On February 22, Republican Congressman Tom Emmer of the US House of Representatives introduced a bill to ban the Federal Reserve (Fed) from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The “CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act” aims to protect the financial privacy of American citizens by prohibiting the creation of a CBDC by the Fed without...Read More
The SEC and other U.S. regulators have, in recent weeks, turned on the heat in regard to crypto exchanges – an understandable, if a somewhat brusque, response to the series of crypto bankruptcies across 2022. The latest to come under their scope is CoinEx. Selling Securities Without a License According to a press release published...Read More
Mike Pence – former Vice President of the United States – believes his country is en route to a debt crisis within the next 25 to 30 years due to the government’s irresponsible fiscal policy. Within 3 decades, he claimed that the nation’s debt could balloon to $150 trillion. Insurmountable Debt In an interview on...Read More
It’s only been a few days since Kraken, one of the largest exchanges in the U.S., shut down its staking services and paid a $30 million settlement over selling – according to the SEC – unlicensed securities. Despite compliance with regulators and a commitment to proof of reserves, both Kraken and Binance have been under...Read More
Gilbert Armenta – the former boyfriend of Ruja Ignatova (more famous as the “Cryptoqueen”) – will reportedly spend five years in jail for participating in the fraudulent cryptocurrency project OneCoin. The Bulgarian-born Ignatova – the Founder of the infamous Ponzi scheme – sits on the FBI’s ten most-wanted list. She was last seen in 2017...Read More
Robinhood’s cryptocurrency trading volume hit $3.7 billion last month, a 95% increase compared to December 2022. Contrary to the good start of the year, the 2022 bear market took its toll on the firm’s crypto revenue. It also dismissed nearly a third of its total headcount. Starting off on the Right Foot The cryptocurrency market...Read More
Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance had “gaps” in regulatory compliance in the first few years after its launch in 2017, the company’s Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) Patrick Hillmann told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. Hillmann revealed that Binance had missteps during the implementation of its security measures, such as the Know-Your-Customer (KYC) protocol and...Read More
Milena Mayorga – ambassador of El Salvador to the United States – said the Salvadoran authorities might open a bitcoin embassy in Texas. The central American nation has already introduced a BTC office in the city of Lugano, Switzerland. The Second BTC Embassy Mayorga held a meeting with Jose “Joe” Esparza (Texas Deputy Secretary of...Read More
The United States Department of Labor outlined the inflation numbers for the first month of 2023, which were slightly different that the expectations. Bitcoin reacted with an immediate price drop that drove it from $21,900 to $21,600 in minutes. The US government announced the latest CPI numbers on February 14, indicating that the Consumer Price...Read More
United States District Judge Kevin Castel has approved the Justice Department’s request to stay the civil lawsuits filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) against Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder and former CEO of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX. According to a Reuters report, prosecutors believe delaying the...Read More
Paxos has been trying to secure a national trust bank charter for a while now. There have been rumors that the firm has been denied the aforementioned license, which it actually denied. To clarify speculation: Paxos has not been asked to withdraw its application for a national trust bank charter from the OCC, nor has...Read More
Ishan Wahi, a former product manager at the largest US-based crypto exchange, pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. His brother did the same a few months back, receiving a 10-month prison sentence. CryptoPotato reported in July 2022 when the US Department of Justice charged Ishan Wahi, his brother Nikhil, and...Read More
Should the United States consider making XRP the reserve currency of the world and buy its entire holding from the market? Well, this speculative idea floated by Jimmy Vallee, Managing Director of Valhill Capital, in 2021 is once again doing rounds after he talked about it in a recent interview. But Ripple Lab’s CTO David...Read More
Bitcoin miners located in Texas reportedly suffered severe disruption of their operations due to a blizzard that battered the region. The extreme weather conditions prompted them to switch off their machines to preserve the local power grid. The Cold Winter in Texas Surprised Crypto Miners As reported by Bloomberg, the ice storm that hit “the Lone...Read More
Silvergate, one of many creditors to take huge losses due to FTX going under, was previously forced to lay off 40% of its staff. This hit to its business was compounded by billions of dollars in substantial loans taken out to cover a potential bank run the organization feared might occur after FTX’s collapse. Silvergate...Read More
Charlie Munger, the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, reiterated his stance against Bitcoin and the entire crypto industry. This time, the American billionaire investor urged the United States government to ban all cryptocurrencies as they are bound to cause more harm than good. Munger Attacks Again In an opinion published...Read More
Two weeks ago, a little-known crypto exchange called Bitzlato was shut down in a raid coordinated by Europol and spearheaded by French and American authorities. Now, the company’s founder believes it will soon resume operations. A Coordinated Effort The sting operation was carried out in the two aforementioned countries, as well as Portugal, Spain, and...Read More
A New Hampshire district court judge has clarified that a security injunction ruled earlier in the legal battle between the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and decentralized content-sharing and publishing platform LBRY applied only to direct sales of the project’s tokens. The ruling came during an appeal hearing on January 30, 2023, settling...Read More
Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan reportedly ruled that the names of the two individuals who allowed Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) to stay at his parents’ house under a $250 million bond should be made public. The former CEO of FTX faces several charges, including fraud and money laundering. His trial date is set for October 2,...Read More
Senior United States District Judge William Fremming Nielsen sentenced the 56-year-old American Ronald Craig Ilg to eight years in federal prison. The latter hired hitmen on the Dark Web to kidnap his wife and beat his former colleague, and paid them over $60,000 worth of bitcoin. Maximum Penalty for the Doctor The US Department of...Read More
Residents of Murphy, North Carolina, complained that a cryptocurrency miner located in the area causes “insane” noise and negatively impacts the electric grid. As such, some people have decided to leave the town and settle in another place. ‘It Sounds Like You Are Behind a Jet’ The crypto miner installed by the San Francisco-based company...Read More
The FBI announced the takedown of Hive, a ransomware network with members across multiple states in Europe and North America, in a recent press release. The US agency stated that they had been on the case since at least 2021. Hackers Hacked Despite the efforts of the FBI, the network was tough to crack. However,...Read More
The Biden Administration announced on January 27th that it will launch a new legal framework for cryptocurrencies in the coming months to combat the multiple cryptocurrency scams that impacted the crypto market last year, causing multi-million dollar losses. According to a statement published by the White House, “2022 was a tough year for cryptocurrencies.” Hence,...Read More
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected the joint effort of Ark Investment Management and 21Shares to list a spot Bitcoin ETF on the Cboe BZX Exchange. The agency dismissed another application filed by the partners in the spring of 2022. As indicated in a recent filing, the American financial regulator did not...Read More
The world’s largest economy just announced the GDP figures for the latest quarter of 2022, showing moderate but declining growth compared to Q3. Unlike most previous statements coming from the US, this one brought little-to-no immediate volatility to the crypto market, with BTC still standing above $23,000. The overall expectations ahead of the Q4 2022...Read More
The US-based bitcoin miner – Core Scientific – reportedly secured a $500 million fundraiser led by leading finance players, such as BlackRock, Apollo Capital, Kensico Capital, Ibex Investors, and others. The company filed for bankruptcy protection at the end of last year but continued mining BTC to repay debtholders. Traditional Finance Firms Flocking to Help...Read More
The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) urged firms to set apart customers’ cryptocurrency holdings from their own assets. The watchdog argued that co-mingling funds could trigger a significant financial loss for investors. The NYDFS’ Recommendation New York’s financial watchdog issued guidance to state-regulated companies on how they should better protect clients in...Read More
The world’s largest digital asset manager – Grayscale – will reportedly present its arguments in court regarding the potential launch of a Bitcoin ETF in the US on March 7. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will argue against this. The Lawsuit is Approaching Grayscale has displayed its intentions to introduce an exchange-traded...Read More
The lawyers of Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) цлаимед that three men drove their vehicle into a metal barricade outside his parents’ house in California. The family of FTX’s former CEO recently admitted becoming a target of “intense media scrutiny, harassment,” and even physical threats. The Security Incident The gigantic crash of FTX caused multi-billion investor losses and turned...Read More
Back in September, the Californian DFPI and other U.S. regulators ordered Nexo to desist from offering Earn Interest Products (EIP), which in the company’s case took the form of crypto asset lending accounts. At the time the charges were filed, Nexo had already ceased offering the accounts to U.S. investors. However, U.S. investors could still...Read More
