A member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors has said that Facebook’s Libra could pose risks to consumers due to a lack of clarity over their rights with respect to the token’s underlying assets and to the system overall. Lael Brainard — who chairs the Fed’s Committees on Financial Stability, Federal Reserve Bank Affairs,
Regulation
Denis Beau, the deputy governor of France’s central bank, Banque De France, recently delivered comments regarding central banks’ approaches to cryptocurrencies. Establish appropriate cryptocurrency regulations On Oct. 16, Beau spoke at the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum conference in London, where he discussed the role of cryptocurrency assets in today’s global financial payment system.
In just the last few months, the entire landscape of the crypto industry has changed. Innovation once came from within, with a number of early influencers earning god-like status among the crypto community. In 2019, the industry is marching to a very different tune, with tech companies expanding their influence out of their respective sectors
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has once again begun accepting public comments regarding the updated Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) proposal by Wilshire Phoenix Fund. According to the official document published on Oct. 15, Wilshire Phoenix and exchange NYSE Arca have refiled and updated their application to reflect new circumstances. New and
Telegram’s pledge to return money to investors in the event of a delay to the launch of its blockchain network may be superseded by a “force majeure” clause in its purchase agreement. As an Oct. 14 report from Russian media agency the Bell emphasizes, the force majeure clause — which encompasses natural disasters, terrorist threats
Canadian social media and messaging app Kik has revealed it’s “here to stay,” in an apparent reversal of earlier plans to shut down amid legal difficulties. In an official tweet posted on Oct. 13, the company announced: “Great news: Kik is here to stay!!!!AND there’s some really exciting plans for making the app even better.
Earlier this week, British-American entrepreneur John McAfee, who is currently living “in exile” due to tax-related charges filed against him by the United States authorities, launched his own decentralized exchange (DEX). The expressive crypto advocate’s McAfeedex.com is running on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, and, in McAfee’s own words, it is a “Wild Wild West exchange”
Self-regulation is once again a trending topic in the cryptocurrency landscape as major exchange platforms have announced the creation of self-regulated organizations (SROs) to achieve some standardization in digital currency governance. Government regulators across various jurisdictions continue to exert greater regulatory pressure on their local cryptocurrency industries. Even inter-governmental agencies like the Financial Action Task Force
The United States’ federal tax service has issued guidelines for tax reporting regarding cryptocurrency airdrops and hard forks. In an announcement on Oct. 9, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced the issuance of Revenue Ruling 2019-24, which addresses common questions of taxpayers and practitioners regarding crypto hard forks and airdrops. The guidance also answers
Executives at Bitwise Asset Management are highly optimistic as the deadline for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision on their proposed Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) looms on the horizon. Days ahead of the Oct. 13 deadline, an Oct. 7 CNBC report cites Matt Hougan, managing director and global head of research
The European Union’s finance commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis has pledged to propose new rules to regulate cryptocurrencies such as Facebook’s Libra. As Reuters reports, speaking before EU lawmakers on Oct. 8, Dombrovskis stated: “Europe needs a common approach on crypto-assets such as Libra. I intend to propose new legislation on this.” Dombrovskis’s role Having served as
The United States House Financial Services Committee has reportedly invited Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg to testify on Oct. 29 about the company’s plans for its Libra stablecoin. According to a report from The Information on Oct. 3, the invitation comes with a key condition: that CEO Mark Zuckerberg consent to appear before the committee before
Members of the United States House of Representatives Financial Services Committee asked the Federal Reserve whether there are any plans of launching a U.S. dollar digital currency. Fed has the mandate to develop a national digital currency In a Sept. 30 letter to Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell, U.S. Representatives French Hill and Bill
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reached a settlement with Block.one to pay $24 million in penalties for conducting an unregistered initial coin offering (ICO). On Sept. 30, the SEC announced in a press release that it has settled the charges against the firm behind the EOS network and corresponding token in
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has ordered purported cryptocurrency company Longfin to pay a total of $6,755,848 million in penalties. Falsely obtained qualification for Regulation A+ offering On Sept. 30, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that a New York federal court entered a default ruling against
Cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex is incorporating Chainalysis know your transaction (KYT) tool to spot high-risk transactions. Compliance standards In a Sept. 26 press release, Chainalysis Inc. announced the deployment of its real-time transaction monitoring solution to the Seattle-based blockchain trading platform Bittrex. In an attempt to meet “new and existing regulatory and compliance standards,” Bittrex incorporated
In 2018, the executive on the board for the European Central Bank (ECB) declared Bitcoin, “the evil spawn of the financial crisis” — referring, of course, to the economic disaster 10 years prior. Interestingly, also born from the ashes of the mortgage crisis was the United States government’s adoption and unabated use of quantitative easing
Wyoming Blockchain Coalition president Caitlin Long has responded to the recent unrest in the money markets by analyzing the systemic fragility of the traditional financial sector as compared with Bitcoin (BTC). In a Medium blog post published on Sept. 25, Long made the argument that “at a systemic level, the traditional financial system is as
United States-based accounting firm H&R Block has begun serving as an intermediary between crypto users and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after the agency began sending letters to crypto traders who may have failed to report income and pay taxes. According to a Sept. 24 news release, H&R Block has rolled out a new service
The governor of the Bank of Japan has said that international cooperation is of paramount importance when it comes to regulating digital currencies such as Facebook’s planned Libra token. Reuters reports that in a speech before business leaders in Osaka on Sept. 23, Haruhiko Kuroda urged policymakers to ensure that the highest level of regulation
