Regulation

United States authorities are working on “material action” over the weekend in an attempt to limit the ripple effect across the country’s banking system after the Silicon Valley Bank abruptly collapsed on March 10. According to a Reuters report citing unnamed sources, officials in the Joe Biden administration assessed the impact of the bank failure

Billionaire Bill Ackman has urged the United States government to “guarantee” all deposits held by Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) within the next “48 hours,” or it risks the “destruction” of many financial institutions. In a March 11 tweet, Bill Ackman, CEO of hedge fund management firm Pershing Square Capital Management, said a “giant sucking sound”

The Bank of England (BoE) has halted the operations of Silicon Valley Bank’s U.K. branch (SVB UK), stating that it has a “limited presence” in the United Kingdom (UK) and no “critical functions” supporting the financial system. BoE issued a statement on Mar. 10, declaring that SVB UK will “stop making payments or accepting deposits,”

Almost immediately after USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle revealed it could not withdraw $3.3 billion of its $40 billion reserves from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the resultant sell-off caused the price of the stablecoin to fall below its $1 peg. On March 9, Circle initiated a wire transfer to remove its funds from SVB as

United States Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden asked the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) to hold auditors accountable for failed crypto projects.  The PCAOB — a nonprofit overseeing the audits of public companies and other issuers — recently stated that proof-of-reserves (POR) are not equivalent to audits conducted under PCAOB auditing standards. POR

On March 10, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission ruled against a change that would allow investment manager VanEck to create a spot Bitcoin (BTC) trust. Commissioner Mark Uyeda joined his colleague Hester Peirce in releasing a statement criticizing the commission’s decision not to approve the listing and trading of the financial product.  The commissioners

Four United States Republican senators led by Bill Hagerty have written a letter to the heads of federal banking regulatory agencies, questioning the ideological motivation behind recent regulatory moves in regard to cryptocurrency. They compared the regulators’ policies to the Obama administration’s Operation Choke Point. The senators addressed Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell, Federal

A federal judge in Florida, United States, is considering dismissing NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal and tennis athlete Naomi Osaka from the FTX lawsuit, pointing out that it’s unclear whether the two have been served.  In a paperless order, U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore instructed the plaintiffs to provide cause on why O’Neal and Osaka shouldn’t

United States Congressman Tom Emmer believes the launch of programmable central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the country could strip American citizens of their financial privacy. Speaking at the Cato Institute, a Washington DC-based libertarian think tank on Mar. 9, Emmer explained that the programmable CBDC would be “easily weaponized” as a spying tool to

The United States Treasury has announced deputies of the multilateral Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs (REPO) Task Force have targeted crypto in Russian entities’ attempts to evade sanctions. In a March 9 announcement, the U.S. Treasury said the task force had blocked or frozen more than $58 billion worth of assets subject to sanctions since

The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority of Germany (BaFin) is not ready to classify nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as securities. The agency suggests classifying the NFTs on a case-by-case basis.  On March 8, the BaFin journal published an explanatory note considering NFTs legal classification. At this point, the regulators don’t see how NFTs meet the criteria to

Six people involved in a cryptocurrency “Ponzi scheme” that raked in about $100 million over five years have pled guilty to a series of fraud and money laundering charges, each carrying a maximum sentence of 20 to 30 years of prison. One of the founders of “AirBit Club,” Pablo Renato Rodriguez, was the latest to

The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, was a part of discussions on a regulatory framework for digital assets as well as use cases for blockchain technology. In a March 8 meeting of the CFTC’s Market Risk Advisory Committee, commissioners, regulators, and industry representatives were scheduled to discuss “critical policy considerations” as part

While there’s nothing new in imposing anti-money laundering (AML) standards on crypto, it is only now that the Indian government has decided to notify all interested parties of the obligation to comply with the national AML law.  On March 7, The Gazette of India published a notification from the Ministry of Finance, subjecting a range

A panel of judges heard oral arguments in the Grayscale Investments suit against the United States Securities and Trade Commission (SEC) on March 7. Grayscale is challenging the SEC order not to approve Grayscale’s application to create a Bitcoin (BTC) spot exchange-traded fund. The SEC issued its order on July 6. Former solicitor general Donald

A group of United States lawmakers is reportedly planning to reintroduce legislation to change the reporting requirements for certain taxpayers involved in crypto transactions. According to a March 7 report from Punchbowl News, Representatives Patrick McHenry and Ritchie Torres plan to reintroduce the Keep Innovation in America Act. McHenry was one of the leading voices

The United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) won’t be allowed to fine executives involved in Voyager Digital should it end up issuing bankruptcy tokens to help repay impacted customers, bankruptcy judge Michael Wiles has said. The comments from Wiles came on Mar. 6, the third day of hearings regarding a plan by Voyager to issue

Lawyers for Andrew Vara, the United States Trustee representing the interests of the Department of Justice in crypto exchange FTX’s bankruptcy proceedings, has filed an appeal against a federal judge’s denial of a motion appointing an independent examiner in the case. In a March 6 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware,

American lawmakers and regulators continue to compete in their creative efforts to propose anything but comprehensive game rules for the crypto industry.  Senators Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal have penned a letter asking Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to deny young adults access to the firm’s metaverse platform. According to the two lawmakers, allowing teenagers between

Crypto legislation in Australia could be dragged out past 2024 and beyond, with the government seemingly wanting to take its time in order to get a full picture of the industry, internal documents from the government have revealed.  The documents, obtained by The Australian Financial Review under freedom of information laws, reportedly reveal that the government