Regulation

Janet Yellen may be open to having U.S. regulators consider a digital currency, but still seems to have strong concerns about Bitcoin. In an interview on the New York Times’ DealBook DC Policy Project held today, Yellen said it makes sense for the Federal Reserve to look into a digital dollar. Speaking to Andrew Ross

In what seems to be another anti-crypto move by regulators in India, IPO promoters may soon be forced to sell their crypto holdings before being allowed to participate in raising funds. According to a report by the Economic Times, the Securities Board of India may disqualify IPO promoters from raising funds if they hold cryptocurrencies.

The Swiss canton of Zug now allows its residents to pay taxes in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). Bitcoin Suisse, a local crypto broker that enabled the new opportunity in partnership with the canton, announced Feb. 17 that the crypto payment option has rolled out this week. The administration of the canton of

United States lawmakers are set to grill Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev over the GameStop trading frenzy at a Congressional hearing later today. In his prepared remarks, Robinhood CEO appeared to place responsibility for the platform’s stock trading suspensions on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Tenev said that the company blocked trading to meet “regulatory deposit requirements”

Vlad Tenev, Robinhood’s CEO, very much occupied the hot seat in today’s hearing before the House Financial Services Committee over January’s market volatility.  None of the representatives seemed particularly interested in putting the screws to Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and many seemed to give Keith Gill the same props the rest of us did. These

Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Technology is by and large not the major barrier — though many in the industry have a decent bit of hubris about it. More important is that people, whenever their money is on the line, get

Austrian regulators are calling for stricter crypto laws amid a spate of elaborate investment scams involving cryptocurrency and digital assets. According to a Bloomberg report of Friday, Austria’s Financial Market Authority has revealed that more than 60% of all reported financial fraud in the country involve crypto trading products. The FMA says these crypto scammers

The SEC’s recent inquiry into the Tim Draper-backed DeFi Money Market platform is the most recent example in a concerning trend of increasing action by regulators against unregistered securities. As a result of regulatory inquiries, DMM is ceasing operations. mTokens can be redeemed with interest accrued to-date through the following link: https://t.co/mWB1WacKaH — DMM DAO

BitPay will have to pay the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control over half a million dollars for crypto services to sanctioned regions.  In a Feb. 18 announcement of the settlement, OFAC said that BitPay had facilitated “approximately $129,000 worth of digital currency-related transactions with BitPay’s merchant customers” by users from Crimea, Cuba, North Korea, Iran,

An Israeli start-up that aims to establish a digital ledger technology-based digital securities exchange in the country has received its first, encouraging go-ahead from the Israel Securities Authority. In an application letter filed with the regulator on Feb. 14, Simetria had sought the ISA’s approval to operate a digital bulletin board as a preliminary step in

The controversy laden trading platform Robinhood announced today it intends to implement cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals. While customers have been able to buy and sell cryptocurrency via the platform for some time, they are unable to access the coins themselves to transfer them to other wallets. According to a series of tweets published from the

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced charges against three North Korean operatives.  Making the announcement, Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers condemned the North Korean program, the most famous branch of which is Lazarus Group. Demers said: “North Korea’s operatives, using keyboards rather than guns, stealing digital wallets of cryptocurrency instead of sacks

Sweden’s central bank has extended an ongoing pilot aimed at creating a digital version of the Swedish krona until 2022, as was recently announced by the nation’s Riksbank. In combination with professional services firm Accenture, the “e-krona” pilot program was created to address what the Riksbank sees as “the marginalization of cash”: “The Riksbank sees

Revenue from crypto-related crime dropped by more than half in 2020 according to Chainalysis’ annual report on the subject. Cybercriminals netted around $5 billion less than the $10 billion plus they got away with in 2019, representing a 53% fall. Transactions involving illicit funds have decreased even more rapidly than the total volume of those

James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, seemingly doesn’t understand why many are looking to cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange instead of a uniform currency like the U.S. dollar. In an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box on Tuesday, Bullard said the issue for making payments isn’t currencies that can be

The executive body of the European Union has appointed a major financial services firm to lead a three-year initiative aimed at boosting the integrity of social media posts using blockchain technology. Dubbed “TruBlo,” the project will oversee a wealth of blockchain development as part of the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet initiative. The French financial