin (BTC) worth $1.15 million from his clients’ accounts after faking his own kidnapping. On Aug. 29th, Douglas Rico, director of Venezuela’s Scientific, Criminal and Criminal Investigations Corps (CICPC) issued a statement asserting that 23-year-old, Andrés Jesús Dos Santos Hernández, was
Regulation
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Dubai are among the friendliest jurisdictions for the cryptocurrency industry, according to Stephen Stonberg, CEO of Bittrex Global crypto exchange. Dubai is likely to benefit from the expanding crypto market in the Middle East as local regulators increasingly accept blockchain-related technologies, Stonberg said in a Sunday Bloomberg interview. The UAE
China has reportedly doubled down on its crypto crackdown with a public reminder stating that Bitcoin (BTC) and other digital currencies “are not legal tender and have no actual value.” In a local media briefing, Yin Youping, the deputy director of the Financial Consumer Rights Protection Bureau of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), said
On August 10, the United States Senate voted to pass a $1 trillion bill to revitalize America’s infrastructure. From the standpoint of the crypto community, miners in particular, the Senate’s foray into crypto legislation has been a disaster. Unless the language defining brokers in the bill is clarified, it will singlehandedly thwart the growth of
The latest news has left the decentralized finance community in a collective fetal position. Responding to the threat of increased regulatory oversight, leading decentralized exchange Uniswap recently restricted the trading of certain tokens. Earlier in July, Dan M. Berkovitz, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said that DeFi derivatives platforms might contravene the
The entire cryptocurrency industry is waking up to a new reality. Politicians and regulators have decided to wade into the space, which had flown mainly under their radar until now. A House committee chair is launching a working group; the Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking new authorities to regulate digital assets as securities; and
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reportedly signed a $125,000 deal with blockchain analytics firm AnChain.AI to help monitor and regulate the decentralized finance industry. According to a Friday report from Forbes, an AnChain.AI company spokesperson confirmed the agreement with the federal regulator, saying the SEC and blockchain firm had the option to sign
The Cuban government is reportedly planning to recognize and regulate cryptocurrencies for payments. According to Aljazeera, the Caribbean nation’s central bank will establish rules for mainstreaming cryptocurrency transactions. Cuban authorities are also expected to distribute relevant licenses to businesses based on the crypto-related services they provide. Some sources claim that the move to allow cryptocurrency
Digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future has publicly called out Alabama lawmaker Richard Shelby for preventing an amendment clarifying the role of crypto in the infrastructure bill to be addressed in the United States Senate. Fight for the Future has used donations it received in cryptocurrency to place a billboard in Birmingham, Alabama
Major Bitcoin (BTC) ATM operators in the United States are joining forces to fight illicit activity related to Bitcoin ATMs. Bitcoin ATM operators DigitalMint and Coinsource have launched the Cryptocurrency Compliance Cooperative (CCC), a new association that aims to establish compliance standards for the Bitcoin ATM industry. The new compliance effort has launched with support from
The government of the Kyrgyz Republic is moving forward to cryptocurrency adoption by introducing a national regulatory framework for crypto trading platforms. Kyrgyzstan’s State Service for Regulation and Supervision of Financial Markets (Gosfinnadzor), a regulatory agency operating under the Ministry of Economy and Finance, has developed a draft provision for regulating crypto exchanges, local news
Mumbai-based crypto exchange CoinDCX has reportedly joined the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI). In what seems like a response to the Delhi High Court’s notice regarding ad disclaimers from crypto exchanges, CoinDCX intends to use this partnership to improve advertising transparency and stay off the radar of the Indian regulators. ASCI is a non-governmental,
Powers On… is a monthly opinion column from Marc Powers, who spent much of his 40-year legal career working with complex securities-related cases in the United States after a stint with the SEC. He is now an adjunct professor at Florida International University College of Law, where he teaches the course “Blockchain, Crypto and Regulatory Considerations.”
Japan’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), has started discussions around imposing stricter regulations for cryptocurrencies in an effort to provide better protection to Japanese investors. Back in July, the FSA established a dedicated section, as well as a panel of financial experts to help the government oversee digital and decentralized finance. The agency
Dawn Stump, one of four commissioners currently serving at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, has released a statement clarifying the agency’s authority with respect to digital assets. In a Monday statement, Stump said the CFTC is empowered with both regulatory and enforcement authority for commodities. She did not specifically say that digital assets were
Regulators from Yingjiang County in Yunnan, China have issued strict warnings to hydroelectric plants against supplying power to enterprises involved in Bitcoin (BTC) mining. A recent report claimed that the Office of the People’s Government of Yingjiang County issued notice to hydropower plants to strengthen oversight on Bitcoin mining operations. According to the announcement, the
Today’s consumers are willing to trade their data for personalization but have fast-growing concerns about data privacy. In a survey from a digital security and credential issuance company Entrust, only 21% of the respondents trust established global brands to keep their personal information secure. As data privacy pressure on Big Tech increases, these companies are
Speaking at an online event organized by Council of the Americas, Brazil’s central bank president, Roberto Campos Neto, shared his views on transparent payment networks, the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) project and crypto regulation. Campos Neto has been a staunch advocate of the cryptocurrency space since taking office in 2019. His progressive policy-making
Less than two days after submitting separate applications to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, asset managers VanEck and ProShares have seemingly decided not to pursue exchange-traded funds with exposure to Ether. In individual Aug. 20 filings with the SEC, legal representatives of VanEck and ProShares both said the firms had elected not to proceed
In a business school lecture hall at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a senior executive for Safaricom gave a prediction of decentralized finance and the future of commerce to a room of keen but confused MBA students. “You will be able to buy your first home on WhatsApp! Smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain