Regulation

As the final preparations for the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried were underway in Manhattan, attorneys for the embattled former FTX CEO were filing a suit against the Continental Casualty insurance company in the United States District Court of Northern California. That company has allegedly provided Paper Bird and its subsidiary FTX Trading directors and officers

Local crypto-mining operators in Kazakhstan — the world’s third-largest market in terms of Bitcoin mining hash rate — are complaining about high energy prices to the country’s president.  According to local media, eight major cryptocurrency mining operators signed an open letter to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. The list includes BCD Company, TT TECH Limited, KZ Systems,

J.W. Verret is a Harvard-educated attorney who teaches corporate finance and accounting at George Mason University. His work has increasingly intersected with the cryptocurrency sector in recent years, as his legion of Twitter followers — who know him as “BlockProf,” or the Blockchain Professor — are poignantly aware. Aside from his work at GMU, Verret

Following the clearance of the first Ethereum (ETH) futures exchange-traded fund (ETF), Grayscale Investment is set to convert its Grayscale Ethereum Trust to a spot Ethereum spot ETF.  The New York Stock Exchange Arca filed for the conversion with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Oct. 2. The existing Trust invested in

A parliamentary committee in Kenya’s government tasked with investigating Worldcoin has recommended that regulators shut down the project’s operations in the country. According to a report released on Sept. 30 by Kenya’s parliament, Worldcoin has continued to collect personal data of Kenya’s residents “in total disregard” of an order to stop issued in May —

United States-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is expanding operations in Singapore after securing major regulatory approval from the country’s central bank. Coinbase has obtained a Major Payment Institution (MPI) license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the firm announced on Oct. 1. The new license — coming one year after Coinbase’s initial in-principle approval in

The lawyer representing Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of the now-defunct exchange FTX, has claimed that the proposed jury questions for the upcoming fraud trial might have the potential to elicit biased responses. In a court filing on September 29, lawyer Mark Cohen, representing Bankman-Fried, contends that the jury questions presented by the US government

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has commenced legal proceedings against an accounting firm that had provided services to cryptocurrency exchange FTX prior to its bankruptcy declaration. According to a September 29 statement, the SEC alleged that Prager Metis provided auditing services to its clients without maintaining the necessary independence, as it continued

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has affirmed its plan to summon former FTX clients, investors, and staff as witnesses in the upcoming trial involving Sam Bankman-Fried, the former FTX executive. This will shed light on how these individuals viewed their interactions with Bankman-Fried and his company.  The DOJ submitted a letter motion in limine on

Top Stories This Week Ethereum futures ETFs to start trading next week Investment firm Valkyrie will start offering exposure to Ether futures in the coming days. On Sept. 28, the firm told Cointelegraph that its Bitcoin Strategy ETF will allow investors access to Ether and Bitcoin futures “under one wrapper,” making it one of the

Aside from liquidity, what do institutions bring to crypto? What precisely is their value added? This is an instructive question to ponder, because there is little consensus on what deeper institutional participation means for an industry that is riven with contradictions. The long-running wait for Bitcoin ETF approval, giving pensions and funds exposure to BTC,

Venture capital firm Paradigm has criticized the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for bypassing the standard rulemaking procedures in its current legal action against the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. In a statement released on Friday, Sept. 29, Paradigm stated the SEC is attempting to use the allegations in its complaint to alter the law

The United States House of Representatives has rejected a bill passed on by the Senate aimed at funding the government, and Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s proposals have so far failed to gain traction with far-right lawmakers in the House — all actions suggesting that the U.S. government is heading toward at least a partial shutdown starting

European cryptocurrency investment firm CoinShares is optimistic about cryptocurrency regulation in the United States as the firm enters the new market. On Sept. 22, CoinShares officially announced the launch of its new division, CoinShares Hedge Fund Solutions, marking the first time the firm introduce its offerings to qualified U.S. investors. CoinShares’ entrance into the U.S. market

Nvidia, one of the global leaders in artificial intelligence (AI) chip production with headquarters in California, reportedly faced a police raid in its French offices this week. The action came as a part of a general inquiry of French antitrust authorities into the cloud computing sector.  On Sept. 28, the Wall Street Journal reported the raid,

Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments. Chinese worker fined $145K over VPN An unnamed individual in China was fined 1.06 million Yuan ($144,907) for using a virtual private network (VPN) to access restricted websites as part of a remote work routine for a foreign employer.  According to

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) will remain in jail at least until the start of his Oct. 3 criminal trial following an order from a federal judge. In a Sept. 28 hearing in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Lewis Kaplan denied a motion from SBF’s legal team

The governor of the Central Bank of Brazil, addressing the Finance and Taxation Commission of the country’s parliament, said the bank has noted a significant surge in crypto adoption in the country and intends to react by tightening the digital assets regulation.  During his speech on Sept. 27, Banco Central do Brasil Governor Roberto Campos Neto

Pull your sats out of Minecraft now Back in our July edition, we announced Satlantis, an independent Minecraft server run by the game’s fans, enabled players to earn Bitcoin by completing in-game quests using play-to-earn functionalities. We noted Minecraft developer Mojang’s previous NFT ban and concluded, “Time will show how this integration fairs against the

Rep. Patrick McHenry, who chairs the United States House Financial Services Committee, has suggested that he may try to subpoena the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over documents related to former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, or SBF. In a Sept. 27 hearing on oversight of the commission, McHenry claimed chair SEC Gary Gensler had made