Nearly a year after his arrest in Montenegro, Terraform Labs co-founder and former CEO Do Kwon is reportedly set to be extradited to the United States to face criminal charges. Both the United States and South Korea previously submitted extradition requests to Montenegro officials. According to local news outlet Pobjeda, on Feb. 21, the Podgorica...Read More
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida has unveiled charges against Adam Todd, the founder and CEO of crypto futures trading platform Digitex Futures Exchange, alleging that he intentionally caused his company to violate the Bank Secrecy Act. According to an official announcement, Todd illegally operated Digitex as an unregistered crypto...Read More
Bitcoin’s (BTC) uptick by more than 15% this week has caused the asset to hit new all-time highs (ATHs) against several depreciating fiat currencies. With the leading cryptocurrency recording new highs against the Argentine peso (ARS), the Japanese yen (JPY), the Turkish lira (TRY), and the Nigerian naira (NGN), anticipation is rising about when it...Read More
Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., believes American households could have saved approximately $74 billion in credit card transaction fees in 2022 if they used blockchain technology. In Coinbase’s latest State of Crypto Report, the exchange outlined the frustrations of the current financial system, ranging from high costs to delays and difficult access,...Read More
Investment products for digital assets received significant influxes of $708 million last week, contributing to year-to-date inflows of $1.6 billion and increasing the total global assets under management to $53 billion. However, trading volumes in ETPs dropped to $8.2 billion from the previous week’s total of $10.6 billion, though they still surpass the 2023 weekly...Read More
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has brought charges against three people for defrauding investors of nearly $2 billion. According to the DOJ, the individuals promoted a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment program that promised investors high returns. A $1.89 Billion Crypto Scam In a press release on Jan. 29, 2024, the DOJ said that Sam Lee,...Read More
The United States Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has revealed that about 70% of retail communications concerning cryptocurrencies violate its rule of misleading claims. According to an official report, FINRA identified communications that failed to provide sound bases for evaluating digital assets by excluding explanations of how they are issued, held, transferred, and sold. Misleading...Read More
Following a previous denial by an Estonian circuit court, the local government has, once again, approved the extradition of two of its citizens suspected of cryptocurrency fraud to the United States. The suspects are accused of running a fake crypto service that defrauded unsuspecting victims of over $500 million. According to local news outlet Postimees,...Read More
Following the guilty plea of Changpeng Zhao (CZ), founder and former CEO of crypto exchange Binance, in November 2023, several American states have asked the local arm of the trading platform to refrain from servicing their residents. The Wall Street Journal reported that authorities in Florida and Alaska recently instructed Binance.US to cease its services...Read More
Crypto investment platform Abra settled in principle with Texas securities regulators, part of which requires the company to allow its customers to withdraw their assets. Abra was previously accused of deceiving customers and violating securities laws through the offering of its interest-bearing products. Abra to Return Crypto Assets to Investors The Texas State Securities Board...Read More
Ondo Finance, a U.S.-based issuer of tokenized securities, is suspected of selling 20 million ONDO tokens, resulting in a notable 13% decline in the currency’s price within a short timeframe. The situation raised concerns with an X crypto enthusiast doing further investigation into the token sale. Large ONDO Token Transfers Trigger Price Drop According to...Read More
Roughly a week after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the first wave of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), BTC investor demand in the country has slumped. According to a weekly report from market intelligence platform CryptoQuant, the weak BTC demand from U.S. investors is evident in crypto exchange Coinbase’s premium turning...Read More
Former United States President Donald Trump, who is once again vying to re-enter the White House, has criticized central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), stating that he would not allow such a project to launch in the US if elected President. According to him, a CBDC will give the federal government total control, further describing it...Read More
Earlier this week, a long wait for the launch of a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States ended after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved 11 products for listing and trading on several national exchanges. The journey began ten years ago, and there are industry participants who laid the foundation for...Read More
Ki Young Ju, the founder and CEO of on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant, believes financial institutions in the United States prefer Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) to Tether’s USDT. In a Friday tweet, Ju revealed that the financial firms are “not too comfortable” with USDT and would rather worldwide crypto users execute their stablecoin transactions in USDC....Read More
Nevada has emerged as the leader in the United States for interest in spot Bitcoin ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds), surpassing traditional financial hubs like New York and California. This insight comes from a recent study by CoinGecko, which used Google Trends data to analyze global and domestic interest in cryptocurrency investment vehicles from January 2019 to...Read More
A group of three super PACs backed by major cryptocurrency executives and investors has raised $78 million to influence the 2024 elections and support crypto-friendly candidates. A super PAC is a political action committee that pools campaign contributions from members and donates them to campaigns for or against candidates or legislation. Crypto has caused deep...Read More
Major crypto exchange Binance will pay $2.7 billion in disgorgement and penalty to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), thereby concluding the regulator’s enforcement action against the company. Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) will also pay $150 million to the regulatory watchdog. CFTC’s Case Against Binance Comes to an End In a...Read More
The United States Justice Department (DOJ) has charged four people for their alleged roles in laundering millions of dollars from cryptocurrency investment scams. According to a press release from the DOJ, the four individuals, Lu Zhang of Alhambra, California, Justin Walker of Cypress, California, Hailong Zhu of Naperville, Illinois, and Joseph Wong of Rosemead, California,...Read More
Tether, the company behind the largest stablecoin, has released the two letters it had sent to the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and House Financial Services Committee. The letters are specifically addressed to pro-Bitcoin Senator Cynthia Lummis and Rep. French Hill. The main goal of Tether’s letters is to address issues...Read More
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has responded to Coinbase’s petition, seeking a tailored regulatory framework for the crypto market, stating that the rulemaking petition is “unwarranted.” However, two out of the five Commissioners disagreed with the decision, believing the agency should engage in robust public conversations that could result in rulemaking or...Read More
A former senior security engineer, Shakeeb Ahmed, pled guilty to the hacking incident on the decentralized finance yield protocol, Nirvana Finance, along with another unnamed decentralized exchange (DEX). Ahmed will also forfeit over $12.3 million in stolen assets, with the United States Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) describing the case...Read More
Cryptocurrency exchange and token listing platform CoinList agreed to pay the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the United States Department of Treasury over $1.2 million in settlement relating to violations of the agency’s Russia/Ukraine sanctions. According to OFAC, while CoinList mostly abided by several compliance measures, the platform still opened accounts for users...Read More
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has extended its decision on whether to approve or disapprove a spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF) application by investment management company Invesco and crypto financial services firm Galaxy Digital. The SEC gave a 45-day extension, allowing itself until February 6, 2024, to make its decision on the product....Read More
Major crypto exchange KuCoin has reportedly settled with New York authorities to stop offering its services in the local market, along with a payment of $22 million. The settlement deal comes months after the New York Attorney General (NYAG) sued KuCoin for selling unregistered securities to users in the state. KuCoin Leaves New York According...Read More
The crypto industry is at an unprecedented inflection point, which could serve as a “generational investment opportunity” that will be fleeting as more institutions enter the space and network effects lead to exponential growth, according to new research. Digital asset manager Hashdex, which is currently eyeing a spot Bitcoin ETF approval, believes prospects for such...Read More
Conversations about launching spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States have moved to advanced stages, Reuters reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources. According to the report, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has begun to ask potential spot Bitcoin ETF issuers detailed and technical questions about the products, a move the sources said indicated...Read More
A United States district judge has ruled that Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder and former CEO of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, will remain in the country until his sentencing on February 23, 2024. According to an official document, Judge Richard Jones agreed with the U.S. government that CZ’s return to his home in...Read More
Bitcoin has gained recognition in the financial sector within two decades after its launch. This is evident in the increasing number of times the leading digital asset has been mentioned in official filings over the past years. According to recent research, the world’s largest cryptocurrency was mentioned in more than a thousand filings with the...Read More
A circuit court in Estonia overturned a previous ruling allowing the extradition of two Estonian citizens charged with cryptocurrency fraud and money laundering to the United States. According to the court, the Estonian government did not consider certain circumstances before agreeing to extradite the individuals involved in the case. New Court Ruling Cancels Extradition Approval...Read More
