Regulation

Pro-crypto United States senator Cynthia Lummis has remained steadfast in her support for Bitcoin (BTC) as part of diversified retirement plans, despite calls from her senator peers otherwise. As it stands, Lummis seems to be just one of the few openly crypto-friendly politicians in the United States and has notably pushed for progressive crypto regulation alongside Senator

Welcome to Law Decoded, your weekly digest of all the major developments in the field of regulation. So, Sam Bankman-Fried, public enemy number one, won’t appear in front of Senators on Dec. 14, as he missed the deadline for responding to a Senate Banking Committee request. However, we could witness the entrepreneur appear before Congress

The global manhunt for Terraform Labs’ controversial founder and CEO Do Kwon continues to rage on, with South Korean authorities now believing he’s in Serbia after leaving Singapore in September. According to a Dec. 11 report from Chosun Media, South Korean authorities followed a tip-off concerning Do Kwon’s whereabouts suggesting he is now in Serbia

Another crypto-skeptic United States senator is on the loose, with Democrat Jon Tester boldly stating that he sees “no reason why” crypto should exist. Tester is the senior senator of Montana and has held a seat there since 2007. He also serves on the Senate Banking Committee, which is one of the key players involved

The Japanese subsidiary of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX has received approval from local regulators to continue sorting out issues with withdrawals until next year. The Kanto Local Finance Bureau, a local financial regulator running under the Ministry of Finance of Japan, has issued a statement regarding FTX Japan operations, Reuters reported. The Japanese authority

To help out the recently duped investors of FTX Tokens (FTT), shareholder rights litigation firm — Schall Law Firm — has taken up the task of investigating the investors’ claims against FTX for violations of the securities laws. It is estimated that over one million people have lost their life savings owing to the financial

The United Kingdom’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, laid out a number of reforms aiming to “drive growth and competitiveness” to the country’s financial services sector including efforts that support the crypto space. In an announcement, the U.K. government highlighted that it will create a smarter regulatory framework for the country that it describes as “agile,

Since taking over at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), chairman Gary Gensler has repeatedly been referred to as the “bad cop” of the digital asset industry. To this point, over the past 18 months, Gensler has taken an extremely hard-nosed approach toward the crypto market, handing out numerous fines and enforcing stringent

While many crypto fraudsters were able to slip through the cracks in the past, the same does not hold for FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). Running parallel to the ongoing scrutiny related to FTX frauds, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly investigating a potential fraud that involves SBF siphoning funds offshore just

United States lawmakers have been pushing for certain witnesses — including Sam Bankman-Fried — to appear before committee hearings scheduled in December. Who should the crypto space expect to see testifying on the events leading to the downfall of FTX? On Dec. 9, Bankman-Fried, or SBF, said — under threat of a potential subpoena —

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has indicated that he’s willing to testify at a United States House hearing into the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Bankman-Fried controversially missed the deadline to respond to a Senate Banking Committee request to appear and testify during a hearing focused on FTX’s bankruptcy earlier this week. While the possibility

United States-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has asked its customers to convert their Tether-issued USDT (USDT) stablecoin to USD Coin (USDC), a USD-pegged stablecoin issued by Circle and co-founded by Coinbase in 2018. The cryptocurrency exchange suggested that USDC is a much more secure alternative in the wake of the FTX collapse saga and has also exempted

Crypto’s public enemy number one, Sam Bankman-Fried has missed a crucial deadline to confirm his appearance at an upcoming Senate Committee hearing. The former FTX CEO missed a Thursday 5pm ET on Dec. 8, deadline for responding to a Senate Banking Committee request that he testify at the Committee meeting on Dec. 14. This has

Two members of the United States Senate have called on the heads of federal financial regulators to address “ties between the banking industry and cryptocurrency firms” in the wake of FTX’s collapse. In letters dated Dec. 7 to Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

Hong Kong’s legislative council has passed a new amendment to its anti-money laundering (AML) and terrorist financing system to include virtual asset service providers. The latest legislation will establish a new licensing regime for virtual asset service providers, set to come into effect from June 1, 2023. The new amendment will subject crypto exchange service

A federal judge in California has dismissed a class action lawsuit against reality TV star Kim Kardashian, boxing champ Floyd Mayweather and the founders of EthereumMax, explaining that the submissions failed to meet the “heightened pleading standards” for fraud claims. The judge has, however, left room for the plaintiffs to refile the proposed class action

Cryptocurrency mixing services are a divisive subject in the industry. Some advocate for the privacy-enabling features of these protocols while others maintain that they are mainly used for illicit means. For platforms like Tornado Cash, the mainstream verdict is “guilty as charged.” The infamous decentralized mixing protocol was sanctioned by the United States Office of Foreign

After passing its landmark legislation on stablecoins in June, Japanese regulators are considering complementing it by restricting the algorithmic backing of stablecoins. The intention comes as a recommendation from the Financial Service Agency (FSA) and was repeated by the country’s Vice Minister for International Affairs, Tomoko Amaya.  During his speech on crypto assets at a

Former FTX chief executive officer Sam Bankman-Fried has reportedly hired Mark Cohen, a former federal prosecutor, to act as his defense attorney. According to a Dec. 6 report from Reuters, Bankman-Fried’s spokesperson Mark Botnick said the former FTX CEO has retained Cohen amid a flurry of civil litigation from investors in the crypto exchange and

The international monitoring body Financial Stability Board, or FSB, called for a global framework aimed at regulating and supervising crypto in the wake of FTX’s collapse, also saying it would assess vulnerabilities associated with decentralized finance. In a Dec. 6 meeting in Basel, the FSB said it planned to “enhance its crypto-assets monitoring framework” to