Regulation

Almost immediately after USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle revealed it could not withdraw $3.3 billion of its $40 billion reserves from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the resultant sell-off caused the price of the stablecoin to fall below its $1 peg. On March 9, Circle initiated a wire transfer to remove its funds from SVB as

United States Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden asked the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) to hold auditors accountable for failed crypto projects.  The PCAOB — a nonprofit overseeing the audits of public companies and other issuers — recently stated that proof-of-reserves (POR) are not equivalent to audits conducted under PCAOB auditing standards. POR

On March 10, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission ruled against a change that would allow investment manager VanEck to create a spot Bitcoin (BTC) trust. Commissioner Mark Uyeda joined his colleague Hester Peirce in releasing a statement criticizing the commission’s decision not to approve the listing and trading of the financial product.  The commissioners

Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, has used her authority to veto legislation aimed at changing the definition of money to exclude cryptocurrencies. In a March 9 notice to South Dakota house speaker Hugh Bartels, Noem said she had vetoed House Bill 1193, which proposed amending the state’s Uniform Commercial Code, or UCC, to

A federal judge in Florida, United States, is considering dismissing former NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal and tennis athlete Naomi Osaka from the FTX lawsuit, pointing out that it’s unclear whether the two had been served.  In a paperless order, U.S. District Judge Kevin Moore instructed the plaintiffs to provide cause on why O’Neal and Osaka shouldn’t

United States crypto miners could eventually be subject to a 30% tax on electricity costs under a budget proposal by President Joe Biden aimed to “reduce mining activity.” A Department of the Treasury supplementary budget explainer paper released March 9 said any firm using resources — whether they be owned or rented — would be

Statements from Republican lawmakers ahead of the inaugural hearing of the United States House of Representatives subcommittee focused on digital assets, financial technology and inclusion suggest partisan divides on crypto regulation. In a March 6 memo, House Financial Services Committee Republicans said the first hearing of the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Inclusion

The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority of Germany (BaFin) is not ready to classify nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as securities. The agency suggests classifying the NFTs on a case-by-case basis.  On March 8, the BaFin journal published an explanatory note considering NFTs legal classification. At this point, the regulators don’t see how NFTs meet the criteria to

Six people involved in a cryptocurrency “Ponzi scheme” that raked in about $100 million over five years have pled guilty to a series of fraud and money laundering charges, each carrying a maximum sentence of 20 to 30 years of prison. One of the founders of “AirBit Club,” Pablo Renato Rodriguez, was the latest to

The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, was a part of discussions on a regulatory framework for digital assets as well as use cases for blockchain technology. In a March 8 meeting of the CFTC’s Market Risk Advisory Committee, commissioners, regulators, and industry representatives were scheduled to discuss “critical policy considerations” as part

While there’s nothing new in imposing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) standards on crypto, it is only now that the Indian government has decided to notify all interested parties of the obligation to comply with the national AML law. On March 7, The Gazette of India published a notification from the Ministry of Finance, subjecting a range

A panel of judges heard oral arguments in the Grayscale Investments suit against the United States Securities and Trade Commission (SEC) on March 7. Grayscale is challenging the SEC order not to approve Grayscale’s application to create a Bitcoin (BTC) spot exchange-traded fund. The SEC issued its order on July 6. Former solicitor general Donald

A group of United States lawmakers is reportedly planning to reintroduce legislation to change the reporting requirements for certain taxpayers involved in crypto transactions. According to a March 7 report from Punchbowl News, Representatives Patrick McHenry and Ritchie Torres plan to reintroduce the Keep Innovation in America Act. McHenry was one of the leading voices

Some countries worldwide suffered bigger financial losses to cryptocurrency scams despite a massive bear market in 2022. Losses from crypto scams in Hong Kong amounted to 1.7 billion Hong Kong dollars ($216.6 million) last year — surging 106% from a year before — according to local police. The number of crypto-related scams reported in Hong

The Biden Administration is “aware of the situation” at Silvergate and will continue to monitor reports on the troubled bank as it unfolds, according to a White House spokesperson. Speaking at a press briefing on March 6, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the White House has noted that Silvergate marked another major crypto firm to

American lawmakers and regulators continue to compete in their creative efforts to propose anything but comprehensive game rules for the crypto industry.  Senators Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal have penned a letter asking Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to deny young adults access to the firm’s metaverse platform. According to the two lawmakers, allowing teenagers between

Crypto legislation in Australia could be dragged out past 2024 and beyond, with the government seemingly wanting to take its time in order to get a full picture of the industry, internal documents from the government have revealed.  The documents, obtained by The Australian Financial Review under freedom of information laws, reportedly reveal that the government

Crypto exchange Binance sought to hire Gary Gensler as an adviser before he became chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a Wall Street Journal report based on messages and documents from 2018 and 2020, as well as interviews with former employees.  Gensler, the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading

With rising temperatures, melting ice caps and more frequent and intense extreme weather events, the effects of climate change are becoming more and more obvious. There is an urgent need to prevent climate change, and numerous technologies and methods are being investigated to do so. Blockchain technology is one of these possibilities, and it has

The design choices, such as the level of privacy — i.e., anonymous or fully traceable transactions — implemented in the creation of a CBDC can have significant implications for monetary policy.  Continuing the privacy design choice example, let’s understand its impact on monetary policy in the following two scenarios. Scenario 1: Anonymous and untraceable transactions