Regulation

Members of the United States House Financial Services Committee seem to be divided on the best legislative path forward dealing with regulatory clarity for crypto and blockchain technology. In a July 26 markup hearing, the committee had several bills on its agenda including the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, Blockchain Regulatory

The EOS Network Foundation (ENF) is the latest entity to initiate legal action against major investor Block.one (B1) over failure to honor $1 billion investment commitments. On July 25, ESN founder and CEO Yves La Rose took to Twitter to announce that the ESN is preparing a lawsuit against B1 for “failure to follow through

In the current climate, which is pretty hostile for the digital assets industry following the failures of 2022, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are often perceived as “crypto killers.” This is hardly an overstatement, as financial authorities’ aspirations concerning CBDCs are relatively straightforward: return firmer control over the movement of money before it gets too

Blockchain security firm Quantamp is set to return $28 million  raised in a 2017 initial coin offering following charges brought by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The U.S. agency announced that it had formally charged the California-based firm on July 21 for conducting an unregistered initial coin offering of “crypto asset securities”.

An Australian court has reportedly mandated that Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook, pay fines amounting to $14 million (A$20 million) for collecting user data through a smartphone application, Onavo.  According to a Reuters report, the Federal Court of Australia has directed Meta, along with its subsidiaries Facebook Israel and the discontinued app, to reimburse

The controversial crypto project Worldcoin was launched for the public on July 24, making way for customers to scan their iris at designated locations in 20 countries and receive 25 Worlcoins (WLD) the native token of the project.  The project debuted on the back of 2 million pre-signups but the interest seems to have faded

Binance has withdrawn its cryptocurrency custody license application in Germany. The exchange confirmed its withdrawal to Cointelegraph on July 26, nearly a month after reports of rejections from The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). On June 29, BaFin reportedly rejected the crypto exchange’s custody license. However, at the time, it was unclear whether the

Big Tech giants Google, Microsoft, ChatGPT maker OpenAI and AI startup Anthropic announced on July 26 they would form a new industry watchdog group to help regulate AI development.  In a joint statement released on the Google blog, the companies revealed their new Frontier Model Forum aimed at monitoring the “safe and responsible” development of

On July 25, the United States Senate backed bipartisan legislation mandating U.S. companies to report any investments in Chinese technologies.  In an overwhelming vote of 91 to 6, the Senate supported the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is anticipated to be implemented later in 2023. The amendment will require U.S. companies

Cryptocurrency is deemed property capable of being held on trust, Judge Philip Jeyaretnam of the High Court of Singapore decided in a ruling on July 25. The Judge said he didn’t see any difference between crypto, fiat money or shells, as long as all those objects, physical or not, share value, created by mutual faith

The National Crime Agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom is hiring two blockchain investigators for its newly formed Digital Assets Team within the Complex Financial Crime Team (CFCT) to tackle crypto crimes. The job involves overseeing complex investigations involving cryptocurrency and digital assets from a Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) perspective. POCA relates to the

A Tennessee husband and wife are facing charges over “Blessings of God Thru Crypto” — an allegedly fraudulent investment scheme that swindled at least $6 million from over 100 victims in just six months. A July 24 complaint from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said Michael and Amanda Griffis used the connections they made

The Namibian Government officially signed a law to regulate Virtual Asset Service Providers operating in the country last week, reversing its original 2017 decision to ban cryptocurrency exchanges. On July 21, the VASP-regulating law was inserted into the Gazette of the Republic of Namibia after previously being approved in Namibia’s National Assembly on July 6

The government of Palau is set to begin a pilot project for a United States dollar-backed stablecoin on July 26. The new coin will be issued on XRP Ledger. The country will release the first Palau Stablecoins (PSCs) in the pilot project to government employees. This comes after several days of testing using volunteers to

Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney with Gerben Intellectual Property, has suggested the company formerly known as Twitter could spend upwards of $100 million in dealing with litigation as a result of the X rebranding. In a July 25 X thread, Gerben predicted that lawsuits against X related to trademark infringement could appear in United States

Attorneys with the United States Department of Justice have extra time to make discovery and give former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky’s defense team time to review related documents. In a July 25 order, U.S. District Judge John Koeltl said he would exclude the time between July 25 and Oct. 3 from Speedy Trial Act calculations

The Abu Dhabi Global Market Financial Services Regulatory Authority has granted its Financial Services Permission for cryptocurrency firm Rain to offer brokerage and custody services to residents.  In a July 25 announcement, Rain said the regulatory approval will allow certain United Arab Emirates-based institutional and retail users to “buy, sell, trade, and store virtual assets”

Cryptocurrency-friendly trading platform Robinhood is moving forward with plans to launch services in the United Kingdom with a new major local appointment. Robinhood has appointed former Barclays executive Jordan Sinclair as the new CEO to run its United Kingdom entity, according to data from the Financial Conduct Authority. According to FCA, Sinclair was approved by

The newly launched controversial crypto and ID project Worldcoin could face inquiries from data regulators in the United Kingdom as it raises concerns over privacy and critical biometric data safety, according to a Reuters report. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) — the U.K.’s data regulatory body — acknowledged the launch of the crypto project in

The previous chairman of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Timothy Massad, highlighted the importance of government attention being paid to the stablecoin ecosystem in an interview with CNBC.  On July 24, Massad told the CNBC interviewer that he sees stablecoins as a bridge between “the crypto world and the real world” and