Politics, Legal & Regulation

Policy and regulations impacting innovations in Finance.

Representative Maxine Waters Returns to Twitter, Telling Sam Bankman-Fried it is “Imperative” He Testifies at Hearing on FTX Collapse

Representative Maxine Waters, Chair of the House Committee on Financial Services, returned to Twitter to prod Sam Bankman-Fried to testify in front of a Committee hearing next week on the FTX bankruptcy. Earlier this month, Chair Waters invited Bankman-Fried to testify via Twitter. Bankman-Fried responded,… Read More

Fintech Executive: Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX Will Go Down in History as a Fraud Larger than Bernie Madoff

The failure of FTX and the allegations of fraud pointed at founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried continue to garner much coverage in both traditional media as well as more modern digital news providers. The speed of the collapse, and the amount of funds involved… Read More

End of the Road: SPAC Deal to Take Circle Public Terminated, SEC Fails to Approve S-4 Registration

Circle, the issuer of dollar-based stablecoin USDC, has terminated the SPAC deal, which would take the company public, according to a release. The SPAC was initially expected to close this month (December). According to the statement, the two parties – Circle and Concord Acquisition Corp… Read More

Little New Information Derived from Senate Agriculture Committee Hearing on FTX

Last week, the Senate Agriculture Committee, which has oversight of commodities markets, held a hearing on the collapse of FTX, once an inside-the-beltway darling, today a virtual pariah as policymakers rush to react to the bankruptcy of the crypto exchange. Before the crypto exchange went bust,… Read More

Sam Bankman-Fried Agrees to Testify in Front of House Committee, Depending on How Things Go Before the 13th

Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, has agreed to testify in front of the House Committee on Financial Services contingent upon what happens from now until December 13th – the day the hearing is scheduled. As was previously reported, the Chair… Read More

FTX: Representative Maxine Waters Invites Sam Bankman-Fried via Twitter to Testify in Front of House Committee on Financial Services

Representative Maxine Waters, the Chair of the House Committee on Financial Services, has Tweeted asking Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO and founder of FTX, to testify in front of her Committee this month. Bankman-Fried has been making the PR rounds in the wake of the collapse… Read More

SIM Swap Perp Gets 18 Months in Prison for Stealing $20 Million of Crypto, Ordered to Pay Restitution in 2 Months

SIM Swap perpetrator Nicholas Truglia has been sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay $20,379,007 in restitution to the victim of his cryptocurrency theft. Truglia is required to repay the victim within 60 days. Truglia was sentenced yesterday by US District Judge… Read More

FTX Resumes Payments of Employees, Meanwhile Sam Bankman-Fried Keeps Telling People He is Still Looking for a Bailout

According to bankruptcy managers, FTX and most of its subsidiaries are resuming ordinary course payments of salary and benefits to employees worldwide as well as payments to certain non-US contractors and service providers. New FTX CEO John J. Ray III said: “With the Court’s approval… Read More

Financial Technology Association Selects Plaid Executive as Chair of Board

The Financial Technology Association (FTA) has selected Leigh Lytle, head of North American Policy at Plaid, as the 2023 Chair of the FTA Board of Directors. Before joining Plaid, Lytle spent more than 15 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. According to… Read More

Monetary Authority of Singapore Grants Licence to MetaComp Under Payment Services Act to Provide Digital Payment Token Services

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has granted a license to MetaComp Pte. Ltd. (f.k.a. Cyberdyne Tech Services Pte. Ltd) “to provide digital payment token services as a Major Payment Institution.” Effective December 2022, MetaComp has been “granted a license under the Payment Services Act,… Read More

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Takes Action Against Loan Doctor Who Placed Some Funds into Now Bankrupt Celsius [u]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has taken action against Edgar Radjabli, operator of Loan Doctor, who allegedly took customer funds and placed them in risky ventures like Celsius Network – a crypto yield platform that is now bankrupt. The complaint filed by the CFPB… Read More

Senator Sherrod Brown, Chair of Banking Committee, Sends Letter to Treasury Secretary Yellen Addressing FTX Debacle

Senator Sherrod Brown, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has sent a letter to the US Department of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressing his concerns following the bankruptcy filing of FTX. The crypto exchange, once one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, filed… Read More

Gemini Obtains Regulatory Approvals to Operate in Italy, Greece

Gillian Lynch, Head of Ireland and EU at Gemini, notes that they are pleased to announce that Gemini has “registered as a Virtual Currency Operator with Italy’s payments services regulator, the Organismo Agenti E Mediatori (OAM), and as a custodial wallet provider and provider of exchange services… Read More

Today: Senate Hearing on FTX Bankruptcy – “Why Congress Needs to Act”

The Senate Committee on Agriculture will hold a hearing today (December 1, 2022) at 10 AM ET to review the failure of FTX. This Committee holds oversight on the commodities industry and, therefore on aspects of crypto markets that are deemed to be regulated commodities…. Read More

FATF Publishes Report on Fentanyl Trade and Money Laundering, Crypto is Part of the Equation

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has published a report on money laundering from fentanyl and synthetic opioids. The report was co-led by the US and Canada and offers recommendations for countering the illicit drug trade. FATF is a global organization that aims to encourage… Read More

SEC Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee Tells Commission to Add Sophistication Option for Accredited Investor Qualification, Cautions on Undermining Reg D, More

  The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee (SBCFAC), has posted two letters advising the Commission on key policy goals that impact capital formation, especially for smaller – private firms. The Committee is the creation of the SEC Small Business… Read More

ECB: The End is Nigh for Bitcoin, “Rarely Used for Legal Transactions”

The European Central Bank (ECB) has published a blog post that predicts the demise of Bitcoin – the world’s most popular cryptocurrency. Authored by Ulrich Bindseil and Jürgen Schaaf, entitled “Bitcoin’s Last Stand,” the article claims that Bitcoin is in its “last gasp before the… Read More

LBRY Predicts Own Demise Following SEC Court Battle

LBRY, a digital asset firm that was the target of a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement action, has taken to Twitter to predict its own demise stating it will “probably be dead in the near future.” Since any information given privately to the SEC… Read More

Senator Ron Wyden, Chairman of Senate Finance Committee – Presses Crypto Exchanges on Risk, Consumer Protection

  Senator Ron Wyden, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, has sent letters to several crypto exchanges which operate in the US pressing them on consumer protection concerns in the wake of the bankruptcy of FTX. Senator Wyden contacted the following crypto exchanges; … Read More

Kraken Settles with US Department of Treasury, Pays $362K Penalty

Crypto exchange Kraken has settled with the US Department of Treasury, which had alleged sanction violations. Falling under the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Kraken has agreed to pay $362,158.70 to settle a possible civil liability for claimed violations of the Iranian Transactions and… Read More

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