Despite Beijing’s ever-increasing crackdown on the crypto industry, there are still some signs of life in the People’s Republic regarding the Bitcoin network and OTC trading. China intensified its clampdown on crypto last week in an effort to suppress any remaining activity related to digital assets within its borders. The regime specifically targeted crypto transactions,
Regulation
Cool Valley, Missouri, a small town of about 1,500 in the St. Louis County area, found itself the subject of international attention recently after its mayor, Jayson Stewart, announced that he planned to give each resident up to $1,000 in Bitcoin. Stewart, a passionate environmentalist who spent years cleaning up the world’s oceans and ran
As global regulators continue to scrutinize the cryptocurrency industry, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has expressed support for crypto, calling it undestroyable. “It is not possible to, I think, destroy crypto, but it is possible for governments to slow down its advancement,” Musk said at the Code Conference in California, CNBC reported Sept. 28. According to
The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, is ordering crypto exchange Kraken to pay more than a million dollars in civil monetary penalties related to allegations the exchange is violating the Commodity Exchange Act. In a Sept. 28 statement, the CFTC said U.S.-based crypto exchange Kraken — operating under the name Payward Ventures —
Dan Berkovitz, one of three commissioners currently serving at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, will be joining the Securities and Exchange Commission as general counsel following his departure in October. In a Sept. 28 announcement, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, said Berkovitz would assume the role of general counsel starting on Nov.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a complaint against two Robinhood users over an alleged wash-trading-based arbitrage scheme that utilized meme stocks. According to a Sept. 27 complaint, defendants Suyun Gu and Yong Lee took advantage of differing trading fee schedules offered by different retail brokers and exchanges to extract arbitrage while wash-trading.
Rob Kaplan, the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas will step down from his position after more than six years. In a Sept. 27 announcement, the Dallas Fed said Kaplan, its 13th president and CEO, would be retiring beginning Oct. 8. The 64-year-old cited recent attention to his “financial
Ethereum (ETH) developer Virgil Griffith has pleaded guilty to a federal charge that he conspired with North Korea to violate United States sanctions law. On Monday, Griffith pleaded guilty in New York to conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which forbids U.S. citizens from exporting technology and intellectual property to communist countries.
According to Reuters, Pelosi expressed confidence the legislation will pass upon announcing the date on Sunday, Sept. 26, stating: “Let me just say that we’re going to pass the bill this week.” Earlier that same day she reportedly indicated she would not bring the bill to a vote unless she believed it would pass. Speaker
Acting head of the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) Michael Hsu has warned that the exotic financial products developed in some quarters of crypto and DeFi were reminiscent of those that precipitated the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Speaking before the Blockchain Association on Sept. 21, Hsu warned that “innovation for
The rapid adoption of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) poses a major challenge for the traditional financial system, an executive at the Chinese central bank has warned. Wen Xinxiang, director of the payment and settlement department at the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), has expressed concerns over the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies and fiat-pegged stablecoins. Pointing
Governments are tasked with bringing fair and efficient services to the public. Unfortunately, providing transparency and accountability often results in a reduction in efficiency and effectiveness or vice versa. Governments are usually forced to choose to improve one at the cost of the other. On rare occasions, technology comes along that enables governments to improve
The Chinese government is getting more serious about cracking down on the cryptocurrency industry as state authorities are bringing forces to combat crypto operations in the country. The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) officially announced on Sept. 24 a set of new measures to fight against crypto adoption in China, including promoting stronger inter-departmental coordination in
The legal status of cryptocurrencies remains a mixed bag of regulatory positions, depending on the jurisdiction being considered. While some countries move toward blanket prohibitions or stringent regulations, others elect to go with a more open approach to crypto. For Ukraine, the latter path appears to be the case, with the government encouraging legalized crypto
Hold onto your hats, boys and girls! It’s a new world — a financial system without intermediaries, that anyone can access 24 hours a day with only a mobile phone and a wallet! As Julien Bouteloup said to me: “In DeFi, what we are building is fully decentralised technology, fully transparent, run by mathematics. No
The price of Bitcoin fell 8% today following “breaking” (read: weeks old) news that the People’s Bank of China, or PBoC, had declared all cryptocurrency transactions illegal. With that in mind, let’s take a nostalgic look at the last 12 years of FUD out of China, and see if we can spot any patterns. China